UK Offence Report

Requirements under Regulation (EC) No. 178/2002 : offences

regulation 4 of The General Food Regulations 2004

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

4 Any person who contravenes or fails to comply with any of the following provisions of Regulation (EC) No. 178/2002 shall be guilty of an offence —

a Article 14(1) (food safety requirements);

b Article 16 (presentation) in so far as it relates to food;

c Article 18(2) or (3) (traceability) in so far as it relates to food business operators;

d Article 19 (responsibilities for food : food business operators).

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 4?

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. On these words an offence is committed where a person contravenes or fails to comply with any of the following provisions of Regulation (EC) No. 178/2002.
  2. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the General Food Regulations 2004, whatever the reason for doing it.
  3. Where the requirement is a positive duty, letting the time for performing it pass without performing it.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Not determined
Maximum fine
Not determined
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

no penalty is stated in this instrument; it may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence.

No penalty was determined from this instrument. It may be in the enabling Act, or in a general penalties provision this pass did not connect to the offence. Absence of a figure here is not evidence that the offence carries no penalty.

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
9 December 2004
In force from
1 January 2005
Extent
E+W+S

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 provide for the enforcement of certain provisions of Regulation (EC) No. 178/2002 of the European Parliament and of the Council (OJ No. L31, 1.2.2002, p.1) laying down the general principles and requirements of food law, establishing the European Food Safety Authority and laying down procedures in matters of food safety. The provisions concerned are as follows — Article 14 which prohibits the placing of unsafe food on the market; Article 16 in so far as it prohibits labelling, advertising or presentation of food from misleading consumers; Article 18 on traceability in so far as it imposes obligations on food business operators; Article 19 which imposes obligations on food business operators to act where food is not in compliance with food safety requirements. In the EC Regulation, “food”, “food business operator” and associated expressions are defined in Articles 2 and 3. These Regulations — designate food authorities, port health authorities and the Food Standards Agency as the competent authorities for the purposes of certain provisions of those Articles of the EC Regulation (regulation 3) and also make provision as to enforcement authorities (regulation 6); make provision for offences (regulation 4) and penalties (regulation 5); apply certain provisions of the Food Safety Act 1990 (regulation 7); make some consequential amendments to the Food Safety Act 1990 (regulations 8 to 15) and to regulations referring to section 8(3) of that Act (regulation 16). A full regulatory impact assessment of the effect that these Regulations will have on the costs of business has been prepared and placed in the Library of each House of Parliament. Copies may be obtained from the Food Law Policy Branch of the Food Standards Agency, Aviation House, 125 Kingsway, London WC2B 6NH.

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