Butcher's wife Elaine Barr faced searching questions yesterday about the delay in providing a full list of outlets from the shop at the centre of the world's worst E-coli food poisoning case.

Several times, at a fatal accident inquiry into the deaths of 21 elderly people in the outbreak, Mrs Barr, 52, was accused by various lawyers of telling untruths.

The inquiry heard that the outbreak control team was facing ''a ticking clock'' in the race against time to stop the spread of the disease by tracking down where John Barr & Son's cooked meats had been supplied.

But the evidence was that it took several days to discover all the outlets - including cold meat supplies to Scotmid.

During cross-examination about her evidence, North Lanarkshire Council's QC, Mr Colin Sutherland, suggested Mrs Barr was telling ''a considerable number of untruths'' - an accusation she strongly denied.

Mrs Barr, who resigned as a partner in the business last July, said she looked after administration in the 28-year-old business.

Key points in her evidence were:

qall she was told briefly by an environmental health officer on Friday, November 22, 1996, was that there was a food poisoning scare that may be linked to the shop and that cold meats had to be taken off sale as a precaution;

qshe was not asked by the council environmental health officers for a list of wholesale outlets supplied with Barr's cooked meats until the afternoon of Saturday, November 23;

qshe told an officer that afternoon they supplied Scotmid as well as giving him details of other outlets, which he wrote down as she went through invoices in the butcher's office at Caledonian Road;

qshe could have given them information from invoices about Scotmid orders on Friday, November 22, had any of the team asked her to go to the shop that night;

qshe denied she had been asked for a list of those supplied dating back to November 1 and said she did not know why or when she wrote the hand-written list produced in evidence to the inquiry;

qEHOs took away bundles of invoices to sift through to find suppliers.

The inquiry at Motherwell has heard evidence that seven people in the Forth Valley area would not have died had Barr's produced a list of outlets in the area a lot sooner.

The inquiry continues.