UK Offence Report

Penalties and enforcement

regulation 7(1) of The Condensed Milk and Dried Milk (Wales) Regulations 2003

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

1 If any person contravenes or fails to comply with regulation 4 or 5 of these Regulations that person 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
contravening a requirement of the instrument
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

8 In any proceedings for an offence under these Regulations it shall be a defence for the person accused to prove — a that the food in respect of which the offence is alleged to have been committed was intended for export to a country which has legislation analogous to these Regulations and that the food complies with that legislation; and b in the case of export to an E

What would breach regulation 7(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. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Condensed Milk and Dried Milk (Wales) Regulations 2003, whatever the reason for doing it.
  2. Where the requirement is a positive duty, letting the time for performing it pass without performing it.

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 (2003-11-28); 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
Revoked
Revoked by
The Condensed Milk and Dried Milk (Wales) Regulations 2018
Revoked on
26 March 2018
Made
26 November 2003
In force from
28 November 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, which apply to Wales, implement Council Directive 2001/114/EC relating to certain partly or wholly dehydrated preserved milk products intended for human consumption (OJ No. L15, 17.1.2002, p.19). They revoke and replace the Condensed Milk and Dried Milk Regulations 1977, as amended, in relation to Wales. The Regulations — a prescribe definitions and reserved descriptions for condensed milk and dried milk products (regulation 2 and Schedules 1 and 2); b provide for the Regulations to apply to milk and dried milk products intended for human consumption and ready for delivery to the ultimate consumer or to a catering establishment (regulation 3); c restrict the use of reserved descriptions to the designated condensed and dried milk products to which they relate (regulation 4); d prescribe labelling requirements for designated condensed and dried milk products (regulation 5); e prescribe the manner of marking or labelling and apply specified provisions of the Food Labelling Regulations 1996 (regulation 6); f specify a penalty, enforcement authorities and, in accordance with Articles 2 and 3 of Council Directive 89/397/EEC on the official control of foodstuffs (OJ No. L186, 30.6.89, p.23), a defence in relation to exports (regulations 7 and 8); g apply various provisions of the Food Safety Act 1990 (regulation 9); h revoke the previous Regulations and make consequential amendments and transitional provision (regulations 10 and 11). An effect of the revocation made by regulation 10(1) (a), and the absence of the re-enactment of a similar provision, is that Part II of the Food Labelling Regulations 1996 will apply to the products to which these Regulations apply. A Regulatory appraisal has been prepared pursuant to section 65 of the Government of Wales Act 1998 and placed in the Library of the National Assembly for Wales together with a Transposition Note setting out how the main elements of the European legislation referred to above are transposed in these Regulations. Copies may be obtained from the Food Standards Agency, 11th Floor, Southgate House, Cardiff CF10 1EW.

Read the full note and every offence in this 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