Day 198 - 08 Dec 95 - Page 33
1 I propose to allow Mr. Rampton to call Mr. Harney on that
2 point and to allow the Defendants to recall Mr. Gibney in
3 relation to the pressure, or lack of it, which he witnessed
4 at any other store in this area.
5
6 The only other thing I will add is that once further
7 witnesses come into the witness box, whether they are new
8 witnesses or witnesses who are recalled, it may not be easy
9 to restrict them to the topics which Mr. Rampton has
10 enumerated in his submission a moment or two ago. I fear
11 that I will have to be generous about any spread of the
12 evidence, but I hope that Mr. Rampton, Mr. Atkinson,
13 Ms. Steel and Mr. Morris will try and confine
14 examination-in-chief and cross-examination essentially to
15 the questions of clocking crew's hours and pressure to pair
16 costs.
17
18 MS. STEEL: Yes. There is another thing that I wanted to raise
19 which is about the matter of documents. We have been
20 served a whole load of documents over the past couple of
21 weeks about the Colchester store and the other day we got
22 the store Profit and Loss report, and I am extremely
23 concerned about this because before this trial even
24 started, when we had our witness statements about the
25 Colchester store, we asked for discovery of all documents
26 in the Plaintiffs' possession relating to the issues which
27 were as set out in our witnesses' statements, and our
28 witnesses talked about the labour per cent for one thing
29 and also about payroll matters. We were assured by the
30 Plaintiffs that they did not have any more documents, any
31 documents at all -- in fact, I think the only thing we got
32 from Colchester eventually was the Accident Book -- we
33 were assured that they did not have any documents
34 whatsoever to do with this, and now, all of a sudden, they
35 are pulling out masses of documents from out of a hat - PR
36 reviews and particularly this store Profit and Loss report,
37 which are clearly relevant to the evidence that was set out
38 in the statements of our earlier witnesses.
39
40 I know I am going to be told this is a matter to bring up
41 at the end, but I would like -- I do not know whether there
42 is some kind of action that can be taken to require the
43 Plaintiffs to make absolutely sure that they have disclosed
44 everything in their possession which is relevant to the
45 issues which are in dispute about the Colchester store,
46 because clearly they had not done so until two weeks ago,
47 and it is my belief that it is very likely there is still
48 more there, there is still more there now. Mr. Brett did
49 say in his statement that the clock card records going back
50 several years were stored in the loft at the Colchester
51 store, and, well, I am just extremely concerned by the
52 Plaintiffs' tactics on this matter.
53
54 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I do not (inaudible). I would deprecate
55 the kind of implied accusation that Ms. Steel makes; it
56 does not improve the shining hour and it is misplaced. The
57 original discovery made in relation to Colchester -- I have
58 to say this; I should not have to -- was, of course,
59 confined to the period which was relevant which was,
60 I think, until the 1st August, or thereabouts, 1987.
