Day 111 - 30 Mar 95 - Page 05
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is at the very back of pale volume 1B,
2 unless you are going to be handed another.
3
4 MR. MORRIS: It may take up less space if we give you a copy.
5 It is an unmarked copy (Handed). Is there anything in that
6 that you wish to clarify at all?
7 A. Well, in the light of what I understand has been
8 testified here before, I would want to clarify the points
9 in No. 6, the four points in No. 6. The first point
10 stating: "The Alec Jarrett LTD has no laboratory at the
11 premises neither does it use the service of any other
12 outside laboratory". This should have obviously been
13 written -- I apologise to the court; I should have said "to
14 my knowledge" I can explain.
15
16 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. Take it slowly and steadily. If I may
17 say so, you speak quite quickly. Although you speak very
18 good English, you have some accent still and the
19 combination means that one has to work hard sometimes to
20 keep up with you, so positively try to speak slowly, will
21 you?
22 A. OK. Well, the first point in that paragraph No. 6
23 stating: "The Alec Jarrett LTD has no laboratory at the
24 premises neither does it use the service of any outside
25 laboratory", I would like to clarify that point. In the
26 first place, I feel that I should have written originally
27 -- I am not very used to serving as a witness in court --
28 I should have obviously written "to my knowledge" and I can
29 explain what this means.
30
31 Basically, when I started working at the Alec Jarrett LTD,
32 I enquired whether any laboratory tests were being done
33 because an abattoir of that size, normally you would expect
34 regular swabbing programmes to be in progress and you would
35 expect some other laboratory service being used as well.
36 I was told both by the Local Council representative, the
37 Senior Meat Inspector, David White, who regularly visited
38 the abattoir once a week, at least, and was in charge of
39 reporting to the Local Council about what happened at the
40 abattoir, by him that no laboratory tests were taken, apart
41 from the statutory water microbiology testing.
42
43 I also enquired of the management of the abattoir whether
44 laboratory tests were being taken. They told me no, and
45 I then suggested that I would want to, in considering the
46 way I saw the hygiene, the state of hygiene that was at the
47 abattoir at the time, I considered it essential to do some
48 testing, partly to clarify my point and partly, in my
49 opinion, to use it as a monitoring equipment.
50
51 I was told by Mr. Jarrett, Mr. Robert Jarrett, that he
52 preferred that I would let the matter lie for a while and
53 would not start taking swabs immediately, partly because
54 there is always a cost involved.
55
56 MR. MORRIS: A cost?
57 A. The cost involved in doing these tests. I suggested
58 then that since I had experience doing TVC counts and
59 swabbing myself, to save the costs, I suggested that
60 I would do it myself on the premises and if I had access to