UK Offence Report

Penalties and enforcement

regulation 8(1) of The Cocoa and Chocolate Products (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 If any person contravenes or fails to comply with any provision of regulation 5 or 6 he shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
Legal burden on the defendant

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 gives a defence the defendant must prove, on the balance of probabilities. A legal burden of that kind can be read down to a merely evidential one under section 3 of the Human Rights Act 1998 where placing it on the defendant would be disproportionate (R v Lambert [2001] UKHL 37; Sheldrake v DPP [2004] UKHL 43).

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

The defence, as drafted

9 In any proceedings for an offence under these Regulations it shall be a defence for the person accused to prove— a that the food in respect of which the offence is alleged to have been committed was intended for export to a country which has legislation analogous to these Regulations and that the food complies with that legislation; and b in the case of export to an EE

What would breach regulation 8(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. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Cocoa and Chocolate Products (England) Regulations 2003, 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
£5,000
Standard scale
Level 5
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

this is the level 5 value when the instrument came into force (2003-08-03); 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
25 June 2003
In force from
3 August 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 apply to England, implement Directive 2000/36/EC of the European Parliament and the Council relating to cocoa and chocolate products intended for human consumption. They revoke and replace the Cocoa and Chocolate Products Regulations 1976, as amended, in relation to England. The Regulations— a prescribe definitions and reserved descriptions for designated cocoa and chocolate products (regulation 2 and Schedule 1); b specify the vegetable fats, other than cocoa butter, which may be added to designated chocolate products (regulation 3 and Schedule 2); c apply the Regulations to designated cocoa and chocolate products intended for human consumption and ready for delivery to the ultimate consumer or to a catering establishment (regulation 4); d restrict the use of reserved descriptions to the designated cocoa and chocolate products to which they relate (regulation 5); e require reserved descriptions and specified declarations to be applied to designated cocoa and chocolate products and prescribe the manner of marking or labelling (regulations 6 and 7); f specify a penalty, enforcement responsibilities and, in accordance with Articles 2 and 3 of Council Directive 89/397/EEC on the official control of foodstuffs and the European Economic Area Agreement, a defence in relation to exports (regulations 8 and 9); g apply various provisions of the Food Safety Act 1990 (regulation 10); h remove the exemption for cocoa and chocolate products from Part II of the Food Labelling Regulations 1996, revoke the previous Cocoa and Chocolate Products Regulations and make consequential amendments and transitional provision (regulations 11 and 12). A Regulatory Impact Assessment has been prepared and placed in the Library of each House of Parliament, together with a Transposition Note setting out how the main elements of the European legislation referred to above are transposed in these Regulations. Copies may be obtained from the Food Labelling and Standards Division of the Food Standards Agency, Aviation House, 125 Kingsway, London WC2B 6NH.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

What Parliament said

Mentions of this instrument in Hansard. Parliamentary material is reused under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.

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”; the provision states liability on summary conviction; the provision states a penalty in older drafting
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