Speeches by Dollimore.

“How were they doing that? Were they speaking to the media?”

“When did you issue the notice?”

“At what time?”

“More people got sick because your company took too long. Would you accept that?”

“Moving on to the cryptosporidium incident, which was a very serious incident last summer when up to 1,000 people in Devon were made sick by your company poisoning the water supply. There were failures of communication. We have heard from local MPs that the communication was severely lacking. We have heard that you refu…”

“You were not able to speak to the media?”

“We will come on to the incident and the details of that shortly, but is it correct that you have turned down media interviews at times of extreme panic among your customers?”

“You have talked about how you, as a company, are committed to transparency. I have heard that when you have had ongoing major incidents, the local BBC and ITV asked for interviews with you and that you, as chief executive, have refused to be interviewed by the media, for example, during the cryptosporidium incident. Is…”

“Susan, we have heard a lot about your company’s failures in terms of sewage and flooding. We are going to come on to talk about an incident that landed your customers in hospital, it was so serious. But, apart from your last answer where you said you were sorry to hear something, I have not heard you say sorry to your …”

“So, you had your team speak to the media but you, as chief executive, would not front that media in a time of severe crisis for your customers.”

“But you thought it was appropriate to take that dividend at a time when people had ended up in hospital after your company’s failings?”

“You did not take your annual bonus, but you added extra to your pay.”

“You could have turned it down.”

“You accept therefore that your procedures failed in this case, people got sick as a result, and you apologise to those people who ended up sick?”

“You have just outlined a lot of detail around the testing procedure but what seems to be the clearest takeaway from that is that your testing procedures failed, because the HSA told you there was cryptosporidium; you did your own version of testing and thought there was not; and you left it too long and then issued the…”

“When did you issue the notice?”

“At what time?”

“More people got sick because your company took too long. Would you accept that?”

“Moving on to the cryptosporidium incident, which was a very serious incident last summer when up to 1,000 people in Devon were made sick by your company poisoning the water supply. There were failures of communication. We have heard from local MPs that the communication was severely lacking. We have heard that you refu…”

“If you have future incidents of this nature, will you commit to speaking to the local media during the incident to give reassurance to customers who are scared about how they drink water?”