Health Ministry to proceed with wine prosection

5 May 2000

Health Ministry to proceed with prosection over wine mislabelling

Auckland District Court Judge Deobhakta has dismissed an application by three defendants to drop wine mislabelling charges laid by the Ministry of Health.

The three defendants face four sets of charges under the Food Act 1981 and the Fair trading Act 1986. All charges relate to wine which the Ministry alleges was mislabelled as to composition.

The defendants argued that the charges should be dismissed on the grounds that the delays in laying the charges unfairly prejudice the case and secondly the charges were laid outside the statutory time limit which is more than one year after the offence under the Food Act and three years under the Fair Trading Act.

Judge Deobhakta said that a decision on the application could not be made without hearing all of the evidence.

The case is set down for callover at 2.15pm on Wednesday May 17, to fix a substantive hearing date.

Please attribute these comments to Sally Gilbert, Acting Group Director Implementation, Safety and Regulation Branch.

For further information contact:
Annie Coughlan, media advisor 04 496 2067.

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