Day 291 - 31 Oct 96 - Page 03
1 me a sheet of paper with all the references you have built
2 up like that and, if you have found them, the pages I need
3 to look at.
4
5 It is completely unproductive, as I am sure you realise
6 perfectly well yourself, having these pauses of a minute or
7 two like we had yesterday while you look for something
8 which you do not have at your fingertips.
9
10 MS. STEEL: The problem is, as we have said, we have not had
11 enough time to prepare properly.
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think you have. I wish you would not keep
14 saying that.
15
16 MS. STEEL: Well, it is the reality of the situation. There is
17 nothing else we can say.
18
19 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Carry on with your submissions. Do bear
20 this in mind. I think what you have just said confirms my
21 increasing anxiety about the matter and, depending on the
22 progress we make today and tomorrow, I will see whether I
23 really think I have to lay down a schedule for you and
24 Mr. Morris to complete your submissions by 22nd November.
25 I will hear whatever you have to say and then I will make a
26 decision one way or the other and I will give my reasons
27 for it.
28
29 MS. STEEL: The other reference is day 92, page 4, and I asked
30 Mr. Gomez Gonzales: "So McDonald's have not said to you,
31 'you have to make sure that all the pigs supplied to us
32 are reared outdoors'?" He said: "We have not said that,
33 it is not part of our requirement that they have to be
34 raised outdoors".
35
36 The other one is on day 95, page 17, with reference to
37 shareholder proposals of the American Society for the
38 Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to be brought up at a
39 McDonald's Corporation shareholders' meeting. That
40 proposal stated that 60 percent of all hogs are now housed
41 intensively in total confinement. The reference for that
42 was Farm Animals Husbandry Behaviour and Veterinary
43 Practice.
44
45 I asked Mr. Gomez Gonzales whether or not he would accept
46 those figures, and he said: 'Yes'. And the reference that
47 I have got, I have got the day wrong, I think, is one where
48 he said that they would just buy pigs from the general pig
49 market; there would not be anything unusual about the way
50 that pigs are reared. So, obviously, if the industry
51 standard is that 60 percent are reared indoors intensively,
52 then 60 percent at least of McDonald's pigs are going to be
53 reared indoors intensively in the USA.
54
55 We heard from Dr. Gregory that when he visited the Bowes
56 slaughter plant to observe the slaughter of the pigs he
57 calculated that the current used to stun the pigs was 0.45
58 amps, and we heard that the government's Codes of Practice
59 state that for head only stunning the current should be a
60 minimum of 1.3 amps, otherwise the pig is unlikely to be
