Day 129 - 25 May 95 - Page 10


     
     1        who was closer to the incident and based in the Birmingham
     2        office.  Because of the speed with which we had to react it
     3        was carried out by someone who is now Food Safety Officer,
     4        is her title".  "Who is that?"  "A woman by the name of
     5        Jill Barnes".
     6        A.  Well, you can see he got his facts a little mixed up
     7        because I am not Food Safety Officer.  I certainly know of
     8        the incident.  I know of the results of our investigation
     9        of the incident.  I did actually visit the store myself,
    10        just to take an extra calibration kit just to test theirs,
    11        but Mark dealt with the investigation and liaised with the
    12        Environmental Health Officer.  It is his role, in working
    13        for me in the region, to do that.  At the time
    14        I just happened to be also based out of that office, and
    15        I live about 20 minutes from that restaurant.
    16
    17   Q.   The problem was with electronic beeping devices, was it
    18        not?
    19        A.  It was an investigation that we never really got a
    20        satisfactory answer from, in terms of what went wrong, but
    21        from what the crew members told us, who had been involved,
    22        and the shift manager, we believe that somebody got mixed
    23        up with the timers and took the basket out early.  Also,
    24        although it was served to the little girl, she did not
    25        actually eat any so she was not at risk at all.
    26
    27   Q.   I am sure that is a great comfort.
    28        A.  Well, it is in terms of the safety of the child.  The
    29        last thing we want to do is to serve under-cooked food.
    30
    31   Q.   But it might be the reason she did not eat it was because
    32        it appeared under-cooked?
    33        A.  Exactly.
    34
    35   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It almost certainly was.  What you are saying
    36        is, fortunately, she did not go any further?
    37        A.  Exactly.
    38
    39   MS. STEEL:   It does not make it all right, though.
    40        A.  No.  We do not want to serve under-cooked food.  We
    41        want to serve it right every time.  That is why we
    42        investigated it.  We worked with the Environmental Health
    43        Officer.  We changed the timers on that station.  We have
    44        since made it mandatory in all of the restaurants to have,
    45        again, a new type of timer that was available fitted to the
    46        chicken station.
    47
    48   Q.   Can you describe what the difference is with the new type
    49        of timer?
    50        A.  There is a new type of computerised timer.  There are 
    51        two versions of it.  The version where you can alter the 
    52        beeping device on it is again very new.  We have only had 
    53        it less than a year in any restaurant.  Shrewsbury had two
    54        types of timer, so what we were able to do there was swap
    55        one of the older ones for one of the newer ones, and put it
    56        on the chicken station.  We have now done that Company-wide
    57        as well, since we realised that that mix up factor seems to
    58        have been involved here with the under-cooking, and it
    59        means with new timers we can alter the pitch of the beep.
    60

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