Day 289 - 29 Oct 96 - Page 23
1 Sun Valley in the late eighties, taken with the evidence of
2 Mr. Bruton as well.
3
4 Moving on to slaughter, the evidence of Dr. Gregory is in
5 yellow 9, tab 10, page 6 of his statement, going on to
6 pages 7 and 8. When he visited the plant on 19th April
7 1993 Dr. Gregory asked to see the 'dead on arrival' bin.
8 He did not actually say what time of day. I do not
9 remember it being said what time of day he arrived. The
10 bin contained 44 birds, six of which had died from a
11 dislocated hip and one had died from a crushed skull. He
12 notes that the prevalence of dislocated hips was 14
13 percent, which was higher than that which had been recorded
14 in a survey, Gregory and Austin in 1992, which had been of
15 several slaughter plants, including the Sun Valley one.
16
17 At the time he visited the company had two killing lines,
18 one for female and one for male birds, and the line speed
19 was operating at 87 birds per minute. Only two weeks
20 before Dr. Gregory had visited the slaughter plant the
21 killing lines had been changed, and previously there was
22 only one line which had operated at twice the speed and
23 carried both male and female birds. So, all the criticisms
24 that are made by Dr. Gregory in his evidence about the
25 slaughtering of chickens would be far greater two weeks
26 previously.
27
28 For example, he said on day 19, page 66, lines 7 to 17,
29 that because previously the birds had both been put in the
30 same shackles, the same size shackles, that previously the
31 males would have had their shanks compressed more, which
32 could be painful. He relates in his statement on page 7
33 how up to 14 percent -- well, this says 13.5 percent -- of
34 200 birds which he examined, or which he witnessed going
35 through the process... Sorry, that were thought to have
36 had pre-stun shocks which he said caused distress and can
37 be painful... Sorry... If I just read from his statement.
38
39 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can you remind me, because where I have read
40 through witnesses' transcripts of witnesses' evidence or
41 looked at my own notes I have made a point of seeing which
42 of the Plaintiffs' witnesses were asked to aver their
43 statements. I know you did it with your witnesses almost
44 without exception, but it tended later in the day that
45 Mr. Rampton did that after I said something about it last
46 October. What I can't remember at this moment -- although
47 the notes will tell me -- is whether Dr. Gregory averred
48 his statement.
49
50 MR. RAMPTON: No, my Lord. What happened was -- I do not mean
51 to interrupt -- he did not actually aver it, but after a
52 bit he had it with him in the witness box and to a large
53 extent I took him through it.
54
55 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Well, that is what I thought had happened,
56 but I couldn't -----
57
58 MR. RAMPTON: I read it, the transcript, again some time ago.
59
60 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It may be academic in that he may have said
