UK Offence Report

Prohibitions and offence

regulation 3(3) of The Animal Feedingstuffs from Belgium (Control) (England and Wales) (No. 4) Regulations 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

3 Any person who knowingly contravenes paragraph (1) above shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to

a fine not exceeding level

5 on the standard scale or imprisonment not exceeding three months.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
contravening a requirement of the instrument
Fault element
Requires proof of a state of mind
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove both that the conduct happened and that it was done with the state of mind the provision names (knowingly).

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: mens rea word in the offence-creating words: knowingly.

What would breach regulation 3(3)?

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. On these words an offence is committed where a person knowingly contravenes paragraph (1) above.
  2. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Animal Feedingstuffs from Belgium (Control) (England and Wales) (No. 4) Regulations 1999, whatever the reason for doing it.
  3. Where the requirement is a positive duty, letting the time for performing it pass without performing it.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Summary only — tried in a magistrates’ court
Maximum fine
£5,000
Standard scale
Level 5
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

this is the level 5 value when the instrument came into force (1999-12-23); the standard scale is keyed to the date the offence was committed, and for conduct today the same words mean an unlimited fine.

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
20 December 1999
In force from
23 December 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 Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations, which apply to England and Wales, revoke, and re-enact with certain changes, the Animal Feedingstuffs from Belgium (Control) (England and Wales) (No. 3) Regulations 1999 (S.I. 1999/2799 “the revoked Regulations”) and implement in England and Wales, in relation to products for animal feeding, Commission Decision 1999/788/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. L310, 4.12.1999, p. 62). Like the revoked Regulations, these Regulations define “controlled entity” (regulation 1(2)), prohibit (subject to exceptions (regulation 2)) the carrying out of specified operations in relation to them (regulation 3), specify the enforcement authorities (regulation 4) and apply with modifications provisions of the Food Safety Act 1990 (regulation 5). In addition to making minor changes to the revoked Regulations, these Regulations, by referring to Decision 1999/788/EC, make the following changes of substance— a they narrow the coverage of the revoked Regulations in that they do not apply to pigs and poultry and hatching eggs, but only to products derived from pigs and poultry; b the controls in them do not apply in the case of products derived from poultry or pigs slaughtered after 20th September 1999 or from eggs laid after that date; c they reflect changes (consequential on the changes referred to in (a) and (b) above) to the certification requirements for the importation from Belgium of animal products controlled by the revoked Regulations; and d they reflect the alteration of the requirements as regards the return of products to Belgium, in accordance with procedures set out in Article 4 of Decision 1999/788/EC, namely that— i it is no longer a precondition of return that it should be preceded by an unfulfilled request to the Belgian Authorities to provide a certificate as to analysis of the products to be returned, and ii it is now only products derived from animals slaughtered before 20th September 1999, or from eggs laid before that date, which can lawfully be returned.

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 0.92.

Basis
the provision says a person is “guilty of an offence”
Confidence
0.92 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