Day 128 - 24 May 95 - Page 33
1 statements.
2
3 Q. How was it decided which accidents would be investigated
4 and which would not?
5 A. I cannot remember, to be honest.
6
7 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I know Mrs. Barnes has a cold, but still
8 I am having difficulty in hearing.
9
10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
11
12 THE WITNESS: I am sorry.
13
14 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do not worry. It is very easy to slip back.
15 Try to remember to keep your voice up and speak out into
16 the court.
17
18 MS. STEEL: Why were the security department investigating
19 accidents?
20 A. They just had the expertise in taking the statements.
21
22 Q. But they did not have any expertise in accidents?
23 A. No, they were just used to gather the information.
24
25 Q. So once the information had been gathered, what happened to
26 it? It just got put in a file?
27 A. It would be used, for example, if there was an
28 insurance claim.
29
30 Q. So the Company basically did not do anything with the
31 information it gathered unless there was an insurance
32 claim?
33 A. At that time we did not have a system for following up
34 on accident investigations, no.
35
36 Q. There was a reference yesterday to the objectives of
37 accident investigation being to identify the causes of
38 accidents and, hopefully, prevent reoccurrence, and then,
39 hopefully, there would be fewer accidents, yes?
40 A. Yes.
41
42 Q. You said that the rate of accidents had gone down?
43 A. It did in 1994, yes.
44
45 Q. Is that a consistent decrease or is that just a blip for
46 1994?
47 A. It is much too early to tell. I cannot tell on one
48 year's statistics.
49
50 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Because you need more than one year to see
51 whether there is any pattern to it?
52 A. That is right. You cannot establish a trend from just
53 one year's fall. It might just be a natural variation in
54 the statistics.
55
56 MS. STEEL: You said yesterday that the total number of RIDDOR
57 accidents throughout the country was 380 in 1994. Did that
58 include Scotland?
59 A. Yes, it did.
60
