UK Offence Report

Compliance notices

regulation 8(2) of The Sea Fish (Marketing Standards) (England and Wales and Northern Ireland) Regulations 2018

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 The authorised officer must in the compliance notice—

a state the reason for the service of the notice;

b state the date of service of the notice;

c identify the recipient of the notice;

d specify the steps which the recipient of the notice must take, being such steps as the authorised officer believes are necessary to ensure compliance with the relevant provision;

e state the reason that those steps must be taken;

f specify by when each of the steps must be taken;

g state that failure to comply with the notice is an offence; and

h give details of the right of appeal against the notice, including an explanation of how such an appeal can be made and the period within which such an appeal may be brought.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
an authorised officer
Conduct
failing to comply with a notice or direction
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 an authorised officer 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 8(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. Being served with a notice under the Sea Fish (Marketing Standards) (England and Wales and Northern Ireland) Regulations 2018 and doing nothing by the date it specifies.
  2. Doing part of what the notice requires, where it required all of it.
  3. 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 2018
In force from
30 April 2018
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 enable the enforcement, in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, of EU common marketing standards for fishery products contained in— Council Regulation (EC) No. 2406/96 laying down common marketing standards for certain fishery products (OJ No. L334, 23.12.1996, p. 1); and Regulation (EU) No. 1379/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the common organisation of the markets in fishery and aquaculture products (OJ No. L 354, 28.12.2013, p. 1). These Regulations make provision for enforcement authorities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to appoint authorised officers for the purposes of ensuring that EU common marketing standards for fisheries products are complied with (regulation 4). Authorised officers are provided with powers of entry, inspection and seizure for the purposes of investigation and inspection of relevant premises and products to identify breaches of the relevant EU requirements (regulations 5 and 7). Authorised officers are also given the power to serve compliance notices for breaches of the relevant EU requirements (regulation 8). Contravening the EU common marketing standards is an offence (regulation 12(1)). The failure to comply with a compliance notice, within the specified time, is also an offence (regulation 12(2)). The Regulations make provision for appeals against compliance notices and any refusal to serve a completion notice (regulations 10 and 11). A full impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument as no significant impact on the private, voluntary or public sectors is foreseen.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

How this became law

This instrument became law without a debate or a vote. Under the negative procedure it took effect unless a motion to stop it succeeded, and none was tabled.

Neither House could have amended it. A statutory instrument is put to each House as a whole thing, to be approved or not; the Houses can reject an instrument or record their regret, but they cannot change a word of it. That is the constitutional position for every offence on this site.

The full procedural history →

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 0.88.

Basis
the provision says the conduct “is an offence”; the provision says an offence is committed “if” something happens
Confidence
0.88 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