Day 182 - 02 Nov 95 - Page 39
1 taking instructions?
2
3 MR. RAMPTON: Can I say this, so far as the night closers
4 business is concerned, I think I am right, that the
5 evidence the witness gave can only be hearsay. So I do not
6 propose to ask him any questions about that. I looked back
7 at Caseview, and it is quite clear that he did not know
8 anything about it at the time. So I will leave that, if
9 I may.
10
11 So far as the issue, if there is an issue, about what
12 Mr. Graham or Mr. Holm said at various meetings, that is an
13 issue on the evidence, and I do not propose to take that
14 up.
15
16 I have managed to speak to Mr. Holm. I have to say, I did
17 it on a mobile phone during the adjournment; the link was
18 not very good. I spoke to him and to one of his
19 assistants. I have some instructions, but nothing like the
20 detail that I need to deal with all the assertions -- and
21 I do not mean that in any kind of suggestive way -- the
22 assertions that the witness has made about what he would
23 see, I think, as improvement in conditions since the union
24 agreement was signed. Now, that may be an important
25 matter. I have some instructions -----
26
27 MR. JUSTICE BELL: They may be of some importance, especially
28 since I, from time to time during this case -- I remember
29 what you said in opening about, if there was antipathy to
30 unions, so what? One has to look at what, if any,
31 difference that makes to working conditions. So I will say
32 quite openly that I am alert during the case to see whether
33 it might. I remember what Mr. Turnbull said. He spoke of
34 certain conditions, but was quite candid that he did not
35 think in this country it would have improved pay rates
36 significantly. But here we have in Norway a suggestion
37 that it resulted in immediate improvement.
38
39 MR. RAMPTON: Yes; and the witness -- and it is no criticism of
40 him at all -- in support of that proposition, the witness
41 gave a volume of detail, none of which I had had prior
42 notice of.
43
44 What I have managed to do is to get some broad instructions
45 about the broad proposition which the witness has made, and
46 I can certainly put those to him. Whether he is in a
47 position to answer my questions, since he has only worked
48 at one restaurant -- true, he has been a union
49 representative -- I just do not know. I will just have to
50 try. What I do not have and cannot have in the time
51 available to me is the detail that I would want to have if
52 I were to conduct the kind of what I would call properly
53 structured cross-examination that I would prefer to conduct
54 on this part of his evidence, which I apprehend -- I do not
55 know, I cannot speak for Lordship -- on that part of his
56 evidence, the unheralded part, is the part which I think
57 may have some importance in the case.
58
59 MR. JUSTICE BELL: My parting shot, literally, before lunch was
60 on the basis really that I know that Mr. Jenssen was
