The Shropshire slaughterhouse processed 75,000 chickens per day, with each bird supposed to be stunned, bled and scalded to remove feathers. On three occasions, however, a bird was found to have gone into the scalding tank while still alive because its neck had not been properly cut.
The operators were charged with two offences under the Welfare of Animals at the Time of Killing (England) Regulations 2015, which implemented an EU Regulation. They raised two points of law: whether mens rea was required (in this case, proof the defendant knew the factual circumstances of the offence); and whether the prosecution must prove a culpable act or omission on the part of the defendant).
Ruling in R (oao Highbury Poultry Farm Produce) v Crown Prosecution Service [2020] UKSC 39, the Supreme Court unanimously held that strict liability applied.
Lord Burrows, giving the main judgment, said ‘the court must apply EU law principles of legislative interpretation―with their heavy emphasis on effecting the purpose of the relevant provisions―and that the imposition of strict liability in the context of criminal law is not contrary to EU law.’
Later in the judgment, he said: ‘There is no hint that business operators shall be liable only if the operational rules are intentionally or negligently infringed. If strict liability were not being imposed, words importing culpability could have easily been included; but they have not been…Strict liability imposes a clear and easily enforceable standard and is therefore in line with a principal goal of uniformity across the EU. In contrast, enforcing a negligence standard would potentially be prone to difficulty. Indeed, it is not even clear what would here be meant by a negligence standard. In particular, would one be requiring negligence by an operative and then attaching blame vicariously on the business operator? If so, there may be a serious difficulty in identifying the relevant operative, not least where the operations are mechanical.’
