Day 133 - 12 Jun 95 - Page 51
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I remember Mr. Morris saying something about
2 it. Did Ms. Steel say anything?
3
4 MR. RAMPTON: Then I apologise to Ms. Steel and redirect my
5 criticism at Mr. Morris.
6
7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: At my suggestion he is leaving that over
8 until tomorrow. He may come back in the morning and I do
9 not know what he will say one way or another.
10
11 MR. RAMPTON: I do not believe it is right that that sort of
12 cloud should be left over Mrs. Brinley-Codd and the witness
13 undisturbed when it is quite plainly a false point.
14
15 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It was not left over the witness. It may be
16 left over Mrs. Brinley-Codd. I do not think any assumption
17 should be made against anyone so far as discovery is
18 concerned, including Mrs. Brinley-Codd, until we have all
19 the information about it and we can see what, if any,
20 consequence or conclusion, rather, has to be drawn.
21
22 MR. RAMPTON: Mr. Morris, in my respectful submission, is far
23 too free -- this is a comment I am bound to make at the end
24 of the case; he fuels it practically every time he stands
25 up -- with his accusations of dishonesty. That was one of
26 them and I wanted to clear it up.
27
28 MR. JUSTICE BELL: He did not actually say it was dishonest.
29
30 MR. RAMPTON: That was the implication.
31
32 MR. JUSTICE BELL: He is not backward in coming forward when he
33 does say something is dishonest. He did not say
34 Mrs. Brinley-Codd was being dishonest. He was making an
35 enquiry about it.
36
37 MR. RAMPTON: No, it was either Mrs. Brinley-Codd or it was
38 McDonald's because the whole thing was based on the premise
39 that a wide-ranging application for discovery of turnover
40 figures had been made. It never has been; the application
41 was quite different.
42
43 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am going to wait to see if Mr. Morris
44 raises it in the morning or not.
45
46 MR. MORRIS: That does raise an interesting question actually.
47 (To the witness): Are there no documents about what
48 percentage of McDonald's workers do return within a year or
49 something of leaving?
50 A. No. We do not have anything that is possible like that
51 because, basically, each time a person starts they are set
52 up as a new record, and their employment ends and then they
53 restart.
54
55 Q. So, in fact, you have absolutely no idea, in reality, you
56 could not give evidence of what that percentage was?
57 A. No, I do not think so unless anecdotally to say that
58 that is what happens, we see that it happens in
59 restaurants, but there is not a document that would
60 represent that. The cross-reference that I would make
