Richard Hyde

There’s a Rat in the Kitchen, What are the Local Authority Going to Do: A Socio-Legal Study of the Enforcement of Food Safety and Food Hygiene Law

The enforcement of regulatory crime is an important and under-examined topic in the Criminal Justice and Regulatory literature. Whilst it is difficult to formulate a succinct conceptual definition of regulatory crime, its enforcement has potentially huge economic and societal effects, particularly on business. This thesis adopts food safety regulation as a case study into the enforcement of regulatory crime.

This thesis seeks to answer the question ‘how do regulators carry out their enforcement functions in food safety cases?’

Regulatory enforcement has been a matter of recent political interest. The Hampton and Macrory reports have suggested that enforcement of regulatory crime becomes less prosecution focused, and more amenable to alternative enforcement options. This piece intends to examine the process adopted by regulators to deal with breaches food safety regulation, and consider how their decisions reflect legislative intention and expressed policy preferences. These legislative and policy choices will be discerned through an examination of the landscape of food safety regulation and a survey of the enforcement options and the policies applicable to them.

The first part of the thesis attempts to draw a map of the food safety and food hygiene spheres, examining the context in which enforcement takes place, the players involved in the enforcement process, the substantive law of food safety and food hygiene and the enforcement powers available to regulators. In the second part of the thesis, the actions of food safety regulators will be examined using semi-structured qualitative interviews with decision makers and documentary analysis of case files for a representative range of cases. Enforcement officers will be observed in action. The research will focus on a number of case study local authorities; however, other players in the regulatory process (Such as Public analysts and Food Examiners, the Food Standards Agency and the LBRO) will come under scrutiny. It is hoped that the data gathered during the empirical phase of the investigation will shed light on what happens within a food authority during the enforcement process, and suggest the factors underlying the adoption or rejection of particular enforcement tools.

It is hoped that this research will lead to a greater understanding of the factors in play during the regulatory process and that this will help develop policies and procedures to assist regulators in the carrying out of their enforcement functions.

 

Research Supervisors

Professor Peter Cartwright and Professor Paul Roberts

Primary Funding Source

ESRC 1+3 Scholarship

Academic Qualifications

Academic Qualifications	Awarding Institutions
LLB Law	University of Durham
Legal Practice Course	Nottingham Trent University
LLM International Criminal Justice and Armed Force	University of Nottingham
MA Socio-Legal and Criminological Research with Distinction	University of Nottingham

 

Brief career history

Prior to undertaking his LLM at the University of Nottingham, Richard practiced law as a solicitor in the Corporate Regulation Group of Browne Jacobson LLP in Nottingham. He acted for public and private sector clients prosecuting and defending cases in the regulatory crime sector, generally acting in cases before the Magistrates’ Court. His caseload was varied, arising from a spread of regulatory sectors including Food, Fire, Environment and Conservation, Licensing, Transport and Health and Safety. He was also responsible for providing non-contentious advice to clients on their regulatory responsibilities, in particular pre-publication advice on marketing publications.

 

Conference papers given

‘The Role of Guidance in Regulatory Enforcement’ Showcasing Research Workshop, University of Birmingham, 19^th October 2009

‘Exploring Governmental Action in the Food Safety Sphere’ Agriculture, Food and Human Values Society and American Society of Food Studies Annual Conference, Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA 29^th May 2009

‘The Role of Legal Professionals in Forming the Concept of Regulatory Crime’ Socio-Legal Studies Association, De Montfort University, Leicester, 7^th April 2009

‘Why Regulate Food? And Why Regulate Food Differently?’ Association for Law Culture and the Humanities Annual Conference, Suffolk University, Boston, MA 3^rd April 2009

 

 

Publications

Robert Kolb and Richard Hyde, An Introduction to the International Law of Armed Conflicts(Hart, Oxford 2008)

 

Other Information

Solicitor (Non-Practicing)

Teaches Constitutional Law B and on the LLM Skills Programme.

Member of the Research Staff-Student Feedback Committee.

 

Further Information 

Richard is currently completing his thesis and has his first academic post as Lecturer in Law at Northumbria University.