Day 295 - 06 Nov 96 - Page 17
1 tested to find more than 10 million bacteria per gram would
2 still be used by McKeys for McDonald's, despite what he had
3 said in his statement.
4
5 MR JUSTICE BELL: I got some help about that, did I not, or what
6 might be some help, from the sheet which was handed in when
7 Dr. Professor Jackson was giving evidence? Was that
8 European Community, where they said that the term
9 'unsatisfactory meat' -- I have just got a vague
10 recollection -- was used in a foot note, and that meant
11 'was not rejecting the meat, but re-check your
12 procedures', or whatever it was, 'to try and ensure that
13 you are all right.' Am I right?
14
15 MR. MORRIS: There is no other category, is there? I mean,
16 what they were saying is they would only reject a
17 consignment if it looked or smelled bad; that is,
18 effectively, what he was saying. So it is clear they do
19 not have any scientifically based testing method for
20 rejecting meat supplies, which is grossly irresponsible.
21 Not only is it grossly irresponsible, it is doubly
22 irresponsible that they portray their testing methods as
23 scientific and as a guarantee, almost, to the customer-----
24
25 MR. JUSTICE BELL: They did reject it if certain scientific
26 tests failed.
27
28 MR. MORRIS: The E.Coli, I think, is the only scientific test,
29 which, as we have heard, could not find it virtually
30 because it was so inadequate. It was set up, basically,
31 not to find it, even though they found it twice.
32
33 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Did they not reject if it had a loading of
34 above certain numbers?
35
36 MR. MORRIS: No, no. He said that it has already gone through.
37
38 MR JUSTICE BELL: You have got your point that they did not
39 reject it if it was unsatisfactory, which was a certain
40 loading, and that is why I raised the recollection I have
41 got of the document which Professor Jackson referred to.
42 But if it got to other levels on bacteriological-----
43
44 MR. MORRIS: The point was, it had already gone through, it had
45 gone through 24 hours before they got the results; that was
46 the point. He said if it smelled off or looked off, then
47 they would reject it. Although we did not have any
48 evidence on that, apart from what he said. Obviously, we
49 could strain ourselves to see how McDonald's might be
50 acting credibly if we really tried, but I don't think the
51 evidence supports them in any way. Although it might
52 satisfy a negligence action, they can show they are doing
53 some routine procedures, but it is no indication of any
54 effective barrier to the contamination being in the final
55 product, which is what we are talking about today.
56
57 So the E.Coli on that same page, page 53, it says that if
58 they did find E.Coli they would reject the batch, obviously
59 because of the sensitivity of what happened at Preston.
60 However, while they are waiting for the test results
