Day 146 - 03 Jul 95 - Page 15


     
     1        use a neutral word, by Ms. Hovi.  We dealt with it through
     2        Mr. Bennett and really there was no need to come back to
     3        it.
     4
     5        But, the third blob, the third bullet point, on the first
     6        page under 6 was a specific allegation about the
     7        temperature of meat in the boning hall; whereas, as your
     8        Lordship will recall, when she came to give evidence she
     9        gave a vast amount of evidence about temperatures generally
    10        almost throughout the post slaughtering process.
    11        My Lord, over the page, age of the cows does not matter a
    12        row of beans, so far as we are concerned.  I am not
    13        concerned to take that up with Mr. Bone or anyone else.
    14        Then there are what she has alleged under 7 are actual
    15        infringements or -- I think that these are they -- breaches
    16        of the regulations.  Here, my Lord, one sees a whole series
    17        of very general statements; the second one is a mere
    18        repetition of what was said in the first two on the
    19        previous page.
    20
    21   MR. MORRIS:  Sorry, which one is what?  The second bullet point
    22        No. 7 is the same as the -- a repetition of the first one?
    23
    24   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes, hygiene checks and surface swab programmes.
    25        It is put another way but, in our submission, it is the
    26        same point.  My Lord, from there on in one gets into a
    27        series of generalities:  "No proper separation between the
    28        dirty and the clean side of the slaughterhouse leading to a
    29        considerable risk from airborne contamination of the
    30        dressed carcasses".  No contamination of what she means by
    31        that.  None of the detailed allegations -- now that one has
    32        seen Mr. Bone's statement one knows what to make of them --
    33        about, for example, the use of trollies to cart meat across
    34        the moving line; trollies which, moreover, went out into
    35        the dirty side and were not cleaned before returning to use
    36        within the slaughter hall.
    37
    38        Nothing, for example, about the high puller chains which
    39        she alleged falsely, if Mr. Bone is right, were not
    40        sterilized -- they are, of course, in transition from the
    41        clean to the dirty side -- nothing about that and, as far
    42        as I recall, other things as well.  Then the next one, the
    43        fourth one:  "Throughout the plant there was a shortage of
    44        facilities for disinfection of hand tools and knives
    45        leading to contamination of the carcasses and meat".  No
    46        detail whatsoever; nothing about the pithing rod being
    47        unsterilized; nothing about the pithing rod itself
    48        constituting a risk of contamination; nothing about the man
    49        who does the sticking having no sterilization point for his
    50        knife or, as it turns out, knives; nothing of that kind at 
    51        all. 
    52 
    53        Your Lordship will remember that when she was giving
    54        evidence she was very specific that the man who did the
    55        sticking, whom she mistakenly thought was a different man
    56        from the man who did the stunning and pithing, she was very
    57        specific that that man would have to climb up on to the
    58        legging platform in order to sterilize his knife.  Why, one
    59        asks, is none of that detail in this statement?  It was
    60        there to be had, if the Defendants had wanted it, because

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