Day 190 - 23 Nov 95 - Page 30
1 "interview with Lynval, Assistant Manager", or "interview
2 with Mark Ryan, Second Assistant Manager", and since
3 Ms. Lamb's statement starts out: "This is to confirm that
4 I recall the following two interviews made in the course of
5 researching into working practices at McDonald's", I would
6 infer that she asked the questions and got the answers in
7 the course of research, rather than in order to find out
8 how she stood, for instance. She was not an employee at
9 Holborn -- I think it was Holborn, was it not, Mark Ryan?
10
11 MR. RAMPTON: That, my Lord, with respect, is entirely right.
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I suppose it may be a question for the
14 Defendants. At the moment, it looks as if the questions
15 posed by Ms. Lamb to Lynval, although she worked at
16 Kentish Town, were posed as a researcher ---
17
18 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, exactly.
19
20 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- rather than an employee.
21
22 MR. RAMPTON: Exactly the same is true of the interview with
23 Mark Ryan. One only has to look at it to see that it
24 contains a whole lot of generalities about the conduct of
25 the store's business and the way the employees are treated,
26 and so on and so forth; and they are generalities which
27 have nothing whatever and could not conceivably have been
28 given as answers to questions like: What will my hours be?
29 How much am I going to be paid? When will I get a
30 performance review?
31
32 MR. MORRIS: Can I help the court here on the subject?
33
34 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I suggest you wait until Mr. Rampton has
35 finished. Then I would like you to help me on that.
36
37 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, further than that, they do not have the
38 character of inquiries by an employee as to what her
39 conditions are going to be, any of them, neither the
40 statements in Mark Ryan's interview, nor those in
41 Lynval's. They are all answers, quite obviously, to
42 general questions.
43
44 But, my Lord, further than that, whilst a Manager would be
45 authorised to tell an employee what his or her working
46 conditions are likely to be, and so on and so forth, even
47 if he was deceived into thinking that the person was an
48 employee rather than a journalist, he would certainly not
49 be authorised to give out a whole lot of information about
50 the Company's general business and practices.
51
52 There is perhaps a further point. I have not thought about
53 this. One might have to ask oneself: what would be the
54 effect of such a deception? One would perhaps answer it
55 with another question: would not such a fraud, in the
56 broad term, actually invalidate the authority?
57
58 MR. JUSTICE BELL: We do not know it is a fraud because, for all
59 I know, Ms. Lamb was quite open about her purpose, if the
60 purpose was to pose the questions as an interviewer rather
