Day 140 - 22 Jun 95 - Page 42
1 because of that change, and that is precisely the reason
2 why you did not allow anybody else to see this report and
3 destroyed this report, because you did not want that fact
4 to be able to be checked upon?
5 A. Absolutely false, wrong. We did nothing artificial in
6 Philadelphia.
7
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Mr. Rampton, I am sorry if I was rather
9 short. Was there something you wanted to say?
10
11 MR. RAMPTON: No, it is quite all right. I am quite conscious
12 that I do sometimes interrupt your Lordship. Sometimes it
13 is because I am listening to what Ms. Steel has just said
14 and I am not thinking about what your Lordship has said.
15 I was going to intervene and suggest that if an accusation
16 is made that a document was falsified, not by McDonald's
17 but, as the evidence is, by the people who did the survey,
18 then there must be a basis for it, because the summary
19 which we do have -- we do not have the original study --
20 does not support what is said.
21
22 MS. STEEL: I did not say anything about falsifying.
23
24 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Her point, which has been put to you and
25 dealt with, just so there is no doubt, is that something
26 was done to, as it were, raise the starting rates in inner
27 city and hold the starting rates, if not bringing them
28 down, in the suburbs, so that by May, which it was
29 suggested was the month in respect of which starting rates
30 were investigated, there was greater equality. You said
31 that that is not so?
32 A. That is correct, my Lord.
33
34 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I will make the same point, if I may.
35 Mr. Stein has told your Lordship that that summary which we
36 do have was not written by McDonald's. If the effect of
37 the summary is (as your Lordship may think it is) to
38 suggest that the study made a fair comparison between the
39 PUP results and the McDonald's survey conducted by this
40 independent body, it must follow that Professor Perrin and
41 his colleagues have deliberately suppressed information
42 which they knew meant that the comparison was not
43 being -----
44
45 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I had not understood that Mr. Stein was
46 saying that. I had understood that this was a summary
47 prepared by McDonald's.
48
49 MR. RAMPTON: No, my Lord, I am sorry.
50
51 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Let me find out -- but actually using words
52 taken from the report.
53
54 THE WITNESS: Yes, my Lord. I use the word earlier "extracts".
55
56 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Who actually prepared the summary?
57 A. McDonald's prepared the summary from extracts from
58 their documents.
59
60 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I do not think Ms. Steel was making an attack
