UK Offence Report

Offences: records and marks

regulation 31(2) of The Carcase Classification and Price Reporting (Wales) 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 Any person who marks a bovine carcase or part of such a carcase— a as prescribed by Article 8(1), (2)(a), (3)(a) (read with the second paragraph of Article 8(3)), (4) and (5) of the Commission Delegated Regulation, or b in a way closely resembling the marking prescribed by those provisions, which is likely to mislead, 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 This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.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
breaching the provision
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

35 It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under these Regulations (“P”) to prove that P took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid the commission of the offence by P or by a person under P’s control.

What would breach regulation 31(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. Doing what the provision prohibits, or failing to do what it requires under the Carcase Classification and Price Reporting (Wales) Regulations 2018.

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
22 November 2018
In force from
14 December 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, which apply in relation to Wales, revoke and replace the Beef and Pig Carcase Classification (Wales) Regulations 2011 (S.I. 2011/1826 (W. 198)) (“the 2011 Regulations”) consequent to the repeal of Commission Regulation (EC) No 1249/2008 (OJ No L 337, 16.12.2008, p. 3). The Regulations enforce— Article 10 of, and Annex IV to, Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council (OJ No L 347, 20.12.2013, p. 671), which relate to European Union scales for the classification of carcases; and Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) No 2017/1182 (OJ No L 171, 4.7.2017, p. 74) (“the Commission Delegated Regulation”); and Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 2017/1184 (OJ No L 171, 4.7.2017, p. 103) (“the Commission Implementing Regulation”) which set out further details regarding the implementation of those scales. The Regulations relate to the carcases of adult bovine animals (being animals aged eight months or more) and pigs. Regulation 5 requires notifications to be made to the Welsh Ministers by operators of slaughterhouses which slaughter adult bovine animals or pigs. However, the Regulations do not apply to small-scale bovine operators slaughtering fewer than 150 adult bovine animals per week as an annual average, unless they choose to classify bovine carcases (regulation 6); or to the operators of slaughterhouses at which fewer than 500 clean pigs per week as an annual average are slaughtered (regulation 12). The Regulations provide for a licensing system for anybody who visually classifies bovine carcases and for the licensing of slaughterhouses using automated grading equipment for classifying such carcases (regulations 8 to 10). Breach of the licensing requirements is an offence (regulation 29). The classification of pig carcases must be carried out using an authorised grading method and grading techniques operated by qualified personnel (regulation 14). Breach of this requirement is an offence (regulation 30). An operator may, instead of marking a pig carcase, keep a record concerning its classification (regulation 15). Operators of approved slaughterhouses are required to keep records relating to bovine and pig carcases respectively (regulations 11 and 16 and Schedules 3 and 4). Part 5 of the Regulations concerns enforcement, and makes provision relating to the powers of authorised officers, enforcement notices, penalty notices and criminal proceedings. Regulations 20(3) and 26 to 32 set out the offences under the Regulations, which are all punishable on summary conviction by a fine, except for offences under regulation 31(2) or (3) (false marks). In particular, regulations 26 and 27 provide that breach of specified provisions of European Union legislation is an offence, namely European beef provisions set out in Schedule 1 and European pig provisions set out in Schedule 2. The provisions specified in Schedules 1 and 2 include requirements for recording and reporting market prices for bovine and pig carcases respectively. The Welsh Ministers’ Code of Practice on the carrying out of Regulatory Impact Assessments was considered in relation to these Regulations. As a result, it was not considered necessary to carry out a regulatory impact assessment as to the likely costs and benefits of complying with these Regulations as the amendments are technical in nature.

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