Day 289 - 29 Oct 96 - Page 23


     
     1        Sun Valley in the late eighties, taken with the evidence of
     2        Mr. Bruton as well.
     3
     4        Moving on to slaughter, the evidence of Dr. Gregory is in
     5        yellow 9, tab 10, page 6 of his statement, going on to
     6        pages 7 and 8.  When he visited the plant on 19th April
     7        1993 Dr. Gregory asked to see the 'dead on arrival' bin.
     8        He did not actually say what time of day.  I do not
     9        remember it being said what time of day he arrived.  The
    10        bin contained 44 birds, six of which had died from a
    11        dislocated hip and one had died from a crushed skull.  He
    12        notes that the prevalence of dislocated hips was 14
    13        percent, which was higher than that which had been recorded
    14        in a survey, Gregory and Austin in 1992, which had been of
    15        several slaughter plants, including the Sun Valley one.
    16
    17        At the time he visited the company had two killing lines,
    18        one for female and one for male birds, and the line speed
    19        was operating at 87 birds per minute.  Only two weeks
    20        before Dr. Gregory had visited the slaughter plant the
    21        killing lines had been changed, and previously there was
    22        only one line which had operated at twice the speed and
    23        carried both male and female birds.  So, all the criticisms
    24        that are made by Dr. Gregory in his evidence about the
    25        slaughtering of chickens would be far greater two weeks
    26        previously.
    27
    28        For example, he said on day 19, page 66, lines 7 to 17,
    29        that because previously the birds had both been put in the
    30        same shackles, the same size shackles, that previously the
    31        males would have had their shanks compressed more, which
    32        could be painful.  He relates in his statement on page 7
    33        how up to 14 percent -- well, this says 13.5 percent -- of
    34        200 birds which he examined, or which he witnessed going
    35        through the process...  Sorry, that were thought to have
    36        had pre-stun shocks which he said caused distress and can
    37        be painful...  Sorry... If I just read from his statement.
    38
    39   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Can you remind me, because where I have read
    40        through witnesses' transcripts of witnesses' evidence or
    41        looked at my own notes I have made a point of seeing which
    42        of the Plaintiffs' witnesses were asked to aver their
    43        statements.  I know you did it with your witnesses almost
    44        without exception, but it tended later in the day that
    45        Mr. Rampton did that after I said something about it last
    46        October.  What I can't remember at this moment -- although
    47        the notes will tell me -- is whether Dr. Gregory averred
    48        his statement.
    49
    50   MR. RAMPTON:   No, my Lord.  What happened was -- I do not mean 
    51        to interrupt -- he did not actually aver it, but after a 
    52        bit he had it with him in the witness box and to a large 
    53        extent I took him through it.
    54
    55   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Well, that is what I thought had happened,
    56        but I couldn't -----
    57
    58   MR. RAMPTON:   I read it, the transcript, again some time ago.
    59
    60   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   It may be academic in that he may have said

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