Day 086 - 09 Feb 95 - Page 87
1 you is this, Mr. Atherton. Given that is stated to be the
2 company's policy on electricity, what I would like to know
3 is that policy applied in practice?
4 A. That policy is applied in practice.
5
6 Q. Are you confident of that?
7 A. I am confident of it, yes.
8
9 Q. Will you accept that sometimes on account of human error or
10 for whatever reason it is disobeyed in practice?
11 A. On occasion unfortunately that does happen.
12
13 Q. Will you please turn to page 774 in this tab?
14 A. Yes, I am there.
15
16 Q. It is a memorandum to all licensees. Do you see that?
17 A. Yes.
18
19 Q. Its date is 24th March 1992, remembering that Mark Hopkins'
20 death was 12th October of the same year. I will not read
21 it out. Just glance at it. One only needs to glance at
22 it. It mentions Jill Barnes in the first line?
23 A. Yes.
24
25 Q. Have you read it?
26 A. I have scanned through it.
27
28 Q. Tell me when you have. Do you see it says the AEC
29 programme is only intended to help increase staff general
30 knowledge of electrical equipment, nothing more. Is that
31 true or false that?
32 A. That is true to my knowledge.
33
34 Q. The question I have is, does this electricity policy apply
35 to licensees as it does within the company?
36 A. Yes, it applies to licensees as it does to the company
37 employees.
38
39 Q. Then please turn to page 779 which is a document dated,
40 although it has a received stamp at the top of it dated 7th
41 September 1992?
42 A. Yes.
43
44 Q. Which is just over a month before Mark Hopkins was killed.
45 It is addressed to all store managers, supervisors, senior
46 supervisors, so on and so forth, including operations
47 managers, do you see that?
48 A. I do.
49
50 Q. As at 7th September 1992 had you yourself yet moved to
51 London or not?
52 A. I was in London.
53
54 Q. You were in London by that time, were you? Do you think
55 that you will have seen this document at the time?
56 A. I may well have seen this document. It looks as though
57 it is a very comprehensive document.
58
59 Q. Do you see the third paragraph: "The financial standing of
60 the situation will not be considered where electrical
