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
