Day 182 - 02 Nov 95 - Page 39


     
     1        taking instructions?
     2
     3   MR. RAMPTON:  Can I say this, so far as the night closers
     4        business is concerned, I think I am right, that the
     5        evidence the witness gave can only be hearsay.  So I do not
     6        propose to ask him any questions about that.  I looked back
     7        at Caseview, and it is quite clear that he did not know
     8        anything about it at the time.  So I will leave that, if
     9        I may.
    10
    11        So far as the issue, if there is an issue, about what
    12        Mr. Graham or Mr. Holm said at various meetings, that is an
    13        issue on the evidence, and I do not propose to take that
    14        up.
    15
    16        I have managed to speak to Mr. Holm.  I have to say, I did
    17        it on a mobile phone during the adjournment; the link was
    18        not very good.  I spoke to him and to one of his
    19        assistants.  I have some instructions, but nothing like the
    20        detail that I need to deal with all the assertions -- and
    21        I do not mean that in any kind of suggestive way -- the
    22        assertions that the witness has made about what he would
    23        see, I think, as improvement in conditions since the union
    24        agreement was signed.  Now, that may be an important
    25        matter.  I have some instructions -----
    26
    27   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  They may be of some importance, especially
    28        since I, from time to time during this case -- I remember
    29        what you said in opening about, if there was antipathy to
    30        unions, so what?  One has to look at what, if any,
    31        difference that makes to working conditions.  So I will say
    32        quite openly that I am alert during the case to see whether
    33        it might.  I remember what Mr. Turnbull said.  He spoke of
    34        certain conditions, but was quite candid that he did not
    35        think in this country it would have improved pay rates
    36        significantly.  But here we have in Norway a suggestion
    37        that it resulted in immediate improvement.
    38
    39   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes; and the witness -- and it is no criticism of
    40        him at all -- in support of that proposition, the witness
    41        gave a volume of detail, none of which I had had prior
    42        notice of.
    43
    44        What I have managed to do is to get some broad instructions
    45        about the broad proposition which the witness has made, and
    46        I can certainly put those to him.  Whether he is in a
    47        position to answer my questions, since he has only worked
    48        at one restaurant -- true, he has been a union
    49        representative -- I just do not know.   I will just have to
    50        try.  What I do not have and cannot have in the time 
    51        available to me is the detail that I would want to have if 
    52        I were to conduct the kind of what I would call properly 
    53        structured cross-examination that I would prefer to conduct
    54        on this part of his evidence, which I apprehend -- I do not
    55        know, I cannot speak for Lordship -- on that part of his
    56        evidence, the unheralded part, is the part which I think
    57        may have some importance in the case.
    58
    59   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  My parting shot, literally, before lunch was
    60        on the basis really that I know that Mr. Jenssen was

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