Day 130 - 26 May 95 - Page 18
1 manufacturer.
2
3 Q. Then it goes on about residual current devices "had been
4 used in various stores for various equipment". Is that how
5 you see it?
6 A. Yes, they were already fitted to the three-phase
7 equipment which, obviously, was a higher risk than the
8 normal voltage equipment. Although the EHO did not
9 recommend that we fitted RCDs to all the circuits, that is
10 what we went ahead and did. The notices that he served
11 just referred to certain pieces of equipment, and he was,
12 in fact, extremely surprised that we decided to fit them to
13 all the circuits in the restaurants, but we felt it was the
14 right route to go. But I have to say, even with those
15 fitted, there is absolutely no guarantee that somebody
16 else, sometime, might receive an electric shock.
17
18 Q. He did say: "The use of portable electrical appliances in
19 the wash-up area", this is the prohibition notice, "without
20 the protection of residual current device, will involve a
21 risk of serious personal injury. " So he was certainly
22 applying his advice to the wash up area?
23 A. Yes, in fact, you will have seen the message went out
24 straightaway to all restaurants to get machines RCDs fitted
25 to the filtering machines, even before we did all the
26 circuits, which, obviously, took quite a while to organise.
27
28 Q. That was his particular remit of investigation; he did not
29 have time to check every aspect of store and every -----
30 A. But you will also see he actually gave us, I think it
31 was, two weeks to get that done. So in terms of risks he
32 did not see it was something we needed to do immediately,
33 although we did instruct our stores do it immediately.
34 I think he gave us until the end of November to get it
35 done, sorry, end of October. It is a deferred prohibition
36 notice; it does not come in straightaway.
37
38 Q. You said there had been in that store, in that last
39 paragraph there in that section: "Miniature circuit
40 breakers are fitted to all circuits in the store, but these
41 do not react quickly enough to protect people, their main
42 purpose being to prevent fires"?
43 A. Which is obviously a greater risk to people, even than
44 electric shocks.
45
46 Q. Just on that same page under "Training. We have long
47 recognised the filtering process to be hazardous because of
48 involvement of hot shortening"?
49 A. We discussed that yesterday. Yes, potentially it is
50 hazardous. That is why we have taken care for so long to
51 control the risk by having such tight procedures in place.
52
53 Q. You say on the next page, page 6, your last paragraph: "By
54 law we are required to have at least one First Aider on
55 shift at all times"?
56 A. I believe I was wrong about that. I believe you have
57 to have a responsible person on shift at all times, but not
58 a fully qualified First Aider, but our internal standards
59 are that we have a fully qualified First Aider there at all
60 times. I believe the salaried manager who was due to run
