UK Offence Report

Information, offences and enforcement

regulation 4(2) of The Charges for Residues Surveillance Regulations 2006

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 Any person who, without reasonable excuse, fails to comply within

a reasonable time with

a demand made under paragraph (1) 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
failing to do something the instrument requires
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
An element of the offence, for the prosecution to prove

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.

“Without reasonable excuse” here is an element of the offence rather than a defence, so its absence is for the prosecution to prove (R v Charles [2009] EWCA Crim 1570).

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision; qualified by reasonable excuse (an element; prosecution disproves once raised); other provisions of the same instrument use a mens rea word while this one does not (the Cundy v Le Cocq contrast).

The defence, as drafted

2 Any person who, without reasonable excuse, fails to comply within a reasonable time with a demand made under paragraph (1) shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale.

What would breach regulation 4(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. On these words an offence is committed where a person fails to comply within a reasonable time with a demand made under paragraph (1).
  2. Not doing what the provision requires under the Charges for Residues Surveillance Regulations 2006, by the time it requires it to be done.
  3. 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 (2006-10-01); 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
22 August 2006
In force from
1 October 2006
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— a require fees to be paid for the Secretary of State’s surveillance of animals and animal products for residues of veterinary medicinal products and other substances (regulation 3(1)); b lay down provisions relating to the liability for and recovery of fees (regulation 3); c enable the Secretary of State to require information and supporting evidence to be supplied to him for the purpose of enabling him to calculate fees (regulation 4(1)); d create offences of failing to comply with a demand to supply information and supplying false or misleading information (regulation 4); e revoke the Charges for Inspections and Controls Regulations 1997 (S.I. 1997/2893) (regulation 5); and f make transitional provision for agreements made under any of the revoked instruments (regulation 6). Changes to fees (by comparison with the Charges for Inspections and Controls Regulations 1997), ranging approximately from decreases of 25% to increases of 45%, are itemised in the table below. Other sums are the same as before. Type of creature or product Current sum (£) Replacement sum (£) Bovine 0.4246 0.4352 per carcase Goat 0.0387 0.0561 Sheep 0.0387 0.0561 Swine 0.0831 0.0707 Eggs 0.0104 0.0129 per 360 Milk 0.0212 0.0244 per 1000 litres Salmon 1.8590 2.0449 per tonne of marketed product Trout: brown and rainbow 1.5730 1.7303 per tonne of fish food An additional change is that the Secretary of State is required to publicise the appointment of fish feed manufacturers as his agent for the collection of the charge for the inspection and control of brown trout and rainbow trout (regulation 3(9)). A further change is that it is now an offence knowingly to supply false or misleading information to the Secretary of State for the purpose of calculating charges payable under these Regulations, whether or not it is requested by the Secretary of State (regulation 4(3)). Previously, only supplying false or misleading information in response to such a request was an offence. These Regulations give effect, until 1st January 2007, to Article 2 of Council Directive 85/73/EEC on the financing of veterinary inspections and controls covered by Directives 89/662/EEC, 90/425/EEC, 90/675/EEC and 91/496/EEC (OJ No. L32, 5.2.85, p. 14) (‘the old rules’), which was last amended by Council Directive 97/79/EC (OJ No. L24, 30.1.98, p. 31). From 1st January 2007, these Regulations give effect (except for honey) to Article 27, as read with Annex IV Section A, of Regulation (EC) No. 882/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council on official controls performed to ensure the verification of compliance with feed and food law, animal health and animal welfare rules (OJ No. L165, 30.4.2004, p.1, as corrected by the corrigendum in OJ No. L191, 28.5.2004, p. 1) instead of the old rules (see the entry for poultry in Schedule 1). A Regulatory Impact Assessment of the effect of this instrument on the costs of business has been placed in the Library of each House of Parliament. Copies are available from the Veterinary Medicines Directorate, Woodham Lane, New Haw, Addlestone, Surrey KT15 3LS.

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”; 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