Day 202 - 11 Jan 96 - Page 34


     
     1        the rest of this week and the beginning of the next, and
     2        you say that that ended up with Mr. Coton doing what he
     3        did, and you say, for good measure, it ended up with
     4        Mr. Davis showing and teaching Mr. Coton how to do it.
     5
     6        That is what you are aiming at, and the detail of it, of
     7        things like this, I do not think is actually going to help
     8        me at the end of the day.
     9
    10   MR. MORRIS:  Yes, I agree and I think it is arguable whether any
    11        of the Plaintiffs' witnesses are contributing at all on the
    12        issues on this subject -----
    13
    14   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Just pause there for the moment.  Whether
    15        they contribute at the end of the day is a matter for me to
    16        decide on the evidence.  I ruled, and I have no reservation
    17        about having ruled it, that since Mr. Coton's evidence did
    18        not come into the matter until October of last year -- by
    19        evidence I mean his statement -- McDonald's are entitled to
    20        recall witnesses like Mr. Atherton and call some fresh
    21        witnesses like Mr. Skehel; but that does not mean that one
    22        has to test every detail and see what else one can get out
    23        of the evidence which might relate to some secondary
    24        consideration.  We have to keep our eye on the ball, which
    25        I hope I have fairly summarised a moment or two ago.
    26
    27   MR. MORRIS:  Yes.  Really what I am doing is protecting
    28        Mr. Coton, who has been attacked and accused of all kinds
    29        of -----
    30
    31   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I know.  By all means do that to some extent
    32        but do not forget that under lining the wrongness of what
    33        Mr. Coton did is part of your case.
    34
    35   MR. MORRIS:  Yes, I understand that.
    36
    37   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Even if, at the end of the day, I were to
    38        find that Mr. Davis was not part of this -- and I do not
    39        find it an easy matter to decide, and I have not begun to
    40        make up my mind about it -- you can still say Mr. Coton was
    41        put into the box.  So, where that takes me, we will have to
    42        see.  But do not forget, although there is always a
    43        temptation to protect your own witness, Mr. Coton's
    44        failures are part of your case.
    45
    46   MR. MORRIS:  I understand that.  The Plaintiffs are just trying
    47        to isolate one or two of the problems that we have
    48        identified from the Colchester store.
    49
    50        (To the witness)  On that subject, on this page, the final 
    51        line about the profitability is that the test for you as a 
    52        Supervisor is to have five stores with sound financial 
    53        control, and not just three.  To you, financial control
    54        means achieving the budget profit percentage targets that
    55        are set for that store?
    56        A.  No.
    57
    58   Q.   Is that not what it says there?
    59        A.  No, that is not what I would have meant by financial
    60        control.  The targets are set, you know, at the end of the

Prev Next Index