Day 295 - 06 Nov 96 - Page 15
1 if they do not want to, they basically synthesise, if that
2 is the right word, all the meat that has arrived in order
3 to guarantee that the contamination in one piece of meat
4 will be spread throughout their products. Do not forget,
5 E.Coli is potentially deadly in even very, very low amounts
6 -- I cannot think of the word. And that is all something
7 that is very particular to this whole process, because
8 normally, if there was going to be contamination of a beef
9 product, that is not ground meat, it would be cooked on the
10 surface and therefore people's penchant for raw beef would
11 not be endangering their lives because the surface would be
12 cooked to a very high temperature.
13
14 So, really, what is left in this very fragile and flawed
15 system is just the cooking, which in itself is fragile and
16 flawed.
17
18 Just to say that the figures for the number of cattle on
19 that page that I referred to, about 6,900, it is not
20 immediately clear on that page whether it is 6,900 head of
21 cattle or 69,000 head of cattle. But it could be worked
22 out easily from the volumes that we gave on that day.
23
24 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Well, I will have a look, because you have
25 given me the reference.
26
27 MR. MORRIS: Yes, I mean, there are other references.
28
29 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I mean, it is -- yes.
30
31 MR. MORRIS: We know that they take beef from -- it says on
32 that page, "eight percent of all the cattle slaughtered in
33 this country", which is a staggering figure, eight percent;
34 that is on that page. In fact, for the record, on the same
35 day -- day 80, page 31 -- there are details about pigs.
36 I think that was referred to by Mr. -- (Pause).
37
38 MR. JUSTICE BELL: By whom?
39
40 MS. STEEL: I actually read them out the other day when I was
41 doing the animal section.
42
43 MR. MORRIS: That is Mr. Walker, page 31, day 80, anyway.
44
45 Moving on to page 45, here we have the reference. The top
46 reference is about tying off the oesophagus and bung before
47 the animal is cut up. That was a new specification
48 produced. Mr. Walker, then on the second reference --
49 I think that is Mr. Walker stated that two to three guts
50 per day are split open in error even despite this
51 specification, and he said the carcass then has to be
52 washed, which is discouraged by expert witnesses.
53 Timothy Chambers felt that this process was likely to lead
54 to bacterial contamination. We have the date there.
55
56 On the third reference, the specification on the tying up
57 of the -- no, to sample E.Coli was in October 1991. It
58 says here, in his actual evidence -- not in his statement
59 -- he gave evidence that the specification was not changed
60 until the end of 1993 in reality. Yes, I recall that now.
