Day 152 - 11 Jul 95 - Page 63
1 A. It was excellent.
2
3 Q. The Defendants' witnesses make a number of allegations
4 about that. I am certainly not going to trouble you with
5 most of them. One which may be important I would like you
6 to deal with is that raw meat, I suppose it means
7 hamburgers (it might mean chicken), was often served to the
8 customers. Would you like to comment on that?
9 A. To my knowledge, raw meat was never knowingly served to
10 customers.
11
12 Q. Do you think ----
13 A. I cannot see what possible gain there would be to that.
14
15 Q. Nor can I, but do you think that might have been brought to
16 your attention if it happened with any regularity?
17 A. The customers would certainly bring it to my attention.
18
19 Q. Was there ever a time that you know of when a product that
20 had been defrosted and lying around, presumably, in a pool
21 of water, maybe a hamburger or a McNugget, was then used to
22 be cooked?
23 A. Never, and I would also say that I cannot honestly
24 foresee how that could possibly happen, you know, on any --
25 well, apart from a very rare instance; for instance, out of
26 the 35 restaurants that I have got at the moment there is
27 only -- I can only remember one or possibly two freezer
28 breakdowns in the last year, and a product will remain
29 intact and not defrosted for 12 hours, providing you keep
30 the door shut to that freezer. So the instances where a
31 product would be thawed out, I find it impossible to think
32 of a possible instance where that could happen.
33
34 Q. Finally this, Mr. Davis: Some allegations of dishonesty
35 which have been made against you I would like you to deal
36 with. First, that you and Mr. Stanton conspired to water
37 down syrups, mustard, ketchup, etc. etc. etc.
38 A. Definitely not.
39
40 Q. Can you think of any advantage that you might have obtained
41 from doing that on a scale which was at, as it were, to
42 confer a commercial benefit?
43 A. It would not confer any commercial benefit because
44 whatever product you consider, watering down of anything,
45 say, mix or syrups, would cause the customers to bring them
46 back almost immediately, I would say. The shakes that we
47 sell are fairly notorious for being of a thick nature.
48 Consequently, if you start selling watered down shakes
49 I would assume that customers would bring them back fairly
50 frequently. With soft drinks a similar thing would
51 emerge. I can see no benefit whatsoever to that practice.
52
53 Q. Can you think of any reason why these four or five people
54 should think it right to make accusations, false
55 accusations, as you now tell us, of this kind against you?
56 A. No.
57
58 Q. Mr. Brett, Mr. Gidney, the two Harrisons and Mr. Alemi -
59 can you think of anything that might prompt them to make
60 that kind of accusation against you?
