Day 289 - 29 Oct 96 - Page 33
1 width of the shackles and so on. And just if you are doing
2 something quickly, you are not taking as much care and it
3 is far more likely that pain is going to be caused, and
4 pain is what would cause them to flap around and therefore
5 more likely to miss the water bath.
6
7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
8
9 MS. STEEL: Yes. On page 24 of the same day's transcript we
10 went back to the point about the birds may appear to be
11 effectively stunned but they could come round before they
12 actually die, and that that was the reason why the Codes of
13 Practice recommend that unless there is a cardiac arrest at
14 stunning then both carotid arteries should be cut in order
15 to produce a humane kill. Dr. Gregory agreed that neither
16 of those methods were being used in February when he made
17 his first visit and that despite the recommendations he
18 made after his visit in February neither of those methods
19 was being used by the time of his second visit. I think,
20 yes, he says that they finally got a ventral neck cutter,
21 but only about two or three months before he gave
22 evidence.
23
24 I went through his statement on page 7, the last but one
25 paragraph, where he says, "If, on the other hand, the
26 vessels at the back of the neck are severed, blood can be
27 continuously supplied to the brain during the early part of
28 the bleeding period." I asked him, "What would the effect
29 be of that?" and he said, "It would sustain brain functions
30 such that if the effectiveness of the stun wore off the
31 bird could regain consciousness." I went on to ask him,
32 "Given that he had informed the company in February that
33 they could be criticised for masking recovery of
34 consciousness by severing the spinal cord did it concern
35 him that in April when he went back they were still using
36 the same technique and that this would have masked recovery
37 of conscious of 83 percent of the birds" and he said,
38 "I expected to see something different".
39
40 MR JUSTICE BELL: Do you have that reference?
41
42 MS. STEEL: Yes, it is day 20, page 24, line 28. I then said,
43 "So it concerned you?" and he said, "It surprised me, yes,
44 and concerned me." He said, on the following page that he
45 was not aware of any reason why Sun Valley could not have
46 reduced the depth of the cut into the neck so that if
47 consciousness was regained it would not be masked.
48
49 This is a bit confusing actually, because the 0.7 percent
50 of birds which showed a reflex response and the reference
51 to the fact that they had failed to make contact with the
52 water bath stunner, which would indicate that they had not
53 been stunned, there were also figures in his statement on
54 the same page in the second paragraph that one percent of
55 birds missed the water bath stunner and hence were not
56 stunned, and the reference to that, which was actually
57 given in evidence, was day 20, page 30, line 18.
58
59 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Just pause a moment. (Pause) Well, I think
60 what happened was that it was one bird showed a reflex
