Day 148 - 05 Jul 95 - Page 48


     
     1        place.
     2
     3   MR. MORRIS:  All the next few pages have N question marks as a
     4        recognition by the Plaintiffs that they are not new
     5        issues.  They are details from her statement and, in many
     6        cases, responses as well to Mr. Bennett.  Can I just say on
     7        the subject of details that a general point is if someone
     8        says, "There is a shortage of facilities for disinfection
     9        of hand tools and knives leading to contamination of
    10        carcasses and meats", as she says in her statement, if, for
    11        example, there are 75 different places in the plant, if
    12        there are 46 places and there should be 75 I do not think
    13        the onus on the writer of the statement to identify all 31
    14        missing places where there should be facilities for
    15        disinfection of hand tools.  Obviously the details are
    16        going to come out in questioning where necessary to develop
    17        the point if contested.  It may be that it would not be
    18        contested or contested by the person doing the
    19        cross-examination.
    20
    21   MS. STEEL:   Can I just say that in terms of paragraph 11 --
    22        sorry, page 11 paragraph 21 -- about Ms. Hovi is wrong in
    23        saying there is inadequate washing of hands and no
    24        sterilization of the pithing rod, that is, as Mr. Morris
    25        has said, an N question mark.  It is a recognition that it
    26        served details on what was in the statement already.
    27        Again, this was something that was gone into some detail
    28        with Mr. Bennett on day 104 -- sorry, I do not know whether
    29        I said before, but day 104 is 15th March -- page 31, line
    30        37 onwards.  That is gone into in some depth and, again, it
    31        is not surprising that Ms. Hovi went into more detail when
    32        she was in the witness box in order to refute what
    33        Mr. Bennett had said in his evidence-in-chief.
    34
    35        Obviously the matters about sterilizers and hand washing
    36        facilities go on for some pages after that in Mr. Bone's
    37        statement.  I think it should be borne in mind that the
    38        Plaintiffs had ample opportunity, if they wanted to, to get
    39        a statement from Mr. Bone between December and March of
    40        this year saying, "No, it is incorrect that there are
    41        insufficient sterilization and hand washing facilities.  We
    42        have got them in X, Y, Z place", and say where they all
    43        were or produce a plan where they all were, and there is
    44        absolutely no reason why they should not have done that.
    45
    46   MR. MORRIS:  Another general point while we are going through
    47        this that crossed my mind is that Mr. Bennett relied on a
    48        whole range of documents which were disclosed before
    49        Ms. Hovi's evidence which dealt with swab tests and
    50        sterilizations and carcass temperatures and all kinds of 
    51        matters which, therefore, she obviously was obliged to 
    52        respond to and the Plaintiffs had ample time to question 
    53        Mr. Bennett further about them or call other witnesses
    54        before Ms. Hovi was heard if they wanted somebody on the
    55        ground with a knowledge of what the reality was on the
    56        ground.
    57
    58        I cannot remember now exactly what Mr. Rampton said.  It
    59        was something to do with meat inspectors.  I will just
    60        check my notes.  It was something to do with how were they

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