Day 079 - 27 Jan 95 - Page 60


     
     1   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You say that, but I would like you to tell me
     2        what it is.  At the end of the day one of the things I am
     3        going to have to look at is, here we have a witness who
     4        says that he thinks he has a pretty good system, and I am
     5        not being facetious when I say that the proof of the patty
     6        may be in the eating in part.  What I am going to have to
     7        do is see how much has gone wrong.  You may well say to me,
     8        well, put Preston in, whatever Mr. Walker thinks about
     9        that, but then I still have to look and see what kind of
    10        problem, if any, there is.
    11
    12   MR. MORRIS:  Yes.
    13
    14   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  We have got to keep some sense of proportion
    15        in the length of enquiry.  All those cases which I have
    16        been involved in over the years which lasted three days to
    17        two weeks would have taken six to nine months.  There has
    18        to be a sense of proportion.  If you say to me, "Well, hold
    19        on, I have got this particular point in mind and it is
    20        important for this reason", I will not only listen to you,
    21        I would be very disinclined to shorten your
    22        cross-examination.  But there has to be bit of a filter as
    23        to what information is really in point and what information
    24        is just more information.
    25
    26   MS. STEEL:  We have finished that point really anyway, but the
    27        relevance is if the lines are not sterilized between
    28        batches, then if a particular batch is contaminated, how
    29        many more batches go down after that in a day which could
    30        pick up contamination on the way.
    31
    32   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You can put that point to me.  It is because
    33        you were going on really after that, that the query raised
    34        me.  As far as I am aware, the other batches which have
    35        gone through are also tested for E.coli and they are also
    36        on positive release.
    37
    38   MS. STEEL:  They are tested before they go through, though, not
    39        afterwards.
    40
    41   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  No, but they are, nevertheless, tested and
    42        they are on positive release.
    43
    44   THE WITNESS:  My Lord ----
    45
    46   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Is that not right?
    47        A.  The meat is tested, my Lord, and the finished burgers
    48        are tested, my Lord.
    49
    50   MS. STEEL:  You have not mentioned that before? 
    51        A.  I thought I had. 
    52 
    53   Q.   I do not remember it at all.
    54        A.  That is the pure point.  That is positive release.
    55
    56   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  So far as I am aware, I am told this is early
    57        last year, it is not early 1991, it may be that you have an
    58        E.coli case somewhere in the first six months of last year
    59        and then if you have you will be saying, "Look, that might
    60        well be something which went through contaminated by the

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