Day 289 - 29 Oct 96 - Page 18


     
     1        at one point that Mr. Bruton was exaggerating, we did see
     2        some company documents which revealed that the catchers
     3        were instructed to carry up to 6 birds in one hand.
     4        I cannot actually remember the reference for that, but if
     5        you want me to look it up, I will find it.  I do not know
     6        whether you remember it anyway.  (Pause)  They are in
     7        Sun Valley's own documents, anyway, if you want to check.
     8        We did go through them in some detail with Dr. Pattison,
     9        I think.  I cannot actually remember where the reference
    10        is.
    11
    12        Before we went through these documents, Dr. Pattison had in
    13        fact earlier remarked that carrying ten birds using both
    14        hands seemed rather excessive to him.  He agreed that the
    15        birds were carried by one leg.  The birds were loaded 18 to
    16        30 birds into a crate measuring approximately 3 foot by 2
    17        foot by 10 inches.  The references for that are 102, 13, 9
    18        and 46, 56.
    19
    20   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Which day was that?
    21
    22   MS. STEEL:   The second one?
    23
    24   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Yes.
    25
    26   MS. STEEL:   89, 46, 56.  Basically the birds are crammed in as
    27        tight as they can be packed with no concern for the welfare
    28        of the birds.  (Pause)
    29
    30        Just in relation to the catching procedure, Mr. Bruton gave
    31        evidence that when he started working as a catcher for
    32        Sun Valley he was not given any training in how to catch
    33        the birds and put them in the crates.  He said that
    34        basically he went for the interview - this is day 115 and
    35        it starts at the bottom of page 42 - if you got the job you
    36        were told what time to start and then you started the job,
    37        you met the team and you might say to the foreman "how do
    38        you catch these chickens", and he might say "well, this is
    39        the way that I catch it but everyone has their own
    40        different ways and ideas of catching chickens".  He said
    41        there was no specific way shown by Sun Valley of how to
    42        catch the chickens; everyone had their own way of
    43        catching.
    44
    45        He did go on to say that when a supervisor came round
    46        people would be more careful about how they were carrying
    47        out the loading, but that even when the supervisor was
    48        there, if things, as a result, got behind time, the
    49        supervisor would be telling them to pull their finger out
    50        and get a move on because it was creating problems down the 
    51        line. 
    52 
    53        And I asked him:  When they asked you to hurry up, did they
    54        ask you to be very careful.  He said there was no mention
    55        of carefulness, just get on and do the job as if it was
    56        nobody here.  I said:  Do you think you had enough time to
    57        consider the welfare of the birds, to which he replied,
    58        no.
    59
    60        Obviously, if the catchers were given more time to carry

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