Day 130 - 26 May 95 - Page 45
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2 MR. MORRIS: I think she also called them "the experts".
3
4 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is quite right. It slipped my mind for
5 the moment, but she did volunteer that judgment on the
6 report.
7
8 MR. MORRIS: I was just trying to see the motivation of the
9 HSE. It said at one point -- I cannot find it -- that
10 McDonald's RIDDOR accidents reported -----
11 A. It is page 802.
12
13 Q. 802?
14 A. Is that the bit you are looking for?
15
16 Q. Yes. A large proportion were reported by McDonald's. This
17 was, undoubtedly, due to general under reporting in this
18 sector. This large proportion, was it a majority of RIDDOR
19 accidents?
20 A. When Andrew Foster presented the figures to us at our
21 opening meetings, in slide format, and I believe it was
22 about 80 per cent of accidents reported in the quick
23 service restaurants sector, the fast-food sector, were
24 ours.
25
26 Q. Take-away catering sector, is that, it says there?
27 A. Yes.
28
29 Q. That is what it would be?
30 A. Yes.
31
32 Q. I will not be referring to that again. There was one
33 thing, though, this HSE report, how did the Company treat
34 it? Did they try to bury it and forget that it happened,
35 or did they try to circulate it to make people aware that
36 it had happened?
37 A. Well, I think we had about 30 copies, 30 bound copies,
38 that we sent to senior management, and it has been much
39 photocopied since, and the presentation of our response
40 back to the Health and Safety Executive in December of 1992
41 was attended by most of the representation on the UK board,
42 the UK-based people on the UK board were there, so all the
43 senior executives, including Paul Preston and Andrew
44 Taylor. They took it very, very seriously.
45
46 Just as, you know, my opinion is it is balanced, they took
47 it as being very balanced as well. We welcomed all the
48 recommendations and, as you know, we have implemented them
49 all. We could not have done that without support from the
50 very top.
51
52 Q. It is all very well the top knowing about it, but what
53 about the people with more direct contact with the
54 restaurants? I do not mean obviously crew people or
55 whatever, but what about Senior Supervisors and people like
56 that, would they have been aware of it?
57 A. Yes, the health and safety management plan that we put
58 together as our response, I presented to both region
59 meetings restaurant managers and to the national
60 conference, the March after this -- March, 1993 it would
