UK Offence Report

Application of various provisions of the Food Safety Act 1990

regulation 5(2) of The Kava-kava in Food (Wales) Regulations 2002

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

2 Section 8(3) of the Act (which makes presumptions in the case of batches etc. of food) shall apply to food which it is an offence to sell under these Regulations as it applies to food which fails to comply with food safety requirements.

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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
selling or supplying something the instrument restricts
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 5(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 it is an offence to sell under these Regulations as it applies to food which fails to comply with food safety requirements.
  2. Selling the goods under the Kava-kava in Food (Wales) Regulations 2002 where the instrument prohibits the sale outright.
  3. Supplying without carrying out a check the instrument requires first, even where the sale would otherwise be lawful.
  4. Offering for sale counts as well as selling: displaying stock is enough where the provision reaches an offer.

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
Revoked
Revoked by
The Kava-kava in Food (Wales) (Revocation) Regulations 2003
Revoked on
30 October 2003
Made
17 December 2002
In force from
9 January 2003
Extent
W

How this was established: the instrument was revoked by a later instrument found in this corpus.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations prohibit the sale, possession for sale, offer, exposure or advertisement for sale, and the importation into Wales from outside the United Kingdom or the transportation into Wales from any other part of the United Kingdom, of any food consisting of, or containing, Kava-kava (being a plant or part of a plant, or an extract from such a plant, belonging to the species Piper methysticum) (regulation 3). Any such food may be treated as being unfit for human consumption and be liable to be seized and destroyed (regulation 5(3)). A draft of the Regulations was notified to the European Commission in accordance with Article 8 of the European Parliament and Council Directive 98/34/EC laying down a procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical standards and regulations and of rules of Information Society services (OJ No. L204, 21.7.1998, p.37), as amended by the European Parliament and Council Directive 98/48/EC (OJ No. L217, 5.8.1998, p.18). A Regulatory Impact Assessment has been prepared and placed in the Library of the National Assembly for Wales and copies can be obtained from the Food Standards Agency, 1st Floor, Southgate House, Cardiff, CF10 1EW.

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 0.90.

Basis
the provision says “it is an offence”; the provision says an offence is committed “if” something happens
Confidence
0.90 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