Day 115 - 06 Apr 95 - Page 02

     
     1                                      Thursday, 6th April, 1995.
     2
     3                        DR. ALAN GIBSON LONG, recalled
     4                  Cross-Examined by Mr. Rampton, continued.
     5
     6   MR. RAMPTON:  Dr. Long?
     7        A.  Good morning.
     8
     9   Q.   Did you get that bundle of transcripts?
    10        A.  I did indeed.
    11
    12   Q.   Did you get a chance to look at it?
    13        A.  I skimmed through it, yes.
    14
    15   Q.   I hope it did not take too long?
    16        A.  Thank you for your kind thoughts!
    17
    18   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  There we are; let us see how we go.
    19
    20   MR. RAMPTON:  Anyhow, you have managed to digest at any rate the
    21        effect of the evidence of Mr. Bowes, Dr. Gregory and
    22        Mr. Chambers?
    23        A.  I think mostly, yes.  I found it very confusing in
    24        parts.
    25
    26   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  The burden is not on you to make any sense of
    27        it.  All you have to do, Dr. Long, is answer Mr. Rampton's
    28        questions.  Do not feel on your metal or under any burden
    29        to think of something which was the transcript which you
    30        remember or cannot remember.
    31
    32   MR. RAMPTON:  Absolutely not, Dr. Long, nor am I proposing to
    33        subject to you some kind of viva voce memory test.  You
    34        will have been confused, I think, in one or two places in
    35        Mr. Bowes' transcript where you see the word "peak", that
    36        is Norfolk for "pig".  Can I ask you a couple of general
    37        questions, please, Dr. Long?  Am I right that, in an ideal
    38        world, so far as you are concerned, none of what is done
    39        either in Midland Meat Packers or at Watton in Norfolk,
    40        G.D. Bowes, would happen at all in an ideal world?
         A.  Right.
    42
    43   Q.   But that your position is that you have to operate in a
    44        world as it is and what you strive for is an improvement in
    45        the conditions in establishments which exactly exist  ---
    46        A.  Right.
    47
    48   Q.   -- and do business.  Given due allowance then for that
    49        necessary compromise with reality, do you see from reading
    50        those transcripts or from your general knowledge of 
    51        intensive farming and slaughtering, that there is very 
    52        often a coincidence of interest between the producer and 
    53        the animal?
    54        A.  Yes.  I think there is more of a coincidence with the
    55        customer, and the customer then exercises his or her
    56        influence on the producer.  I am emboldened to say some of
    57        this because the work that we did in the 1980s and so on
    58        has seen some expression in what I have read in these,
    59        well, what I have heard in these days.
    60