Darren,
Many years ago when I worked for a computer peripherals manufacturer, we had a directive from the people on high to check every 240 volt 3 pin mains plugtop in the factory. The company had just been bought out from it's American parent company, and was now under UK engineering control, instead of American engineers being on the shop floor.
As you can imagine, over 1,000 employees, and any personal equipment they brought into the factory had to be checked as well, from tape players to hair curling tongues.
It took two of us, full time, over a month to sweep the whole factory clean. Separate every plugtop and cable, cut all the wires to correct length, so that if the cable was yanked, first to go was live, then neutral and finally the earth. Solder them up (or crimp, if we had any), reassemble, check continuity, and stick a safe to use sticker on it.
You wouldn't believe some of the plug wiring we found, especially as the American engineers never did manage to pick up our electrical safety regs. Luckily, the other maintenance guys did the machinery installations, and they were onto a loser before they even started. Most of them were nervous wrecks by the time they finished, purely because of some of the things they found. A lot of the main cable connections were made by twisting the bare ends together, and then putting a little twisty on cap over it, these joints were everywhere.
I think I could still wire a mains plug up correctly, in the dark, doing it behind my back, while fast asleep.
John