Day 203 - 12 Jan 96 - Page 48
1 expedience ---
2 A. There may be other reasons.
3
4 Q. -- or carelessness? I understand you are referring to
5 docking hours pay?
6 A. In terms of expedience, sorry, I do not mean in terms
7 of -- there may be other functions which other people could
8 perform which, for example, might help speed up a close.
9 You know, if Sally had a job to do on the floor -- not just
10 Sally, any Manager -- or had a job to do elsewhere -----
11
12 Q. When you say, "I think now she had done it", what do you
13 mean: handed her pass code to someone else or clocked
14 hours?
15 A. No. I think she did dock hours when she was the
16 Manager. I think she did.
17
18 Q. Tell me what the gain could possibly be to her out of that?
19 A. Doing what she was asked, told, what was expected of
20 her.
21
22 Q. I understand that. What I understand what the gain could
23 be to the Manager, that he could keep his staff costs and
24 thereby percentage down. But what gain could there be to
25 anyone in a management position working under the Store
26 Manager?
27 A. I think that the simple answer -- I mean, I cannot see
28 what possible gain there is to anybody anyway, but I can
29 only guess. I mean, management teams work together and
30 there is a mutual sense of responsibility, and Sally had a
31 very strong sense of responsibility, however misguided it
32 may seem now, for the restaurant, for the success of the
33 restaurant and for her own promotion prospects in seeing to
34 be associated with the restaurant's success. She was First
35 Assistant in the restaurant. It is an important position
36 within the store.
37
38 MS. STEEL: She would sometimes be in charge of shifts?
39 A. Yes; and she would, in fact, be in charge of the store,
40 for instance, when Ray was on holiday.
41
42 Q. So she might get praise if, for example, the labour costs
43 were kept low on the shift which she was running?
44 A. Yes, really, yes.
45
46 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Well, develop that then, because I had not
47 understood how that could be so, because I had not
48 understood that someone who uses these clock card files and
49 adjustment audit reports to see if there are less charges
50 on a shift run by this Assistant Manager or that Assistant
51 Manager; I thought the only relevance of them was that at
52 the end of the week there would be less staff pay overall
53 and, therefore, the percentage would be lower.
54
55 Are you saying that it could be reflect well on
56 Sally Spurgeon because less hours had been clocked up on a
57 shift run by her and that people would actually look at
58 those documents to check that out?
59 A. I think that -- I am not quite sure I understand one
60 element to what you are saying, in that -- I understand
