UK Offence Report

Movement of a controlled wine-sector product

regulation 20(2) of The Common Agricultural Policy (Wine) (England and Northern Ireland) Regulations 2001

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

2 Any person who, knowing

a wine-sector product to be

a controlled wine-sector product—

a removes from it, or

b causes to be removed from it,

a label which has been affixed under regulation 8(5) shall be guilty of an offence.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
breaching the provision
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

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.

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

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

What would breach regulation 20(2)?

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. Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Common Agricultural Policy (Wine) (England and Northern Ireland) Regulations 2001.

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 (2001-04-02); 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
Revoked
Revoked by
The Wine Regulations 2009 (revoked)
Revoked on
30 March 2009
Made
2 March 2001
In force from
2 April 2001
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: the instrument was revoked by a later instrument found in this corpus.

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 Northern Ireland and come into force on 2nd April 2001, provide for the enforcement of EC Regulations (as specified in Schedules 1 and 2) concerned with the production and marketing of wine and related products. The Regulations— i designate authorities for the purposes of enforcement (regulation 3); ii define “medium dry” for the purposes of labelling and description (regulation 4); iii specify the vine varieties classified for the production of wine (including quality wine psr) in England and Northern Ireland (regulation 5); iv specify conditions for the use of geographical indications for the designation of table wine (regulation 6); v provide for powers of inspection and enforcement (regulation 7); vi authorise controls on the movement of wine-sector products (regulations 8 and 9); vii provide for reviews of prohibitions etc. on movement of wine-sector products and notification of rights of review (regulations 8(3) and 10); viii relieve authorised officers of personal liability for acts done by them in execution of the Regulations (regulation 11); ix confer on courts before which proceedings are brought powers in relation to the analysis and examination of samples (regulation 12); x specify the regions in England and Northern Ireland for producing quality wines psr (regulation 13); xi specify the minimum natural alcoholic strength, maximum yield per hectare and analytical test in the production of quality wine psr and permit the production of such wine in areas of immediate proximity to the specified regions and designate the competent body to deal with such wine (regulations 14 to 18); and xii prescribe offences and penalties and provide defences (regulations 19 to 24). No Regulatory Impact Assessment has been prepared in respect of these Regulations.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

Other offences in the same 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