Day 153 - 12 Jul 95 - Page 37
1 expected to work all night or perhaps one every two
2 months. Would you agree with that?
3 A. Two months, once a quarter, something like that.
4
5 MR. JUSTICE BELL: When you say staff were expected to -- the
6 question put is: staff were expected to. Can you tell me
7 again how many staff there would be on an all night close?
8 A. On an all night close, depending what needed doing,
9 anywhere between three and six.
10
11 Q. And on an ordinary close?
12 A. Four or five.
13
14 Q. Would they very often be the same people, or would it go
15 the rounds, as it were?
16 A. On any given night, it would vary. Obviously, you have
17 got a pool of people who you can schedule for a close, and
18 it would be -- say there were 20 people who were available
19 to work closes on a given night, it would be five of those
20 20 people.
21
22 Q. And the same sort of thing for all night closes?
23 A. They tended to be treated as a one-off type of occasion
24 and, therefore, it certainly would not be the same people
25 on an all night close necessarily the next time round.
26 More than likely, it would be -- there may have been one or
27 two people who were the same but, generally, it would be a
28 sort of like a rollover effect where (a) who was available
29 and (b) who wanted to do it.
30
31 MR. MORRIS: So you are saying that the scheduling would be
32 that someone would expect to work until 1 o'clock if they
33 were on a close shift?
34 A. No. They would expect to work until the end of the
35 close has finished. If that was half past 12, then it was
36 half past 12; if it was half past 1, then it was half
37 past 1; if it was 1 o'clock, it was 1 o'clock. There was
38 no specified time when it would finish.
39
40 Q. If it was 2 o'clock, then that would also apply? If it was
41 for some reason -- as you said, on odd occasions it might
42 have been even 3 to 4 o'clock. Let us assume -----
43 A. Very odd.
44
45 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That is not your case, though, is it, based
46 on Mr. Alimi's statement? If my recollection is correct,
47 he uses the adverb "regularly".
48
49 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, he does.
50
51 MR. MORRIS: Yes.
52
53 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Is that right?
54
55 MR. MORRIS: (To the witness) No, but in the cases where --
56 whether it is odd occasions or regular, whatever it was --
57 the occasions when the close took longer, for whatever
58 reason -- yes?
59 A. Yes.
60
