Day 111 - 30 Mar 95 - Page 26
1 point of concern.
2
3 As far as the separation between the "dirty" and the
4 "clean" side, the next point would be the whole area at
5 the top of the plan. This area here on the other side of
6 boiler, the hide and skins, gut room, fat room. This area
7 is where all the offal from the slaughterhouse goes to an
8 open courtyard. Also this is where the trucks bringing in
9 the cattle pass by to get to the lairage which is at the
10 end of the at the evidence cattle race at the left-hand
11 side of the picture. This is, obviously, a very, very
12 dirty area and we were very concerned to keep that well
13 separated from the ------
14
15 Q. Can I just try and clarify something? When you say "dirty",
16 you do not necessarily mean "grime"? Do you mean "dirty"
17 in a bacteriological sense?
18 A. Yes, I mean possible contamination. "Dirty" in the
19 sense that it is a source of possible contamination.
20
21 Q. Do carry on?
22 A. So this separation on this side of the slaughterhouse
23 was very poor, partly because Jarretts is a one plan
24 abattoir. A lot of cattle abattoirs, in particular, are
25 two plan abattoirs where all the offal, which is basically
26 dirty offal, the feed, the hides, the horns, the guts, go
27 usually underneath the slaughter hall through chutes which
28 is a very accepted hygienic practice.
29
30 Here, Jarretts, everything from slaughter hall that was
31 discarded from the carcasses and was dirty, went through
32 the slaughter hall into the other side. The picture is
33 lacking in a sense that there is a door from the slaughter
34 hall -- this was my greatest point of concern -- there is a
35 door from the slaughter hall into the hides and skins
36 room. It is a double door. They are basically swing
37 doors, rubber swing doors.
38
39 Q. Is that next to where says "hatch"?
40 A. No, the hatch is there. That hatch is for the hide to
41 go through and for the chains from the hide are passed back
42 to the slaughter hall through. That is an acceptable
43 hatch. It has plastic flaps on it.
44
45 Q. The door would be next to the hatch?
46 A. The door is next to that, next to the hatch. It is a
47 fairly big double door, the door opening where there is
48 rubber door with plastic windows on it. This door is used
49 during the slaughtering to push trollies, fairly large
50 trollies, sort of the width of more than one yard, about
51 four feet wide trollies, which are full of basically the
52 front feet and the back feet of animals, the horns of the
53 animals, the discarded bits basically from the dressing of
54 the animal. These trollies are kept where you see the
55 sheep line. That is obviously an empty space on the floor
56 while you are not slaughtering sheep.
57
58 Q. Could you identify exactly where the trollies were kept?
59 A. The trollies were kept exactly under that sheep line.
60
