Day 146 - 03 Jul 95 - Page 15
1 use a neutral word, by Ms. Hovi. We dealt with it through
2 Mr. Bennett and really there was no need to come back to
3 it.
4
5 But, the third blob, the third bullet point, on the first
6 page under 6 was a specific allegation about the
7 temperature of meat in the boning hall; whereas, as your
8 Lordship will recall, when she came to give evidence she
9 gave a vast amount of evidence about temperatures generally
10 almost throughout the post slaughtering process.
11 My Lord, over the page, age of the cows does not matter a
12 row of beans, so far as we are concerned. I am not
13 concerned to take that up with Mr. Bone or anyone else.
14 Then there are what she has alleged under 7 are actual
15 infringements or -- I think that these are they -- breaches
16 of the regulations. Here, my Lord, one sees a whole series
17 of very general statements; the second one is a mere
18 repetition of what was said in the first two on the
19 previous page.
20
21 MR. MORRIS: Sorry, which one is what? The second bullet point
22 No. 7 is the same as the -- a repetition of the first one?
23
24 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, hygiene checks and surface swab programmes.
25 It is put another way but, in our submission, it is the
26 same point. My Lord, from there on in one gets into a
27 series of generalities: "No proper separation between the
28 dirty and the clean side of the slaughterhouse leading to a
29 considerable risk from airborne contamination of the
30 dressed carcasses". No contamination of what she means by
31 that. None of the detailed allegations -- now that one has
32 seen Mr. Bone's statement one knows what to make of them --
33 about, for example, the use of trollies to cart meat across
34 the moving line; trollies which, moreover, went out into
35 the dirty side and were not cleaned before returning to use
36 within the slaughter hall.
37
38 Nothing, for example, about the high puller chains which
39 she alleged falsely, if Mr. Bone is right, were not
40 sterilized -- they are, of course, in transition from the
41 clean to the dirty side -- nothing about that and, as far
42 as I recall, other things as well. Then the next one, the
43 fourth one: "Throughout the plant there was a shortage of
44 facilities for disinfection of hand tools and knives
45 leading to contamination of the carcasses and meat". No
46 detail whatsoever; nothing about the pithing rod being
47 unsterilized; nothing about the pithing rod itself
48 constituting a risk of contamination; nothing about the man
49 who does the sticking having no sterilization point for his
50 knife or, as it turns out, knives; nothing of that kind at
51 all.
52
53 Your Lordship will remember that when she was giving
54 evidence she was very specific that the man who did the
55 sticking, whom she mistakenly thought was a different man
56 from the man who did the stunning and pithing, she was very
57 specific that that man would have to climb up on to the
58 legging platform in order to sterilize his knife. Why, one
59 asks, is none of that detail in this statement? It was
60 there to be had, if the Defendants had wanted it, because
