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.

Prev Next Index