Day 203 - 12 Jan 96 - Page 75
1
2 Q. First, who was or is Tara?
3 A. Tara was the Manager at Ipswich.
4
5 Q. What did you mean by that piece of evidence that Ray Coton
6 was under less pressure from you in relation to his labour
7 costs than others and that, by contrast, you did not have
8 to treat Tara with kid gloves?
9 A. Well, I meant that my feeling was very much that I had
10 to treat Ray with kid gloves.
11
12 Q. Why?
13 A. Why, because he was, well, he was in a difficult
14 position; the guy was, in my opinion, not doing a great
15 job. I have already explained I feel that needs to be
16 handled with sensitivity. I also thought he was -- to be
17 honest with you, I did not -- I was concerned about his
18 ability to put in enough energy to the job, so, again,
19 I had to tread lightly around things that would require a
20 lot more effort from him to get put straight. He was, he
21 was quite a lot older than me and, I mean, he was also a
22 longer serving Manager and I think he was due a certain
23 amount of credit as a result. But, as I have said in my
24 statement, one of the things that he -- I constantly gave
25 him advice as to how he should run the restaurant and I
26 have said he chose not to accept that advice. I did not
27 have that situation with other people. He chose to ignore
28 it and then mess up, and consequently I felt that, you
29 know, if -- that I had to be careful how I approached him.
30
31 Q. Apart from ignoring the advice which you gave him, and you
32 have said you were conscious that he was an older man, that
33 he had been a Manager longer than you had, apart from not
34 doing which you advised him to do did he show any outward
35 signs, was he prickly, did he bridle when you gave him
36 advice, perhaps even directions about what he ought to be
37 doing?
38 A. About what I ought to be doing?
39
40 Q. No, when you gave him directions or instructions as his
41 Supervisor or advice about how he ought to be improving the
42 operation, did he show any outward signs of not liking what
43 you said?
44 A. If he disagreed he told me, but, to be honest with you,
45 I have just thought about that, no, I do not think he was
46 sort of prickly or -- I made some sort of suggestion to him
47 that maybe we ought to go out for a drink, or something,
48 get into a more relaxed environment. He was not interested
49 in sort of being less formal like that. But, on the
50 contrary, I would say he is totally in agreement with me
51 on, you know, where we did agree he agreed willingly and
52 wanted to solve the problems as we saw them.
53
54 Q. Did you ever get a feeling personally that he did not like
55 you?
56 A. I mean, I do not think I expected him to like me.
57 I think I went in expecting him not to like me.
58 I think-----
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60 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think what Mr. Rampton is saying is did you
