Day 303 - 19 Nov 96 - Page 13


     
     1
     2   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I think at the time I said, I made a comment
     3        much the same I am making now, if you get to these small
     4        percentage you are just pushing out figures for the sake of
     5        it.  The fact is you just do not know how many accidents
     6        there have been, the first idea how many there have been.
     7
     8   MR. MORRIS:  Presumably, the Health and Safety Executive, that
     9        is their job to calculate how many accidents do occur and
    10        what percentage are reported, and if anybody in the world
    11        knows -----
    12
    13   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I am sure they have done their best.  It does
    14        not look to me as if they have the first idea.
    15
    16   MR. MORRIS:  That would be extremely irresponsible of them to
    17        put down an estimate rather than say 'we cannot calculate'.
    18
    19   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   They are trying to help.  I did not have
    20        anyone in the witness box to whom I could put any of this
    21        at all.  Anyway, I have your figures.  The whole business
    22        of how many accidents actually occur, the whole of the
    23        evidence, looks to me as if no responsible judge could
    24        depend on any of it.  Only some of the accidents get in the
    25        Accident Book, only some of the more serious ones are
    26        reported.  It is a fact of life that ordinary, robust
    27        people do not put little burns and little cuts in accident
    28        books, and there we are.  I will make of it what I will at
    29        the end of the day.
    30
    31   MR. MORRIS:  Right.  The next document I am going to come on to,
    32        let me have a look -- I have sort of various bits and
    33        pieces to finish off, really.  It should take the rest of
    34        the day.  Let us go through Denise Pearce, I wanted to go
    35        through-----
    36
    37   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  She was?
    38
    39   MR. MORRIS:  The wages inspector visit.  I started marking it up
    40        last night but....
    41
    42   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I do not think you have to mark it up, just
    43        tell me what your point is.
    44
    45   MR. MORRIS:  I think the basic drift of it, if you read it
    46        through, is about half way through you made a comment as to
    47        the effect of what she was saying, which we think by the
    48        end of the day's cross-examination was absolutely clear
    49        that she did not actually know anything about overtime, it
    50        was not her area of responsibility, somebody else would
    51        have been talking to it, if indeed there was.  She said
    52        there was nobody with responsibility for checking overtime
    53        in her department.
    54
    55        Her whole evidence is completely unsafe, contradictory,
    56        hearsay, double hearsay, and as far as I can see irrelevant
    57        -- sorry, worthless -- except to show that McDonald's
    58        actually do not have anybody, did not have anybody at the
    59        time when she was working in her department, which she said
    60        was dealing with pay matters, although she only dealt with

Prev Next Index