UK Offence Report

Enforcement notices

regulation 19(3) of The Beef and Pig Carcase Classification (England) Regulations 2010 (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

3 Any person who contravenes or fails to comply with an enforcement notice is 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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 comply with a notice or direction
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

33 It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under these Regulations (“P”) to prove that P took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid the commission of the offence by P or by a person under P’s control.

What would breach regulation 19(3)?

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 an enforcement notice.
  2. Being served with a notice under the Beef and Pig Carcase Classification (England) Regulations 2010 and doing nothing by the date it specifies.
  3. Doing part of what the notice requires, where it required all of it.
  4. Disagreeing with the notice and ignoring it, rather than using whatever appeal the instrument provides.

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
26 March 2010
In force from
1 June 2010
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, which apply in England only, revoke and remake the provisions of the Pig Carcase (Grading) Regulations 1994 (S.I. 1994/2155) and the Beef Carcase (Classification) (England) Regulations 2004 (S.I. 2004/1317). The Regulations enforce Article 42 of, and Annex V to, Council Regulation (EC) No 1234/2007 (OJ No L 299, 16.11.2007, p 1), which relate to Community scales for the classification of carcases, and Commission Regulation (EC) No 1249/2008 (OJ No L 337, 16.12.2008, p 3), which sets out further details regarding the implementation of those scales for the classification of carcases. The Regulations relate to the carcases of adult bovine animals and pigs. The Regulations provide for notifications to be made to the Secretary of State by operators of slaughterhouses which slaughter adult bovine animals or pigs (regulation 5). They contain provisions regarding the holding of licences by persons who classify bovine carcases or in relation to classification of such carcases by automated grading equipment (regulations 9 to 11). They require the keeping of certain records (regulations 12 and 16 and Schedules 3 and 4). Part 5 of the Regulations concerns enforcement, and makes provision relating to the powers of authorised officers, enforcement notices, penalty notices, and criminal proceedings. Regulations 19(3) and 25 to 30 set out the offences under the Regulations, which are all punishable on summary conviction by a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, except for offences under regulation 29(2) (false records and marks). In particular regulations 25 and 26 provide that breach of specified provisions of European Union legislation (set out in Schedules 1 and 2) is an offence. A full impact assessment has been produced and placed in the library of each House of Parliament. It is available on the Defra website at www.defra.gov.uk.

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