Day 111 - 30 Mar 95 - Page 28


     
     1   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  What part of the carcass which is not covered
     2        with hide which is about to be taken off might they touch,
     3        for instance, either with the trolley or bare hands?
     4        A.  Where the feet have been gutted, obviously, those areas
     5        have been exposed already.  Also, the fronting platform is
     6        there.  Usually, the man who fronts the animal basically
     7        opens up the front, the lower front end of the carcass the
     8        hide is there, and he often works in the same area where
     9        the trollies were passed, not necessarily always on his
    10        platform.
    11
    12   MR. MORRIS:  I am not sure if she answered the question.
    13
    14   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  What I am asking, essentially, the animal is
    15        still covered in hide.  The hide itself may well be
    16        contaminated, hence the care you have to take in dehiding.
    17        What I am asking is, and I understand about dehiding being
    18        an area of risk of contamination, but this passing to and
    19        fro is earlier in the line than dehiding.  So, what I am
    20        asking you to do is show me how a part of a carcass which
    21        is not covered by a hide can get contaminated by the
    22        exercise you were talking about?
    23        A.  At this point, where you see the legging platform, at
    24        this point, at the legging platform the carcass's hind feet
    25        are dehided, basically.  That is where the hide is pulled
    26        down from the hind feet.
    27
    28        Also, where you see the fronting platform, it is partly
    29        covered with a grid, the word "fronting", the fronting
    30        platform.  That man usually opens up the chest of the
    31        animal and dehides the front legs.  By the time the carcass
    32        gets to dehiding that is only the hide puller.  By that
    33        time the hide has been removed from the stomach area, from
    34        the chest area, front legs  and back legs already.  The
    35        hide puller only pulls the hide from the sides and from the
    36        back of the carcass.
    37
    38   Q.   So what you are saying is the dirty trolley or dirty hands
    39        could either touch the bare legs of the animal?
    40        A.  And the front, the chest, yes.  There was further
    41        problems with the door areas.  Between the fat room and the
    42        condemned room there are openings and doors to outside
    43        through which doors personnel who worked at the outside, at
    44        the back of the abattoir in the dirty side, used to pass
    45        through the abattoir, either to get to the rest rooms on
    46        the other side of the abattoir to perform some task inside
    47        the abattoir, which was also highly unacceptable.
    48
    49   MR. MORRIS:  Are these the doors that were marked at the top?
    50        A.  Yes, particularly the door between fat room and the 
    51        condemned room.  These doors would, as a rule, get opened 
    52        when I first started working at Jarretts.  Basically they 
    53        were kept open because you could not close them.  They were
    54        in such a bad state of repair that you could not close
    55        them.  They were repaired during the four weeks I was
    56        there.  They were repaired, the doors, and they were
    57        functioning again when I left the plant, but when I came
    58        there the separation at that particular point was very
    59        poor.
    60

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