Day 209 - 25 Jan 96 - Page 27
1 Q. 1-s-t in Service?
2 A. Yes, I think so. But the chap from 1st in Service, he
3 used to come in because the coffee machine used to scale up
4 every, I do not know -- every few weeks we seemed to have
5 him -- it used to be a joke that we were paying his
6 mortgage, because the coffee machine was always breaking
7 down; and very often when he came to fix the coffee
8 machine, he would have to come and look at the vat at the
9 same time. But a lot of the time he was just called out
10 just for that.
11
12 Q. Were there any records kept of these kind of visits?
13 A. There should have been. It should be in the service
14 history file. He used to fill in -- I do not remember him
15 dealing with the vat, I never saw him dealing with the vat,
16 but with the freezers, when they did stuff with the
17 freezers, I have seen them fill in stuff, you know, in the
18 service history file. It is a big file with lots of things
19 in it, saying what was done to each piece of equipment; and
20 each piece of equipment in the store should have a record
21 to know what has been done to it, just for, you know,
22 insurance purposes.
23
24 Q. Continuing to read: "The integrity of chicken products was
25 directly affected by the poor condition of the vats (unable
26 to cope with the high volume of the store) and yet they
27 were never replaced."
28 A. In the time I was there.
29
30 Q. Yes. Next section, Maintenance and Repair: "Before the
31 incident in which a Floor Manager was electrocuted using a
32 filtering machine" -- sorry, was that in a different
33 store?
34
35 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That was the Manchester one?
36 A. Yes. It was -- a chap died, and there was a big
37 ruckus.
38
39 MR. MORRIS: I will read that again. "Before the incident in
40 which a Floor Manager was electrocuted using a filtering
41 machine, it was common practice in the Bath store to get
42 electrical equipment repaired by the store's unofficial
43 maintenance and repair man, Jagon Flint. Jagon fixed
44 toasters, rewired plugs, et cetera, even though he had no
45 formal training and, to my knowledge at the time, no
46 relevant qualifications. All the Managers were well aware
47 of this impropriety, but still called upon Jagon to fix
48 electrical equipment.
49
50 "It was also common practice for Managers, including
51 myself, to be asked to fix electrical equipment (mainly
52 toasters). This was necessary when items needed running
53 repairs, i.e. during busy periods when all the equipment
54 was being used and there were no spares if one broke down.
55 It was at times considered a laughing matter, as we often
56 found toasters patched up with blue plasters."
57 A. Can I come in there? The reason we had to do running
58 repairs was, if you were busy, and you only had one regular
59 toaster to do your regulars, if that toaster broke down,
60 then there could be a toaster upstairs in the equipment
