UK Offence Report

Offences, penalties and enforcement

regulation 23(1) of The Animals and Animal Products (Examination for Residues and Maximum Residue Limits)(England and Scotland) Regulations 2015

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 A person who—

a contravenes regulation 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 31(1), (2), (3) or (4) or any provision of

a notice given to that person under these Regulations; or

b without the consent in writing of an authorised officer, defaces, obliterates or removes any marking made under regulation 21(2)(c) or attempts to do so 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
acting without the licence or authorisation required
Fault element
Mixed — some elements strict, some not
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove the conduct, and - for those elements the provision qualifies (knowingly) - the state of mind it names. The remaining elements carry no fault requirement, so they are strict.

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: the offence itself carries no fault word, but a duty it criminalises by cross-reference uses knowingly; which element that governs was not determined.

What would breach regulation 23(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. Starting the activity before the licence is granted, rather than on the day it takes effect under the Animals and Animal Products (Examination for Residues and Maximum Residue Limits)(England and Scotland) Regulations 2015.
  2. Carrying on after a licence has expired, been surrendered or been suspended.
  3. Relying on somebody else's authorisation, where the provision requires the person doing the act to hold one.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine
Unlimited
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined

expressed as the statutory maximum (the prescribed sum): the same words mean £5,000 in England and Wales and £10,000 in Scotland.

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
18 March 2015
In force from
1 July 2015
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 apply in relation to England and Scotland and revoke the statutory instruments listed in the Schedule, consolidating their provisions. The Regulations implement Council Directive 96/22/EC concerning the prohibition on the use in stockfarming of certain substances having a hormonal or thyrostatic action and of beta-agonists and Council Directive 96/23/EC on measures to monitor certain substances and residues thereof in live animals and animal products and provide for the execution and enforcement of Regulation (EC) No 470/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down Community procedures for the establishment of residue limits of pharmacologically active substances in foodstuffs of animal origin and Commission Regulation (EU) No 37/2010 on pharmacologically active substances and their classification regarding maximum residue limits in foodstuffs of animal origin. The Regulations— a prohibit the sale, possession or administration to animals of specified unauthorised substances (regulations 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7); b prohibit the possession or slaughter of, or the processing of the meat of, animals intended for human consumption to which there has been administered, which contains, or in which the presence has been established, specified unauthorised substances (regulation 8); c prohibit the sale or supply, for slaughter for human consumption, of animals to which substances have been administered in certain circumstances including, subject to an exception, where the withdrawal period for the product administered has not expired (regulation 9); d prohibit the sale for human consumption of any animal product derived from an animal the sale or supply for slaughter of which is prohibited under regulation 9 or any animal product which contains an unauthorised substance or an excess of an unauthorised substance (regulation 10); e prohibit, subject to an exception, the disposal for human or animal consumption of the carcase or offal of an animal or an animal from a batch of animals where that animal or an animal of that batch has been slaughtered further to a notice referred to in regulation 22(3) (examination shows specified unauthorised substance) (regulations 11 and 12); f give authorised officers the power to take samples and provide for the analysis of official samples (regulations 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19); g give authorised officers the power to inspect and examine animals and provide for the subsequent service of notices (regulations 20, 21 and 22); h provide for offences, penalties and enforcement (regulation 23); i provide specific defences and exceptions (regulations 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28); j deny to processors a due diligence defence in specified circumstances (regulations 29 and 30); k specify requirements relating to the keeping of records (regulation 31); l apply, with some modifications, provisions of the Food Safety Act 1990 (c.16) including the defence of due diligence (regulation 32); m revoke the instruments specified in the Schedule in so far as they apply in relation to England and Scotland (regulation 33); and n require the Secretary of State to carry out a periodic review of these Regulations in England (regulation 34). A full impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument, as no, or no significant, impact on the private voluntary or public sectors is foreseen. The Explanatory Memorandum is available at www.legislation.gov.uk.

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.

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