UK Offence Report

Offences and Penalties

regulation 15(1)(d) of The Plastic Materials and Articles in Contact with Food (Wales) Regulations 2006

The provision has been revoked and no saving provision preserving liability for earlier conduct was found.

What the provision says

d in purported compliance with any requirement mentioned in sub-paragraph (c), knowingly or recklessly supplies information that is false or misleading in any material particular, 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
making a false or misleading statement
Fault element
Requires proof of a state of mind
Burden of proof
Legal burden on the defendant

The prosecution must prove both that the conduct happened and that it was done with the state of mind the provision names (knowingly, knowingly or recklessly, recklessly).

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: mens rea word in the offence-creating words: knowingly, recklessly, knowingly or recklessly.

The defence, as drafted

nical quality) other than one mentioned in paragraph (2)(b) it is a defence for the person accused to prove that each such monomer — a is present in the finished plastic material as an impurity, a reaction intermediate or a decomposition product which falls within paragraph 3(a) of Annex II, or b is an oligomer or a natural or synthetic macromolecular substance or

What would breach regulation 15(1)(d)?

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. Entering a figure on a form or return that is known to be wrong under the Plastic Materials and Articles in Contact with Food (Wales) Regulations 2006.
  2. Leaving out something the form asks for, where the omission is what makes the answer misleading.
  3. Producing a document to an official that has been altered since it was issued.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine
£5,000
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
Revoked
Revoked by
The Plastic Materials and Articles in Contact with Food (Wales) Regulations 2008 (revoked)
Revoked on
1 May 2008
Made
14 November 2006
In force from
19 November 2006
Extent
Not stated

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 in relation to Wales, revoke the Plastic Materials and Articles in Contact with Food Regulations 1998 as amended (“the 1998 Regulations”) in so far as they apply in relation to Wales, and re-enact or re-enact with changes certain provisions contained in those Regulations. The principal Directives that continue to be implemented by these Regulations are listed in paragraph 5 below. These Regulations also provide for the execution and enforcement of Commission Regulation (EC) No 1895/2005 on the restriction of use of certain epoxy derivatives in materials and articles intended to come into contact with food (“Regulation 1895/2005”). The Regulations in Part 2 — prohibit specified activities in relation to any plastic material or article (as defined in regulation 2) which fails to meet the appropriate required standards set out in the Regulations (regulation 3); prohibit the use of monomers and additives in the manufacture of plastic materials and articles other than in accordance with specified conditions (regulation 4 and Schedule 1 in the case of monomers and regulation 5 and Schedule 1 in the case of additives); specify the required standards relating to the capability of a monomer or an additive to confer its constituents to food (regulation 6 for monomers and regulation 7 for additives); specify the required standard for products obtained by bacterial fermentation (regulation 8); specify the required standard relating to overall migration limits from plastic materials or articles to food (regulation 9); specify the required standards relating to the migration of primary aromatic amines from plastic materials or articles to food (regulation 10); specify the methods for determining the capability of a plastic material or article to transfer its constituents to food, and for detecting the presence of any such constituents in food (regulation 11 and Schedules 2 and 3); provide that prior to the retail stage plastic materials and articles must be accompanied by certain specified written information, including a declaration of legislative compliance (regulation 12); provide for the enforcement of Regulation 1895/2005 on the restriction of use of certain epoxy derivatives in materials and articles intended to come into contact with food (OJ No. L302, 19.11.2005, p.28), which contains Community provisions relating to the epoxy derivatives known as BADGE, BFDGE and NOGE (regulation 13). The Regulations in Part 3 — designate food authorities and port health authorities as the enforcement authorities in their respective areas or districts (regulation 14); specify the offences that may be committed under these Regulations and set out the maximum penalties on conviction (regulation 15); provide for defences of a general nature, such as exercise of due diligence etc, to offences under regulation 15 (regulation 16); provide for a transitional defence relating to the sale of jars in foods for infants and young children sealed PVC gaskets containing epoxidised soybean oil; (regulation 17); provide for transitional defences in relation to certain plastic materials or articles that have already been manufactured or put into circulation in advance of a change in the law that would otherwise have made their manufacture or circulation unlawful (regulation 18); specify the procedure to be followed when sending a sample for analysis (regulation 19); make provision for a reference sample to be analysed by the Laboratory for the Government Chemist (regulation 20); Part 4 of the Regulations contains provisions relating to the procedure to be followed and the time limit to be observed where a person wishes apply to the European Food Safety Authority for the authorisation of a new additive (regulation 21). The principal Directives implemented by the 1998 Regulations which these Regulations continue to implement are — Council Directive 82/711/EEC (OJ No. L297, 23,10,1982, p.26) laying down the basic rules necessary for testing migration of the constituents of plastic materials and articles intended to come into contact with foodstuffs, as amended by Commission Directives 93/8/EEC (OJ No. L90, 14.4.1993, p.22) and 97/48/EC (OJ No. L222, 12.8.1997, p.10); Council Directive 85/572/EEC laying down the list of simulants to be used for testing migration of constituents of plastic materials and articles intended to come into contact with foodstuffs (OJ No. L372, 31.12.1985, p.14); Commission Directive 2002/72/EC (OJ No. L220, 15.8.2002, p.18) relating to plastic materials and articles intended to come into contact with foodstuffs, as amended by Commission Directives 2004/1/EC (OJ No. L7, 13.1.2004, p.45) and 2004/19/EC (OJ No. L71, 10.3.2004, p.8). A full regulatory appraisal has been prepared for these Regulations and has been placed in the Library of the National Assembly for Wales along with a copy of the transposition note relating to these Regulations. Copies are also available from the Food Standards Agency, 11th 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 0.92.

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