Day 303 - 19 Nov 96 - Page 13
1
2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think at the time I said, I made a comment
3 much the same I am making now, if you get to these small
4 percentage you are just pushing out figures for the sake of
5 it. The fact is you just do not know how many accidents
6 there have been, the first idea how many there have been.
7
8 MR. MORRIS: Presumably, the Health and Safety Executive, that
9 is their job to calculate how many accidents do occur and
10 what percentage are reported, and if anybody in the world
11 knows -----
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13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am sure they have done their best. It does
14 not look to me as if they have the first idea.
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16 MR. MORRIS: That would be extremely irresponsible of them to
17 put down an estimate rather than say 'we cannot calculate'.
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19 MR. JUSTICE BELL: They are trying to help. I did not have
20 anyone in the witness box to whom I could put any of this
21 at all. Anyway, I have your figures. The whole business
22 of how many accidents actually occur, the whole of the
23 evidence, looks to me as if no responsible judge could
24 depend on any of it. Only some of the accidents get in the
25 Accident Book, only some of the more serious ones are
26 reported. It is a fact of life that ordinary, robust
27 people do not put little burns and little cuts in accident
28 books, and there we are. I will make of it what I will at
29 the end of the day.
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31 MR. MORRIS: Right. The next document I am going to come on to,
32 let me have a look -- I have sort of various bits and
33 pieces to finish off, really. It should take the rest of
34 the day. Let us go through Denise Pearce, I wanted to go
35 through-----
36
37 MR. JUSTICE BELL: She was?
38
39 MR. MORRIS: The wages inspector visit. I started marking it up
40 last night but....
41
42 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I do not think you have to mark it up, just
43 tell me what your point is.
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45 MR. MORRIS: I think the basic drift of it, if you read it
46 through, is about half way through you made a comment as to
47 the effect of what she was saying, which we think by the
48 end of the day's cross-examination was absolutely clear
49 that she did not actually know anything about overtime, it
50 was not her area of responsibility, somebody else would
51 have been talking to it, if indeed there was. She said
52 there was nobody with responsibility for checking overtime
53 in her department.
54
55 Her whole evidence is completely unsafe, contradictory,
56 hearsay, double hearsay, and as far as I can see irrelevant
57 -- sorry, worthless -- except to show that McDonald's
58 actually do not have anybody, did not have anybody at the
59 time when she was working in her department, which she said
60 was dealing with pay matters, although she only dealt with
