Day 130 - 26 May 95 - Page 53


     
     1        bumping into people from handling, for instance, stopping
     2        equipment; if you said to someone who was about to pick up
     3        a box:  "Do you think you are about to take part in a high
     4        risk activity?" he would totally be stunned.
     5        A.  I think they are -- it is a relative risk comparison
     6        here in our environment.
     7
     8   MR. MORRIS:  Coming back to something else you mentioned in your
     9        examination in-chief, which relates to what I said before,
    10        it was alleged that you only make any progress as a Company
    11        on safety measures when you are under pressure from legal
    12        sanction or bad publicity, or something, and you said that
    13        the presentation you made to the board which launched the
    14        compiling of the RIDDOR accident statistics was only as a
    15        result of the death of the two-year old customer, Thomas
    16        Perkins?
    17        A.  Perkins -- it was Thomas Perkins -- I am sorry if I
    18        said that, it was not what I meant.  The statistics had
    19        been gathered since 1991, and, periodically, I put out
    20        reports on them, but that particular report was put
    21        together for that particular reason.
    22
    23   Q.   So it was felt important after substantial bad publicity to
    24        actually put it to the board and say:  "Hey, you should be
    25        taking this seriously?
    26        A.  No, they asked for the information.  Although they had
    27        regular updates, they asked me to go back further and make
    28        comparisons over that two year period of how we had
    29        improved, which I did.  That does not mean to say that they
    30        had not been interested in the meantime.  They were very
    31        interested.  Andrew Taylor (who is now Chief Operations
    32        Officer) has lead responsibility.  He is a board member,
    33        Executive Vice President.  He has been involved with the
    34        health and safety steering group since early 1993, and, all
    35        the way through the Health and Safety Executive's
    36        assessment, took a real interest in what was happening.
    37        I reported to him at the time after all.
    38
    39   Q.   I am nearly finished going through your evidence-in-chief.
    40        We are certainly on course for finishing with time to spare
    41        today.
    42
    43   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Carry on.  Pick your own moment for the break
    44        and you can best use it if you need it to take stock.
    45
    46   MR. MORRIS (To the witness):  There was else I wanted to ask you
    47        about, about the HSE reports when you commented on it in
    48        your evidence-in-chief.  I was going about the motivation
    49        for the HSE, looking at McDonald's and the catering
    50        industry.  It was already said earlier today that the kind 
    51        of accidents which happen at McDonald's are the kind of 
    52        accidents that happen in the catering industry, because of 
    53        hot surfaces or water on floors, or things like that, did
    54        the HSE people -- I cannot remember his name again?
    55        A.  Andrew Foster.
    56
    57   Q.   Did he say about what their concern was, whether they were
    58        concerned just about McDonald's or they were concerned at
    59        the whole catering industry, the prevalence of accidents in
    60        the catering industry?

Prev Next Index