Day 130 - 26 May 95 - Page 07
1 Environmental Health Officers initially said they would be
2 able to release their own statements to us, and the second
3 reason, the main reason, was that we did not feel it
4 was fair on the people who were in the store at the time,
5 because they were distressed enough already. We did not
6 really want to put them through having to give the story,
7 what would have been possibly three times, in some cases,
8 because the Police also took statements.
9
10 Q. You did as thorough an investigation as you possibly could?
11 A. I pulled together all the full facts as I knew them at
12 the time, from having spoken to people who had sat in on
13 witnesses giving statements.
14
15 Q. Was your investigation as thorough as the Company could
16 make?
17
18 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It was not because she did not interview the
19 people concerned, for the reasons she gave.
20
21 MR. MORRIS: I believe some people were interviewed?
22 A. They were not interviewed by McDonald's.
23
24 Q. But apart from that?
25 A. As I say, I gathered together -----
26
27 Q. Was it as thorough as you could make?
28 A. I gathered together as many facts as I could at the
29 time, just bearing in mind what I told you.
30
31 Q. You said the staff were upset. In this opening
32 paragraph. "He said: 'I was upset, extremely upset',
33 naturally so 'and I may not have included full relevant
34 details when questioned'". Would you accept that is
35 likely to be true, when someone is extremely upset, they
36 may not give all the details?
37 A. I suppose that is possible. There is no doubt he would
38 have been extremely upset. We were all extremely upset.
39 And, again, having been a Restaurant Manager myself, I know
40 how close a community is in a restaurant.
41
42 Q. Did you check whether the First Aid box was under-stocked?
43 A. I did not check the First Aid box; it did not seem to
44 have any relevance to this particular accident.
45
46 Q. Did you check if the store was under-staffed at the time of
47 the accident?
48 A. Although it is not included in my report, from what
49 I understand, from what I remember, there was five, maybe
50 six, people in the restaurant at the time which is pretty
51 normal for a close.
52
53 Q. He said: "It was often under-staffed for the close, hence
54 we had to rush to finish in time"; is that pretty normal?
55 A. It sounds like a subjective statement on his behalf
56 then. It is down to the Restaurant Manager in each
57 restaurant to decide how many crew are needed for a
58 particular time of the day.
59
60 Q. Did you investigate whether that was enough staffing?
