Day 127 - 23 May 95 - Page 37
1 of where everything new goes. So long as everybody has it
2 we can get on. It is dated 4th November 1992, and you say
3 that you have attached a draft report and that a final
4 report will come later. Did you ever do a final report?
5 A. No. A final report was never put together.
6
7 Q. Is there a reason for that?
8 A. Part of the reason was that the EHO, Mike Shirkie,
9 never released the witness statements to us. But also by
10 the time we realised that was not going to happen
11 everything had been actioned that we felt we should have
12 actioned anyway. So it was important just to tidy up the
13 report for the sake of it.
14
15 Q. Did the action that you took in consequence of what
16 happened cost money, company money?
17 A. Yes, it did.
18
19 Q. Were you concerned about how much money it might all cost?
20 A. Absolutely not. Having mentioned before about "it is
21 never going to happen to me", I suppose it could have been
22 said about the Company before that. Although we took
23 safety very seriously, we never had the shock of one of our
24 employees dying before and it affected all of us that were
25 involved with it very much; but obviously also affected the
26 people at the restaurant very deeply too.
27
28 Q. What was your own personal reaction to the tragedy?
29 A. I found it very upsetting.
30
31 Q. Do you still find it upsetting when you think about it?
32 A. I do, yes.
33
34 Q. The next page is a contents page and then there is an
35 introduction on the page with a 1 at the bottom of it in
36 the right-hand corner; do you see that?
37 A. I do, yes.
38
39 Q. Is this your own word processor?
40 A. It is my own word processor, yes.
41
42 Q. Page 2, paragraph 3, details of the accident. We need not
43 bother about that. Then a discussion of the cause of the
44 accident. I do not need to ask you about that. Page 4,
45 there is a passage which I would like you to help us with
46 under "safety culture"; do you have that?
47 A. I have, yes.
48
49 Q. You write in general terms, and there are exceptions,
50 "Safety is not seen as being important at store level.
51 'It could not happen to us/me' is a common attitude
52 amongst employees." Pausing there, what do you mean by
53 writing "safety is not seen as being important at store
54 level"?
55 A. I think when this was written I was still extremely
56 emotional, it was very close to the accident, and what
57 I remember I was trying to do was basically point out that
58 we should be doing absolutely everything that we possibly
59 could to make sure that safety was top of mind with
60 everybody, and in a way I felt I owed it to Mark Hopkins to
