Day 130 - 26 May 95 - Page 14
1 management team, knew about it. She said, no. Just as
2 Robert Chapman was upset at the time everybody was upset at
3 this restaurant. Okay, I am sure she did not bother to
4 check the whole of the restaurant team. They were
5 distraught at the time, as you can imagine.
6
7 Q. Your report was 1992, so you had three or four weeks to
8 conduct the investigation?
9 A. So, it was three weeks afterwards. They were still all
10 distraught -- somebody had died.
11
12 Q. In your report -- we will come to that in a minute -- you
13 refer to -- it was on page 11 of your report -- other
14 electrical faults in the kitchen area and damaged sockets.
15 Have you got your report there?
16
17 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is behind the document you were looking at
18 a moment ago.
19
20 MR. RAMPTON: 57S, my Lord.
21
22 MR. MORRIS: On page 11 of that. Robert Chapman's statement,
23 page 10, he talked about a couple of weeks after the
24 accident a socket hanging off the back wall, and someone
25 protested about it, but it was still used by somebody
26 else. In your report on page 11 you say, there were other
27 electrical faults, additionally panel covers had been
28 incorrectly replaced in the electric room. A cover was
29 missing off a floor socket. There were two broken sockets
30 on the side of the grill. Vince Kelly identified further
31 faults. Do you know what those further faults would have
32 been?
33 A. I really cannot remember now, but there was no doubt
34 there were other electrical repairs needed in the
35 restaurant. The electrical panels would have been a
36 contractor's fault, to have left those off.
37
38 Having said that, it comes back to my comment a few days
39 ago, that I really felt that the restaurant management,
40 surely did not believe they were empowered to spend money
41 as senior management would have instructed them to, and
42 that is because of the culture change in the Company that
43 was starting then and had not got all the way down to the
44 restaurants.
45
46 Q. In your report, while we are on that page, underneath that
47 paragraph I referred to in the middle of the page, it
48 says: "The Environmental Health Officer gave advice on the
49 need to educate staff not to use faulty equipment and
50 sockets, and spoke of blatant criminal negligence by the
51 Company or individuals". Is that for the using of
52 the -----
53
54 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am going to totally ignore that because
55 I have to form my own view on a topic such as that.
56
57 MR. MORRIS: Right, OK. Mr. Chapman's statement, point 11.
58
59 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You want me, quite rightly, to ignore any
60 criticism which was made of Robert Chapman. The same
