Day 291 - 31 Oct 96 - Page 12

     
     1        about the evidence of Dr. Gregory.  I mean, we would say
     2        that if Dr. Gregory criticises a practice then there has to
     3        be something wrong with it, but that really his position
     4        from our point of view is the minimum position, and that
     5        welfare considerations should be put far further ahead of
     6        the economic considerations than are done so by
     7        Dr. Gregory.  I mean, I do not think he made -- you know,
     8        obviously, he is heavily involved in the industry and I do
     9        not think he would try and deny that he was trying to...
    10        that certainly a lot of his evidence...  In fact, he
    11        specified it in a couple of places.  He was making his
    12        recommendations based on taking the economic considerations
    13        into account, whereas in our view it is the welfare
    14        considerations that are first and foremost and if it is
    15        uneconomical then tough luck on the economics because the
    16        animals' welfare is just far more important.
    17
    18        I am going to move on to cows now.  Can I sit down and get
    19        my papers in order?
    20
    MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.  (Pause).
    22
    23   MS. STEEL:   I will go through Mr. Chambers, first.
    24
    25   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Yes.
    26
    27   MS. STEEL:   Mr. Chambers was the quality assurance manager from
    28        Midland Meat Packers, which I think we heard was the
    29        largest of dozens of abattoirs supplying beef for
    30        McDonald's hamburgers.  He had been the quality assurance
    31        manager at Midland Meat for five to six years.  He said
    32        that six to eight hundred cattle were killed at Midland
    33        Meat every day.  That was five days a week, I think.  He
    34        said on page 46, line 53, "They slaughter seven and a half
    35        hours a day on average, five days a week."
    36
    37   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Which day are we on?
    38
    39   MS. STEEL:   Day 97, sorry.
    40
    MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Yes.
    42
    43   MS. STEEL:   600 to 800 cattle were slaughtered a day.  On page
    44        54, line 10  I do not know whether this might be relevant,
    45        but he said on day 98, pages 53 and 54 that they usually
    46        started at seven o'clock in the morning and finished about
    47        3.30.  I think that was relevant to the point that they
    48        were kept in the lairage overnight, and how long they were
    49        kept there.
    50 
    51        He said that they obtained their cows -- this was on day 97 
    52        -- either direct from farms, producers or from markets. 
    53        That was on page 43, line 46.  He did say that the company
    54        owned farms of its own but that generally they were only
    55        used as a sort of top up measure when markets and other
    56        farms were in short supply.  He said on page 46 that the
    57        average age of cows that were supplied to McKeys was about
    58        four years old.  He said that cattle would be transported
    59        to the Midland Meat Packers plant from all over the
    60        country, sometimes hundreds of miles.  That was on day 98,