Day 148 - 05 Jul 95 - Page 48
1 place.
2
3 MR. MORRIS: All the next few pages have N question marks as a
4 recognition by the Plaintiffs that they are not new
5 issues. They are details from her statement and, in many
6 cases, responses as well to Mr. Bennett. Can I just say on
7 the subject of details that a general point is if someone
8 says, "There is a shortage of facilities for disinfection
9 of hand tools and knives leading to contamination of
10 carcasses and meats", as she says in her statement, if, for
11 example, there are 75 different places in the plant, if
12 there are 46 places and there should be 75 I do not think
13 the onus on the writer of the statement to identify all 31
14 missing places where there should be facilities for
15 disinfection of hand tools. Obviously the details are
16 going to come out in questioning where necessary to develop
17 the point if contested. It may be that it would not be
18 contested or contested by the person doing the
19 cross-examination.
20
21 MS. STEEL: Can I just say that in terms of paragraph 11 --
22 sorry, page 11 paragraph 21 -- about Ms. Hovi is wrong in
23 saying there is inadequate washing of hands and no
24 sterilization of the pithing rod, that is, as Mr. Morris
25 has said, an N question mark. It is a recognition that it
26 served details on what was in the statement already.
27 Again, this was something that was gone into some detail
28 with Mr. Bennett on day 104 -- sorry, I do not know whether
29 I said before, but day 104 is 15th March -- page 31, line
30 37 onwards. That is gone into in some depth and, again, it
31 is not surprising that Ms. Hovi went into more detail when
32 she was in the witness box in order to refute what
33 Mr. Bennett had said in his evidence-in-chief.
34
35 Obviously the matters about sterilizers and hand washing
36 facilities go on for some pages after that in Mr. Bone's
37 statement. I think it should be borne in mind that the
38 Plaintiffs had ample opportunity, if they wanted to, to get
39 a statement from Mr. Bone between December and March of
40 this year saying, "No, it is incorrect that there are
41 insufficient sterilization and hand washing facilities. We
42 have got them in X, Y, Z place", and say where they all
43 were or produce a plan where they all were, and there is
44 absolutely no reason why they should not have done that.
45
46 MR. MORRIS: Another general point while we are going through
47 this that crossed my mind is that Mr. Bennett relied on a
48 whole range of documents which were disclosed before
49 Ms. Hovi's evidence which dealt with swab tests and
50 sterilizations and carcass temperatures and all kinds of
51 matters which, therefore, she obviously was obliged to
52 respond to and the Plaintiffs had ample time to question
53 Mr. Bennett further about them or call other witnesses
54 before Ms. Hovi was heard if they wanted somebody on the
55 ground with a knowledge of what the reality was on the
56 ground.
57
58 I cannot remember now exactly what Mr. Rampton said. It
59 was something to do with meat inspectors. I will just
60 check my notes. It was something to do with how were they
