Day 153 - 12 Jul 95 - Page 28
1
2 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I am not sure that I can see the
3 relevance of this.
4
5 MR. MORRIS: Can you remember roughly?
6 A. Not even roughly.
7
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What is this directed at, Mr. Morris?
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10 MR. MORRIS: It is relevant to the effects of the desirability
11 of a low labour cost.
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is completely two-edged, is it not? It
14 could show that they have got their labour levels exactly
15 right, good service, and have therefore brought in a lot of
16 custom and been, therefore, profitable. I cannot see that
17 it leads me one way or the other. If it is a high profit,
18 then one might have to look very carefully at the accounts
19 and go through them line by line to see exactly why that
20 was; and it is far too late to embark on that now. So just
21 having a simple profit level does not help me one bit.
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23 MR. MORRIS: On paragraph 26, sewage, I cannot remember if
24 I asked you, did you ever find out why the drains were
25 blocked and sewage came back into the store? You
26 said -----
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28 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You said something about a grease trap which
29 got blocked, did you not?
30 A. I believe it may well have been the grease trap. That
31 would have been the most likely explanation for it.
32
33 MR. MORRIS: It says here: "As mentioned above, I only recall
34 one time when the drains were blocked and sewage came back
35 into the store."
36 A. That is right.
37
38 Q. You agree with that, yes?
39 A. Yes.
40
41 Q. "It may have been a grease trap." Does that mean that
42 grease was being poured into the drains?
43 A. No. The grease trap is a system whereby you put
44 actimatic powder into the grease trap which breaks down the
45 grease, so that it is easily manageable within a drainage
46 system. So by the time it reaches the drains, it is not in
47 a grease form, if you like; it is in a far more diluted
48 form.
49
50 Q. But if it got blocked, presumably, it is because it was
51 thick rather than liquid?
52
53 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Well, I do not know.
54
55 THE WITNESS: Not necessarily.
56
57 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Is that so -- because I assume that in water
58 which is going there, a bit of oil gets in ---
59 A. Certainly, yes.
60
