UK Offence Report

Offences and penalties

regulation 3(1) of The Contaminants in Food (England) Regulations 2003

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

1 Subject to regulations

9 and 10,

a person shall be guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to

a fine not exceeding level

5 on the standard scale if—

a before 1st January 2005—

i he places on the market any food (other than authorised spinach or authorised lettuce) which is covered by, but fails to meet the requirements of, Article 1.1, 2.1, 2.2 or 4.1 of the Commission Regulation, as read with Articles 1.2 and 4.3 of that Regulation, or

ii he contravenes Article 2.3, 4.2 or 4a of the Commission Regulation;

b on or after 1st January 2005—

i he places on the market any food (other than authorised spinach) which is covered by, but fails to meet the requirements of, Article 1.1, 2.1, 2.2 or 4.1 of the Commission Regulation, as read with Articles 1.2 and 4.3 of that Regulation, or

ii he contravenes Article 2.3, 4.2 or 4a of the Commission Regulation; or

c he knowingly contravenes or fails to comply with the requirements of

a notice given under section 9(2)(a) of the Act as applied for the purposes of these Regulations by regulation 7(2).

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
failing to comply with a notice or direction
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(1)?

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. Being served with a notice under the Contaminants in Food (England) Regulations 2003 and doing nothing by the date it specifies.
  2. Doing part of what the notice requires, where it required all of it.
  3. Disagreeing with the notice and ignoring it, rather than using whatever appeal the instrument provides.

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 (2003-06-30); 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
5 June 2003
In force from
30 June 2003
Extent
E

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 extend to England only and revoke and re-enact with changes the Contaminants in Food (England) Regulations 2002 (S.I. 2002/890, as amended)— make provision for the enforcement and execution of Commission Regulation (EC) No. 466/2001 setting maximum levels for certain contaminants in foodstuffs (OJ No. L77, 16.3.2001, p.1, as corrected and amended) (“the Commission Regulation”); and implement— Commission Directive 98/53/EC laying down the sampling methods and the methods of analysis for the official control of the levels for certain contaminants in foodstuffs (OJ No. L201, 17.7.1998, p.93, as amended), Commission Directive 2001/22/EC laying down the sampling methods and the methods of analysis for the official control of the levels of lead, cadmium, mercury and 3-MCPD in foodstuffs (OJ No. L77, 16.3.2001, p.14, as corrected), Commission Directive 2002/26/EC laying down the sampling methods and the methods of analysis for the official control of the levels of ochratoxin A in foodstuffs (OJ No. L75, 16.3.2002, p.38), and Commission Directive 2002/69/EC laying down the sampling methods and the methods of analysis for the official control of dioxins and the determination of dioxin-like PCBs in foodstuffs (OJ No. L209, 6.8.2002, p.5, as corrected). These Regulations— provide that it is an offence to— place on the market certain foods if they contain contaminants of any kind specified in the Commission Regulation at levels exceeding those specified (subject to a derogation applicable to certain types of lettuce and spinach), use foods containing such contaminants at such levels as ingredients in the production of certain foods, mix foods which comply with the maxima referred to above with foods which do not, mix foods to which the Commission Regulation relates and which are intended for direct consumption with foods to which the Commission Regulation relates and which are intended to be sorted or otherwise treated prior to consumption, or detoxify by chemical treatments food not complying with the limits specified in the Commission Regulation (regulation 3); specify the enforcement authorities (regulation 4); prescribe requirements in relation to the analysis of samples of foods subject to the Commission Regulation, and in so doing modify section 29 of the Food Safety Act 1990 in its application to the taking of samples of the foods concerned (regulation 5); provide a defence in relation to exports in implementation of Articles 2 and 3 of Council Directive 89/397/EEC on the official control of foodstuffs, as read with the ninth recital to that Directive (OJ No. L186, 30.6.89, p.23) (regulation 6); provide for the application of specified provisions of the Food Safety Act 1990 for the purposes thereof (regulation 7); provide for the re-dispatch out of the European Economic Area of imported food that fails to comply with certain requirements of regulation 3 but does not pose a serious risk to human health and the destruction of such food where it does pose such a risk (regulation 8); include transitional provisions (regulations 9 and 10); make consequential amendments to the Food Safety (Sampling and Qualifications) Regulations 1990 (regulation 11); and revoke the Contaminants in Food (England) Regulations 2002 and the Contaminants in Food (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2002 (regulation 12). A regulatory impact assessment has been prepared for these Regulations and placed in the Library of each House of Parliament, together with a transposition note setting out how the main elements of the Commission Directives referred to in paragraph 1 above are transposed into domestic law by these Regulations. Copies may be obtained from the Chemical Contaminants and Animal Feed Division of the Food Standards Agency, Aviation House, 125 Kingsway, London WC2B 6NH.

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