Day 130 - 26 May 95 - Page 20
1 Q. It might have been five people that had fixed the plug?
2 A. We certainly obviously -----
3
4 MR. RAMPTON: Mr. Morris should allow the witness to answer the
5 question. I know he is impatient to press it, but it is
6 not fair on Mrs. Barnes.
7
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Does it matter anyway, Mr. Morris?
9
10 MR. MORRIS: I was going to -----
11
12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Your point, I thought, was that someone who
13 had not been appropriately trained, had not been told not
14 to do it, had changed this plug. It does not really matter
15 to me whether it was Robert Chapman or not. It may
16 obviously matter to Mr. Chapman. At the moment I am very
17 disinclined do make any criticism of Mr. Chapman.
18
19 MR. MORRIS: What concerns me, which is comment, is the Company
20 mounted a public denial of responsibility for the accident
21 and identified immediately, what I would call, a scapegoat
22 for the accident.
23
24 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But I mean, do you -- whatever that may be
25 so -- dispute that the wires in the plug were stripped
26 bare and therefore it was in a potentially dangerous
27 condition. I thought that was part of your case, that
28 under the McDonald's system, this is the sort of thing that
29 happens, especially if you have got a cable, which is not
30 really long enough to get to the sink without tugging at it
31 every now and then.
32
33 MR. MORRIS: Yes, well, it is my understanding that the plug, on
34 the balance of probabilities, from what I have heard from
35 different people, was in a dangerous condition at the time
36 of the accident. But Robert Chapman denies that he -----
37
38 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You did not actually see the plug itself?
39 A. No, I did not, sir.
40
41 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Go on to the next point, Mr. Morris.
42
43 MR. MORRIS: Robert Chapman -----
44
45 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Mr. Morris, with regard to that sentence, you
46 have got the answer you wanted, that she did not actually
47 see the plug herself.
48
49 MR. MORRIS: But, in any event, Robert Chapman said that he
50 wired it properly when he fixed it; is that not correct?
51 A. That is not what -- those words "that he wired it
52 properly" is not what came out to me at the time.
53 I gathered the facts together. The other thing is I take
54 exception -----
55
56 MR. JUSTICE BELL: "I believe I changed it properly", he said?
57 A. That did not come out to me at the time, but I take
58 exception that you are accusing us of making Robert Chapman
59 a scapegoat. I do not blame him at all, and neither does
60 the Company.
