Day 107 - 24 Mar 95 - Page 32


     
     1        or lower than the minimum temperature, well, than the
     2        temperature that they are seeking when they do the internal
     3        tests?
     4        A.  More often than not in the nature of the things, the
     5        error is likely to go on the high side.
     6
     7   Q.   So a result maybe of 75 degrees or 80 degrees, it may be
     8        that there are areas that are lower than that?
     9        A.  Indeed so.
    10
    11   Q.   Does this relate to your view about -- I know it is hygiene
    12         -- the visual hygiene versus inherent hygiene?
    13        A.  That is very much the point, demonstrated by a large
    14        number -- in my observations, from a large number of food
    15        poisoning outbreaks and papers I believe I have submitted
    16        to the court, that hygiene is the prevention of disease.
    17        That is the definition, and the purpose of hygiene is to
    18        prevent disease.  Ergo, a unit which produces or causes
    19        disease is, by definition, not hygienic.
    20
    21        Now, it is very often the case that that premises may be
    22        brilliantly equipped, very clean, brightly lit, well
    23        ventilated, with staff extremely well dressed, very smart,
    24        purposefully managed, yet by the very fact of it producing
    25        a food poisoning case or cases means, by definition, it is
    26        not hygienic.  In that sense, one does see with
    27        almost -----
    28
    29   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  So if you served a million meals and you had
    30        accurate checks for food poisoning as a result, i.e. if you
    31        got over all the problems we have about reporting and so
    32        on, if you had out of a million meals a dozen instances of
    33        food poisoning, that would mean that it was not hygienic in
    34        your terminology, would it?
    35        A.  Exactly so, my Lord.  In fact, 12 out of a million is
    36        very, very poor performance, if you bear in mind how many
    37        meals even an ordinary restaurant can sell over a year.
    38        That would be an unacceptable level of failure.  Yes,
    39        I would in those terms say that that operation was not a
    40        hygienic operation.  In a sense, and it is widely agreed by
    41        so many authorities, that food poisoning is preventable
    42        and, therefore, the definition of a hygienic premises is,
    43        essentially, its ability to prevent food poisoning.
    44
    45   MR. MORRIS:  There is something I was going to ask you -----
    46
    47   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It just occurs to me that eating three meals
    48        a day, a person would have to live for a thousand years to
    49        eat a million meals?
    50        A.  Yes, but in the sense of, say, community feeding (which 
    51        is what we are talking about), if you are serving 200 meals 
    52        a day which is a very small restaurant, say, twice a day 
    53        which would be a typical restaurant that does not run a
    54        breakfast, that means you are serving 400 meals a day, say,
    55        330 so that you can multiply it up; that is a substantial
    56        amount of meals.  Let us work this out.  400 x 300 is,
    57        what, is that 120,000?
    58
    59   Q.   If it was 400 meals a day, or slightly more, if it was all
    60        seven days a week, that would be 3,000, it would be about a

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