Day 128 - 24 May 95 - Page 56


     
     1        electric shocks.  As I explained to you, that really was
     2        all driven in, between the Task Force, by the expert people
     3        that needed to be involved, the equipment people, Keith
     4        Smith, myself, and was not driven by the Task Force.
     5
     6   Q.   What did the Task Force discuss then?
     7        A.  I really cannot recollect everything that has been
     8        discussed there over the last few years.
     9
    10   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Can I suggest something which might -- I am
    11        not prejudging the matter at this stage -- be relevant?
    12        First of all, might there have been information given to
    13        the meeting about numbers of accidents of a particular kind
    14        or trends for accidents to be increasing or falling away,
    15        which information does not actually appear in the tabulated
    16        statistics, which you have been asked to look at from time
    17        to time, in this bundle?
    18        A.  Certainly, for more recent times that is included in
    19        there.  My reports -----
    20
    21   Q.   What sorts of thing?
    22        A.  It would be exactly as you said, sir, the trends in
    23        accidents, whether they are up or whether they are down,
    24        insurance trends as well.  That would not be the case,
    25        though, going back to 1990/1991 because they did not exist.
    26
    27   Q.   You said the last two or three years?
    28        A.  Yes.
    29
    30   Q.   What about electric shocks, in particular?  Do you recall
    31        whether there would be anything in the minutes which gave
    32        figures for the number of electric shocks reported or any
    33        trend or tendency with regard to them?
    34        A.  I think it was quite a high probability.
    35
    36   MS. STEEL:  What about discussions about changing the flooring
    37        and introduction of different types of grills to prevent
    38        burns and things like that?
    39        A.  Grills, no, that would not have been in there because
    40        that was -- that decision was taken for a different reason.
    41
    42   Q.   That was for food safety reasons?
    43        A.  It was for Operational reasons really.  The flooring
    44        possibly, but, again, that was a decision that went to
    45        senior management to take, and was not a proposal put by
    46        the then Task Force.
    47
    48   Q.   When something goes to senior management to discuss, is
    49        that discussed at a meeting?
    50        A.  It is discussed at a meeting, but going back to the 
    51        time when we were talking about slip-resistant flooring, 
    52        which was 1990, as I said earlier, there certainly would 
    53        not have been any minutes taken there.
    54
    55   Q.   Is that senior management with a particular interest in
    56        health and safety, or just senior management in general?
    57        A.  In general.
    58
    59   Q.   So senior management now minute the meetings of that ----
    60        A.  Our culture is more these days that we take minutes.

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