UK Offence Report

Contravention of The Food (Animals and Animal Products from Belgium) (Emergency Control) (England and Wales)…

the instrument as a whole of The Food (Animals and Animal Products from Belgium) (Emergency Control) (England and Wales) (No. 3) Order 1999

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

Contravening this instrument is an offence under sections 10(2), 33 and 35 of the Food Safety Act 1990. The instrument itself contains no offence-creating words.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a person
Conduct
importing or exporting without authority
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
Not determined

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

Classifier’s reasoning: contravention offences of this kind are strict as to the breach; the fault position is governed by the parent Act and was not read from it.

What would breach the instrument as a whole?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. Moving the goods across the border under the Food (Animals and Animal Products from Belgium) (Emergency Control) (England and Wales) (No. 3) Order 1999 without the licence the instrument requires.
  2. Holding a licence for one consignment and using it for another.
  3. Sending goods in transit through the United Kingdom, where the provision catches transit as well as import and export.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Set by another provision — the instrument states the penalty by reference to an Act or to another regulation
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

The instrument does not state a penalty itself. It sets one by reference to sections 10(2), 33 and 35 of the Food Safety Act 1990.

the penalty is in the parent Act, not in this instrument.

No penalty was determined from this instrument. It may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence. Absence of a figure here is not evidence that the offence carries no penalty.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Status not determined
Made
11 October 1999
In force from
12 October 1999
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Order) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

This Order, which applies to England and Wales, revokes, and re-enacts with certain changes, the Food (Animals and Animal Products from Belgium) (Emergency Control) (England and Wales) (No. 2) Order 1999 (S.I. 1999/2332 “the revoked Order”) and implements in England and Wales, in relation to food and food sources, Commission Decision 1999/640/EC on protective measures with regard to contamination by dioxins of certain products of porcine and poultry origin intended for human or animal consumption (OJ No. L253, 28.9.1999, p. 19). Like the revoked Order, this Order defines `relevant animal or animal product' (article 1(2)), prohibits (with exceptions (article 2)) the carrying out of commercial operations relating to them (article 3), specifies the enforcement authorities (article 4) and applies with modifications provisions of the Food Safety Act 1990 (article 5). In addition to making minor changes to the revoked Order, this Order, by referring to Decision 1999/640/EC, makes the following changes of substance— a it narrows the coverage of the revoked Order in that— i it does not apply to bovine animals, but only to pigs and poultry, and ii in relation to the categories of product derived from pigs and poultry to which it applies, it excludes certain material from the category “meat products and other products of animal origin”; b as a consequence of the fact that products of bovine origin are no longer controlled, it removes the exclusion of milk fat previously contained in the category “products intended for human consumption which contain other products of porcine or poultry origin, which contain more than 2% of animal fat”; c the controls in it apply irrespective of whether, in the case of poultry, pigs and eggs, these were reared/produced in holdings placed under restriction by Belgian authorities or, in the case of products derived from poultry or pigs, whether the animals concerned were so reared; d it reflects changes (consequential on the changes referred to in (a) to (c) above) to the certification requirements for the importation from Belgium of animals and animal products controlled by this Order, including the fact that there are no longer any conditions restricting the issue by Belgium of such certification, and e because those conditions no longer apply, it reflects the fact that the return of products to Belgium, in accordance with procedures set out in Article 5 of Decision 1999/640/EC, is now again permitted.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.59.

Basis
the penalty comes from the enabling Act rather than from this instrument
Confidence
0.59 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source