UK Offence Report

Enforcement and penalties

regulation 15(2) of The Tobacco Products (Manufacture, Presentation and Sale) (Safety) Regulations 2002 (revoked)

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

2 Where a person contravenes the prohibition in regulation 3 on manufacturing cigarettes which exceed the maximum permitted yields that person shall be guilty of an offence and the enforcement provisions of Part IV of the Consumer Protection Act 1987 shall apply to that manufacture as they apply to supply in contravention of a prohibition in safety regulations.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
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 15(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 the thing the provision prohibits under the Tobacco Products (Manufacture, Presentation and Sale) (Safety) Regulations 2002, whatever the reason for doing it.
  2. 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
Unlimited
Standard scale
Level 5
Maximum prison (summary)
3 months

level 5 is unlimited in England and Wales for offences committed on or after 12 March 2015 (LASPO 2012 s.85, S.I. 2015/664).

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
10 December 2002
In force from
Not determined
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 implement Directive 2001/37/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 June 2001 on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the member States concerning the manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco products (OJ No. L 194 18.7.2001, p.26) (“the Directive”). For the implementation of article 8 of the Directive, prohibiting the placing on the market of tobacco for oral use, see the Tobacco for Oral Use (Safety) Regulations 1992 (SI 1992 No. 3134). The Directive repeals Council Directive 89/622/EEC (as amended by Directive 92/41/EEC) concerning the labelling of tobacco products and Council Directive 90/239/EEC concerning the maximum tar yield of cigarettes. The Regulations are made in exercise of powers contained in the Consumer Protection Act 1987 and the European Communities Act 1972 and subject to the exceptions noted below came into force on 31st December 2002. Regulation 3 stipulates maximum permitted yields of tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide in cigarettes. These maxima are to apply to cigarettes for supply in the United Kingdom and European Economic Area on 1st January 2004 and for those to be exported outside the European Economic Area on 1st January 2007 (these commencement dates are in regulation 1). Regulation 4 requires a producer of cigarettes (“producer” is defined in regulation 2) to ensure that each packet of cigarettes carries a statement of the tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide yields. Regulations 5 and 6 concern the procedures for the Secretary of State to verify the tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide yields of cigarettes and for resolving the situation when his tests show that yields exceed the permitted maximum or that the statements of yields on packets of cigarettes are inaccurate. Regulation 7 requires producers of tobacco products to ensure that packets of their products carry specified warnings. Regulations 8 and 9 specify the size and appearance of those warnings. Regulation 10 requires products to carry product identification markings enabling the place and time of manufacture to be determined. Regulation 11 (which comes into force on 30th September 2003) prohibits the supply of tobacco products which carry any name, text or other representation or sign which suggests that that product is less harmful to health than others. Regulation 12 requires producers of tobacco products to provide the Secretary of State an annual statement of information about the ingredients of each of their products. Regulation 13 provides that an importer of tobacco products from another EEA State is to be treated as complying with regulations 3, 4, 8, 9 and 10 if the product complies with the equivalent requirements of that EEA State, adopted to implement the Directive. Regulation 14 prohibits the supply of tobacco products which do not comply with the Regulations and regulation 15 provides that for enforcement purposes (both by criminal proceedings and otherwise) the Regulations are to be treated as safety regulations and safety provisions under the Consumer Protection Act 1987. Regulation 16 provides for the revocation of the Cigarettes (Maximum Tar Yield) Regulations 1992 (in accordance with regulation 1(c) the revocation takes effect on 1st January 2004) and of the Tobacco Products Labelling (Safety) Regulations 1991 and the Tobacco Products Labelling (Safety) Amendment Regulations 1993. Savings and transitional provisions are provided in regulation 17. Copies of the International Standards referred to in the Regulations may be obtained from the British Standards Institute, 389 Chiswick High Road, London W4 4AL. A Regulatory Impact Assessment and a Transposition Note have been prepared for these Regulations and a copy of each has been placed in the library of each House of Parliament. Copies of the Regulatory Impact Assessment and of the Transposition Note can be obtained from the Cancer & CVD Protection—Tobacco Policy Team, Room 646, Department of Health, Wellington House, 133–155 Waterloo Road, London SE1 8UG.

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