Day 127 - 23 May 95 - Page 41
1 A. By eliminating the risk, i.e. they do not work on
2 electrical equipment, you are eliminating the risk of their
3 getting any electrical shocks. If you try and give them
4 the training, then obviously it could only ever be limited
5 training. You could never train our managers to be
6 electricians. If we gave them the training, there would
7 still be the possibility that they would make mistakes and
8 shocks would occur.
9
10 Q. Now the next page, page 7, you have written a summary of
11 the main points for action. I am sure you are familiar
12 with them, are you?
13 A. I am, yes.
14
15 Q. I will not read them out. Just tell us, what is the thrust
16 or point of this page 5?
17 A. This is really an exception page. It is a summary of
18 the things, if you would like, in a fault tree, which is a
19 theoretical way of drawing out the causes to an accident.
20 These are the things we should be looking at to improve,
21 because with an accident it is never one thing that causes
22 an accident; it is lots of little things that build up.
23 This really is a summary of those little things that
24 culminated in Mark Hopkins' accident and where we should be
25 addressing the system.
26
27 Q. Correct me if I am wrong, do we find on the next three
28 pages -- sorry, 8, 9 and 10 -- an expansion of that line of
29 thinking?
30 A. Yes.
31
32 Q. You call it "response", and again I will not read any of
33 them out, I just want to know whether, in fact, anything
34 was done in response to your suggestions, recommendations
35 or comments. The first one is fixed systems. What was
36 done there? I think you have already told us?
37 A. Yes. The circuit breakers were fitted to all of the
38 restaurants and installed in new restaurants as they were
39 built as well.
40
41 Q. How much overall, roughly speaking, did that cost the
42 Company?
43 A. It cost one to one and a half million pounds.
44
45 Q. Do you know of any other major company in the catering
46 industry that has such a system in place?
47 A. No, and, in fact, at the time we went to Chris Purslow
48 as an independent and said, "Well, what are other people
49 doing?", saying we were considering doing this and he said
50 there is just no way anybody else would consider doing
51 this. It is far beyond what any regulations would require.
52
53 Q. Now 6.2 is equipment, "better specification of the
54 filtering machine cable and a suitable prodded plug". Have
55 you done those or not?
56 A. Yes. They were sourced. It took a little time because
57 of shortening breaks down, most of the material is used for
58 cabling; but eventually we were able to source a heat
59 resistant cable and moulded plug.
60
