Day 105 - 16 Mar 95 - Page 03
1 hygiene side?
2 A. Well, the Health & Safety Executive deal purely with
3 occupational safety so, yes, it was occupational safety and
4 still is.
5
6 Q. Are they a statutory body?
7 A. Yes, they are the enforcement authority for the Health
8 & Safety at Work Act.
9
10 Q. Do they occasionally do reports on individual companies?
11 A. The Health & Safety Officer, as he is now called,
12 formerly the factory inspector, which is still his usual
13 form of address, will visit any factory on occasion and
14 report to the occupier as he finds.
15
16 Q. If the H&SE, say, for example, visited a company and found
17 it was putting the welfare of the customers before the
18 welfare of the staff, would that be quite a serious
19 allegation to make?
20 A. I can only answer that in very general terms because
21 I have not been asked to comment in my witness statement on
22 health and safety. With that in mind, even so, I could not
23 judge for a factory inspector. Again, in general terms,
24 clearly, if he has got before him a contravention of the
25 Health & Safety at Work Act, or the regulations made under
26 it, it is up to him to decide what course of action to
27 take.
28
29 Q. You said that since 1990 companies have to demonstrate due
30 diligence if, as a defence against convictions for breaches
31 of -- it is a defence when, for example, someone has
32 suffered a food poisoning incident; is that correct?
33
34 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That is not really how it would come about.
35
36 MR. MORRIS: No.
37
38 MR. JUSTICE BELL: A food poisoning incident would not
39 necessarily mean there was even a prime facie case, would
40 there, in contravention of the Food Act?
41 A. Quite, my Lord. The incidents of food poisoning
42 outbreak ----
43
44 Q. It may get you on the trail of a breach of the provisions
45 of the Act?
46 A. Exactly. There is an investigation carried out by the
47 Local Authority Health Department, and if those
48 investigations lead them to believe there has been a
49 contravention of the legislation at some stage, again they
50 will decide whether there is a prosecution justified.
51
52 MR. MORRIS: Can you just explain, though, what the due
53 diligence -----
54
55 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is a matter of law and it is not for a
56 witness to answer, Mr. Morris.
57
58 MR. MORRIS: I thought there was something introduced in 1990
59 that affected the industry which is why we brought it up in
60 your examination-in-chief.
