Day 107 - 24 Mar 95 - Page 23
1 documents which you spent quite a lot of time
2 cross-examining about.
3
4 You do not have to at all; it may be that Mr. North has no
5 conclusions to draw one way or the other from them. It may
6 be that they show fairly typical kinds of tests, checks,
7 quality control procedures and so on. I have heard what he
8 said about the usefulness of microbiological testing done
9 in certain ways anyway.
10
11 MR. MORRIS: Yes, I rather felt -----
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: All I am saying is, you may not want to deal
14 with it, but do not just let it go by default. It is very
15 easy to get involved in the combative elements of
16 cross-examination and discovery and forget the fact that
17 here you have your witness in the box at last.
18
19 MR. MORRIS: Partly because he had not seen most of the
20 documents and partly because of the position which he took
21 yesterday that we were aware that he was going to take of
22 the -----
23
24 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am quite content with that when it comes to
25 microbiological testing, which is but one feature in food
26 poisoning along the road from the live animal to the cooked
27 burger so far as food poisoning is concerned. It is a
28 pretty long road of which testing is only a part. I would
29 understand if you were content to rest on the evidence
30 which Mr. North has given about the limits of assistance
31 from microbiological testing of the kind which appears to
32 have been practised in any event. If that is your stand,
33 I understand absolutely.
34
35 If I may say so, the way my mind is working at the moment,
36 whether or not there are other documents which I could
37 order disclosure of, and there are problems in relation to
38 that which I am not going to ask you about, you say: "If
39 we had more documents and if it showed this micro-organism
40 found here or there, or no E.coli found or no salmonella
41 found on a number of days", that would not really be of
42 significance for the reasons which you gave yesterday ---
43
44 THE WITNESS: Yes.
45
46 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- in relation to microbiological testing.
47
48 THE WITNESS: That is very much my view, my Lord.
49
50 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. There we are. Leave it there,
51 Mr. Morris. I do not want to encourage second bites at
52 cherries, but Mr. North has to come back. If there are any
53 further thoughts on it, I am not going to shut the door on
54 it.
55
56 MR. MORRIS: The only thing on the documents was that the ones
57 of particular significance are the finished product tests
58 at McKey's which we do not have.
59
60 MR. RAMPTON: Yes.
