Day 203 - 12 Jan 96 - Page 26
1 like, for Leisure World, store 399.
2
3 Q. Were most of the salaried management that were working in
4 the other stores, the Tolgate, and who opened up the actual
5 Leisure World store from the Colchester area, most of them,
6 not all of them?
7 A. I mean, I cannot remember the exact management team of
8 the Leisure World, you know. I think, you know, just sort
9 of, generally speaking, I would have looked for who
10 I considered to be the most suitable applicants and it
11 would have been in the Ipswich, Colchester, Clacton area.
12 I do not know, I think John Atherton, who was my senior
13 Supervisor, would have been involved and he might have
14 recommended one or two other people as well, and if there
15 was somebody available to come down from Peterborough who
16 was a trainee Manager who was keen, who wanted to help with
17 the opening, then they would have included too. I cannot
18 remember the exact names though.
19
20 Q. But there would have been a premium around this period on
21 experienced management available for running stores in the
22 Colchester area?
23 A. Well, I did not have a problem with identifying who was
24 going to run the store, because I had identified the person
25 and we had -- I do not remember if there was a struggle or
26 if there was -- yes, sure, I mean, new stores opening, we
27 need the people available, but I am not sure if there was a
28 problem with it at all. I do not think there was.
29
30 Q. Moving on in your statement, how many of your visits to the
31 store were announced visits and how many were unannounced,
32 percentage wise? Half of them announced and half of them
33 unannounced or what?
34 A. I do not remember. I mean, I thought about this.
35 I did a lot of announced and a lot of unannounced visits to
36 the restaurant.
37
38 Q. Would it be around half and half-ish?
39 A. I guess, I guess.
40
41 Q. So, you were visiting approximately three times a week, yet
42 very few of your unannounced visits coincided with Ray
43 Coton's presence in the restaurants which you found
44 frustrating. You deliberately went down there when you
45 knew he would not be there, did you not?
46 A. No, I went down there when I thought he would be there,
47 in fact, because the sorts of times I would turn up would
48 be a Saturday morning when I would expect the Store Manager
49 to be there, because it is the busiest day of the week, and
50 maybe Ray was not in until 10 o'clock, but I would have
51 expected the Store Manager in this particular store to be
52 there at a more appropriate time on a Saturday, making sure
53 it was going to run well, and that is what happened, you
54 know, or I would -- they were the occasions that I remember
55 -- or I would turn up on a Monday morning when the
56 restaurant should be completing the weekly work, when again
57 I would expect a restaurant Manager who was not in full
58 control of his accounts and who needed to have his finger
59 on the pulse and really know what was going on and have a
60 full understanding of how the information was being
