Day 203 - 12 Jan 96 - Page 51


     
     1
     2   MR. MORRIS:  Moving on from that incident -----
     3
     4   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Can you just remind me?  I am not considering
     5        what may have happened in May or June, if anything, of
     6        1991, but just let me look at Mr. Coton's evidence again.
     7        Yes.  When you have given the evidence you have just given
     8        now you have been referring to the 1991 docking of pay?
     9        A.  Yes, indeed.
    10
    11   Q.   Not what may have happened as one incident or more than one
    12        incident at some earlier time?
    13        A.  That is right.
    14
    15   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, can I just take advantage of this hiatus
    16        to make an observation?  I have been a bit mystified really
    17        where the Defendants think they are going.  As I see it,
    18        what your Lordship said this morning is at the heart of the
    19        matter.  Did Mr. Coton do it?  Yes, by his own admission on
    20        oath, he was caught.  He did it on a far grander scale and
    21        for a much longer time than Mr. Skehel ever knew at the
    22        time or discovered at the time.  That is No. 1.
    23
    24        Second, why did he do it?  Was it, as he said, because the
    25        system made him do it, or was it because he was not a very
    26        good Manager?  As an adjunct to that, if he were right, did
    27        Mr. Davis also do it?  Why all this detail about when it
    28        came up and what Miss Spurgeon said -- in fact, Mr. Coton
    29        said, looking at the 1990 document:  "Yes, Sally was doing
    30        it and she was doing it on that occasion with my approval
    31        and under my authority" ------
    32
    33   MS. STEEL:  If I could just say that actually about that
    34        incident in 1990, Mr. Coton actually said that he did not
    35        know about that at that time and that when he had carried
    36        out this practice he did not do it on that kind of scale.
    37        It was a few hours per time, not several, not, I do not
    38        know how many, 15 people all at one go.
    39
    40   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I appreciate that is what he said but I ---
    41
    42   MS. STEEL:  Also, the point is -----
    43
    44   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  -- thought your case might be that, although
    45        you have called Mr. Coton and you may feel some loyalty to
    46        him, it was happening on a large scale; it had started with
    47        Mark Davis, Mr. Coton kept it on quite a large scale and
    48        that was because of the pressure which was put on managers
    49        to meet their percentage targets, and things of that
    50        nature.  That is what I thought your case as Defendants in 
    51        this action was. 
    52 
    53   MS. STEEL:   Yes, and it is also the Plaintiffs' case that Ray
    54        Coton was just a rogue manager.  It is our case that
    55        Mr. Skehel had it in for Ray Coton, which is why I was
    56        putting the point about he was trying to blame this on Ray
    57        Coton when, clearly, on the face of all the evidence in
    58        front of him, it is actually Sally Spurgeon that done it
    59        and Mr. ------
    60

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