UK Offence Report

Amendments to the Food Hygiene (Wales) Regulations 2006

regulation 2(3) of The Food Hygiene (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2010

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

3 For regulation 17 (offences and penalties) there is substituted the following regulation— Offences and penalties 17

1 Subject to paragraphs (4) to (8), any person who contravenes or fails to comply with any of the specified Community provisions 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
contravening a requirement of the instrument
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 2(3)?

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 an offence is committed where a person contravenes or fails to comply with any of the specified Community provisions.
  2. Doing the thing the provision prohibits under the Food Hygiene (Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2010, whatever the reason for doing it.
  3. Where the requirement is a positive duty, letting the time for performing it pass without performing it.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine
£5,000
Standard scale
Level 5
Maximum prison (summary)
3 months
Maximum prison (on indictment)
2 years

this is the level 5 value when the instrument came into force (2010-04-13); 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
Status not determined
Made
18 March 2010
In force from
13 April 2010
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 amend the Food Hygiene (Wales) Regulations 2006 (S.I. 2006/31 (W.5), as already amended) by updating the definitions of certain EU instruments that are referred to in those Regulations and by providing that when certain requirements are complied with a person is considered not to have contravened or failed to comply with specified provisions of Regulation (EC) No. 853/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down specific hygiene rules for food of animal origin (OJ No. L139, 30.4.2004, p.55; the revised text of that Regulation is now set out in a Corrigendum, OJ No. L226, 25.6.2004, p.22, which must be read with a further Corrigendum, OJ No. L204, 4.8.2007, p.26). These Regulations amend the Food Hygiene (Wales) Regulations 2006 to update the definitions of certain EU instruments by— substituting references to specified EU instruments for the references to the EU instruments that currently appear after the definition of “premises” in paragraph (1) of regulation 2 (interpretation) (regulation 2(2)); and substituting a revised Schedule 1 (definitions of EU legislation) for the existing Schedule 1 (definitions of Community legislation) (regulation 2(4)). These Regulations also amend the Food Hygiene (Wales) Regulations 2006 to provide that when certain requirements are complied with a person is considered not to have contravened or failed to comply with specified provisions of Regulation (EC) No. 853/2004. They do so by substituting a revised regulation 17 (offences and penalties) and by inserting new Schedules 3A, 3B, 3C and 3D (regulation 2(3) and (5)). The new regulation 17(5) says that, provided the requirements of the new Schedule 3A are complied with, a person is considered not to have contravened or failed to comply with Article 3(1) or 4(1)(a) of Regulation (EC) No. 853/2004 as read in either case with paragraph 5 of Chapter II of Section I of Annex III to that Regulation (food business operators to ensure that slaughterhouses in which domestic ungulates are slaughtered have lockable facilities for the refrigerated storage of detained meat and separate lockable facilities for the storage of meat declared unfit for human consumption). The new regulation 17(6) says that, provided the requirements of the new Schedule 3B are complied with, a person is considered not to have contravened or failed to comply with Article 3(1) or 4(1)(a) of Regulation (EC) No. 853/2004 as read in either case with paragraph 5 of Chapter II of Section II of Annex III to that Regulation (food business operators to ensure that slaughterhouses in which poultry or lagomorphs are slaughtered have lockable facilities for the refrigerated storage of detained meat and separate lockable facilities for the storage of meat declared unfit for human consumption). The new regulation 17(7) says that, provided the requirements of the new Schedule 3C are complied with, a person is considered not to have contravened or failed to comply with Article 3(1) or 4(1)(a) of Regulation (EC) No. 853/2004 as read in either case with paragraph 6 of Chapter II of Section I of Annex III to that Regulation (food business operators to ensure that slaughterhouses in which domestic ungulates are slaughtered have a separate place with appropriate facilities for the cleaning, washing and disinfection of means of transport for livestock unless the competent authority permits them not to have such places and official authorised places and facilities exist nearby). The new regulation 17(8) says that, provided the requirements of the new Schedule 3D are complied with, a person is considered not to have contravened or failed to comply with Article 3(1) or 4(1)(a) of Regulation (EC) No. 853/2004 as read in either case with paragraph 6(b) of Chapter II of Section II of Annex III to that Regulation (food business operators to ensure that slaughterhouses in which poultry or lagomorphs are slaughtered have a separate place with appropriate facilities for the cleaning, washing and disinfection of means of transport unless officially authorised places and facilities exist nearby). A full regulatory impact assessment has been undertaken in respect of these Regulations and is 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