Sales records and CCTV footage of purchases made at a Sydney fast food outlet the day a customer claimed she developed salmonella poisoning have been purged, a court has been told.
Monika Samaan, now 11, is suing KFC - through her father Amanwial Samaan - claiming she developed salmonella poisoning from a Twister he bought her at a KFC restaurant at Villawood on October 24, 2005.
KFC denies being responsible for her illness, maintaining there is no sales data to prove a Twister was purchased by Mr Samaan at the time he claims it was.
In the NSW Supreme Court on Monday, Mr Samaan's barrister, Anthony Bartley SC, told the court he believed a "substantial volume of documents" kept by KFC had been purged.
"The purge means we will never have the documents that might allow us to refute there was not a single Twister sold after 3pm on October 24 (2005)," he said.
"If we had those we would be able to match the amount of chicken cooked with the amount of chicken sold."
The court heard the sales records and CCTV footage of the sale were destroyed at the commencement of proceedings.
"We weren't able to find it in May '09," Mr Bartley said.
Mr Bartley is seeking to have KFC's computer records analysed, which he estimates will take three months and cost $100,000.
"We have to deal with these documents that should have been produced, at the latest, in May," he said.
Mr Bartley requested the case's hearing date of November 30 be rescheduled, to allow more time for the purged documents to be accessed and examined.
Justice Stephen Rothman asked for the request to be put in writing, so he can decide whether or not to adjourn the hearing date.
Lawyers for KFC applied to the court to amend its defence to deny that a Twister was bought by Mr Samaan.
"KFC emphatically rejects the suggestion of counsel for the plaintiff that any documents relevant to KFC's sales data have deliberately not been made available by KFC," KFC general manager Angus Armstrong said in a statement on Monday.
"These are totally unsubstantiated suggestions and appear to be an attempt to distract attention from the real issue, which, in light of the sales records, is proving Mr Samaan actually purchased the Twister from the store in the first place."
aap 26 Oct 2009
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