Day 107 - 24 Mar 95 - Page 74


     
     1   MR. RAMPTON:  About another quarter of an hour.
     2
     3   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Unless there is anyone in court who will be
     4        greatly inconvenienced by that, we will go on to that
     5        extent.
     6
     7   MR. RAMPTON:  I am grateful to your Lordship.  There are only
     8        two other things I want to ask Mr. North about.
     9
    10        (To the witness):  Mr. North -- this may have been a slip
    11        of the tongue or it may have been that I did not properly
    12        understand what you said -- do you have a copy of
    13        yesterday's transcript because I think it is only fair that
    14        he should have it.  My Lord, this is page 15 of yesterday's
    15        transcript.
    16
    17   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Just give me the references and do not read
    18        too quickly.
    19
    20   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, it is day 106, 23rd March 1995, page 15
    21        starting at line 31.  This is in your evidence-in-chief,
    22        Mr. North.  Mr. Morris was asking you questions and he
    23        asked you this:  "What are your concerns about specifically
    24        chicken and minced meat as used in burgers and food
    25        poisoning?"  Answer by you: "The general concern is the
    26        very high level of salmonella contamination and other
    27        micro-organisms, pathogenic micro-organisms, found in these
    28        meats", and then you go on, "and that the processing is
    29        such in the large parts as to magnify the dose in
    30        proportion through that processing, so that we see small
    31        amounts, small proportions, in the live birds magnified
    32        through the processing, to come out in relatively high
    33        proportion in the actual finished product".
    34
    35        Can I take the second part of that first?  Being fair to
    36        you, what I take you to be saying is this:  Though absent
    37        conditions condusive to multiplication, the number of
    38        actual bacteria does not increase, is, in fact, diluted.
    39        What you get is an increase in the number, or may get, of
    40        end products which may be contaminated?
    41        A.  That is, by and large, what I was trying to convey,
    42        yes.  I was somewhat clumsy in using words ------
    43
    44   Q.   It is a difficult thing to express.  But if you start with
    45        a number X of bacteria, you put it with another piece of
    46        meat, some of those may transfer to that other piece of
    47        meat but, unless you have conditions for proliferation, you
    48        do not get an actual increase in the number of bacteria,
    49        which again is two bits of meat instead of one, each with a
    50        smaller amount on each piece of meat? 
    51        A.  Yes, you get this progressive dilution as it goes down. 
    52 
    53   Q.   Progressive contamination and dilution as it goes through
    54        the process, with the result that by the time you get to
    55        the restaurant, unless there has been proliferation, you
    56        have got relatively small amounts of the bacteria on the
    57        finished product?
    58        A.  I think that is a fair summary.
    59
    60   Q.   What I am concerned about, because I think I may not have

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