UK Offence Report

Obstruction etc. of officers

regulation 15(1)(b) of The Organic Products Regulations 2004 (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

b without reasonable cause, fails to give any person acting in the enforcement or execution of the Council Regulation or these Regulations any assistance or information which that person may reasonably require of him in the performance of his functions under that Regulation or these Regulations, 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
failing to do something the instrument requires
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(1)(b)?

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. Not doing what the provision requires under the Organic Products Regulations 2004, by the time it requires it to be done.
  2. Doing it, but not in the manner or to the standard the instrument specifies.

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 (2004-07-19); 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

The Ministry of Justice records offences under this instrument against offence code 10109 — 10109 - Summary offences under The Organic Products Regulations 2004. That code may cover several provisions of the instrument, so a count against it is not a count of prosecutions under this provision alone.

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have their own code in the MoJ’s Outcomes by Offence data tool. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Status not determined
Made
23 June 2004
In force from
19 July 2004
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 revoke and replace the Organic Products Regulations 1992 (as amended), which originally applied throughout the United Kingdom but immediately before the coming into force of these Regulations applied only to Scotland and Northern Ireland; the Organic Products Regulations 2001, which applied to England; and the Organic Products (Wales) Regulations 2002. The Regulations provide for the continued administration, execution and enforcement of Council Regulation (EEC) No. 2092/91, as amended, (OJ No. L 198, 22.7.91, p. 1) (“the Council Regulation”) on organic production of agricultural products and indications referring thereto on agricultural products and foodstuffs and of the Commission Regulations supplementing that Regulation. In particular, each local authority remains responsible for enforcing within its area the requirement relating to the labelling of organic products referred to in regulation 4 and the provisions of the Council Regulation specified in column 1 of Schedule 2, as read with— a any supplementary provisions listed in column 2 of that Schedule; b Article 3 of Council Regulation (EEC) No. 1804/1999 (OJ No. L 222, 24.8.99, p. 1) supplementing Council Regulation (EEC) No. 2092/91 to include livestock production); and c any additional provisions thereto contained in the livestock standards set out in the Compendium of UK Organic Standards, May 2004 Edition (regulation 2(1) and 10(1)). The Compendium of UK Organic Standards (which has replaced the United Kingdom Register of Organic Food Standards referred to in the previous Regulations), is published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and a copy can be inspected, during normal office hours, at Ergon House (Organic Farming and Industrial Crops Division), Horseferry Road, London SW1P 2AL (telephone 020 7238 5605; fax number 020 7238 6148; email organic.standards@defra.gsi.gov.uk; website www.defra.gov.uk/farm/organic). The principal changes made by these Regulations are that the Secretary of State may charge a fee in respect of the reasonable expenses incurred by her in— a issuing or renewing (pursuant to Article 5(3)(b) and (5a)(b) of the Council Regulation) an authorisation for an ingredient of agricultural origin not obtained by organic production to be included in an organic product (regulation 7(1)); b issuing, varying or renewing (pursuant to Article 11(6) of the Council Regulation) an authorisation to market products imported from a third country that is not included on the list referred to in that Regulation (regulation 7(2)); and c considering an application by a private inspection body for approval under Article 9 of the Council Regulation and carrying out any further inspections after such a body has been approved (regulation 9(1) and (2)). In addition, the Regulations designate the Soil Association Limited as manager of the computerised database, established under Article 6(1) of Commission Regulation (EC) No. 1452/2003 (OJ No. L 206, 15.8.2003, p.17) listing varieties of seed and potatoes obtained by organic production which are available in the United Kingdom (regulation 5). The Regulations require the Soil Association Limited to charge a fee in respect of any expenses reasonably incurred by it in registering and maintaining information in the database (regulation 6(1)) and designate the Secretary of State as the authority responsible for approving the level of fees imposed for this purpose (regulation 3(1)(c)(ii)). The European Standard referred to in regulation 9(1)(b) is published by, and a copy is available from, the British Standards Institute of 389 Chiswick High Road, London W4 4AL (telephone 020 8996 9000). A Regulatory Impact Assessment relating to ingredient derogations and import authorisations has been prepared and placed in the library of each House of Parliament. Copies can be obtained from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Organic Farming Branch), Ergon House, Horseferry Road, London SW1 2AL (telephone 020 7238 5777; fax number 020 7238 6148; email: organic.imports @defra.gsi.gov.uk). A full Regulatory Impact Assessment has not been prepared in respect of registration onto the seeds database because registration is optional for businesses, nor has such an assessment been prepared in respect of the remaining matters referred to in the Regulations as they have no impact on the cost of business.

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