Day 146 - 03 Jul 95 - Page 18


     
     1        pass from the hide skin gut condemned rooms through the
     2        clean area in order to get to their changing rooms", in
     3        fact, says Mr. Bone, that is not true.  They have to go
     4        around the outside, but again it is something we could have
     5        dealt with if we had had notice of it.
     6
     7        Then, my Lord, back to the boot wash which Mr. Bone deals
     8        with in paragraphs 10 and 11.  My Lord, a point I mentioned
     9        before -- these are all points, my Lord, where I have put
    10        brackets round the question mark after the "N" because,
    11        having looked at it again, it is my belief that this is
    12        actually really completely new material.
    13
    14        The wheeling of the bins, my Lord, in paragraph 12, again
    15        that is completely absent from the written statement.
    16        There were, as one can see there, three or four pages of it
    17        in Ms. Hovi's evidence-in-chief.  My Lord, Mr. Bone
    18        explains the bins over the next three pages and down to the
    19        bottom of paragraph 19 on page 10, both the times when the
    20        bins are used, the purposes for which they are used, their
    21        travel path and their cleaning between use; all things
    22        which he would have dealt with, or somebody would have
    23        dealt with, if we had had any notice at all that an
    24        allegation was being made about the bins or trollies.
    25
    26        Then, my Lord, paragraph 20:  Ms. Hovi alleged that the man
    27        concerned with the bleed hoist, whom she mistakenly thought
    28        was somebody different from the man who did the stunning,
    29        pithing and the sticking -- in fact, they are all the same
    30        person -- she said that he did not have access to a hand
    31        wash or sterilizer for his equipment.
    32
    33        All that is said in the written statement is:  "Throughout
    34        the plant there was a shortage of facilities for the
    35        disinfection of hand tools and knives leading to
    36        contamination of the carcasses and the meat".
    37
    38        My Lord, perhaps one can look at it this way:  Imagine that
    39        one is a Jarrett person, or one is Mr. Bennett, and one
    40        looks at what is written in Ms. Hovi's written statement:
    41         "Throughout the plant there was a shortage of facilities
    42        for the disinfection of hand tools and knives", one sits
    43        down and one scratches one's head and one says:  "Well,
    44        what on earth is she talking about?  Unless she is willing
    45        to say where the shortage is to be found, who are the
    46        personnel who do not have access to these necessary
    47        facilities, one cannot possibly deal with it
    48        comprehensively.  So, it is, of course, that when she came
    49        into the box and began to give us details of what she meant
    50        by this that we are now able to answer or would be able to 
    51        answer them if we called Mr. Bone. 
    52 
    53        A point of identical nature on page 11 in paragraph 21,
    54        "Inadequate washing of hands", says Ms. Hovi, and, second,
    55        she says, same day, same page, that there was no
    56        sterilization of the pithing rod.  There is no mention in
    57        her written statement of a pithing rod at all.  There is no
    58        mention of the allegation that it was not sterilized.  In
    59        fact, as your Lordship sees from Mr. Bone's statement, if
    60        he is right, it actually rests in a sterilizing unit.

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