Day 197 - 07 Dec 95 - Page 71
1 MR. RAMPTON: It is eight days afterwards. He was promoted on
2 1st April.
3
4 MS. STEEL: Yes, but the point is this says: "I am promoting
5 you to First Assistant effectively immediately."
6 A. I was actually promoted at the end of this review if
7 I remember correctly.
8
9 MR. RAMPTON: Do not worry about it, Mr. Coton. It does not
10 matter to me in the very slightest whether you were
11 already appointed or just about to. It may be this
12 performance review was dated later than it was made. It
13 really does not matter in the slightest. My question is
14 this: Are you really saying that that reference to milk
15 shakes, "Do you know what constitutes a quality shake?"
16 could credibly have been given by the very man who had
17 instructed everybody to water them down?
18 A. It was.
19
20 Q. So this is another case of, what? This is just a front,
21 is it?
22 A. A case of what, sorry?
23
24 Q. This is just a front, is it?
25 A. Not so much a front. We all knew what the quality
26 was, what was expected. As I said before, there are
27 standards that they want and then the standards that
28 actually happen. You are judged on two things.
29
30 Q. Let us just look, if we may, at some of the references to
31 the quality of the shakes when you were Manager. The
32 first one is on page 35 which is your performance review
33 by Mark Davies dated 11th May 1988. Again I remind you
34 that your evidence is that Mark Davies was in this
35 business up to his neck, if I may make a bad joke about
36 it. Will you also accept from me, without our having to
37 go through all the performance reviews, that there is in
38 Mark Davies' performance reviews as Manager no reference
39 to the quality of the milk shakes, and that this is the
40 first reference, apart from the one I showed you by Frank
41 Stanton, this is the first reference of any kind of milk
42 shakes in any of your performance reviews as Manager?
43
44 Now look, please, at page 35 under "QSC". There are a
45 number of numbered items. The sixth says "drinks low
46 calibration". Do you see that?
47 A. Yes.
48
49 Q. If you calibrate the drinks too low they become watery, do
50 they not?
51 A. They do.
52
53 Q. The cola tanks at Colchester were on the third floor, were
54 they not?
55 A. Correct.
56
57 Q. Or at least the third inhabitant?
58 A. Yes.
59
60 Q. The second floor actually. Ground and the first floor
