Day 168 - 03 Oct 95 - Page 28
1 break, they effectively get more pay that day?
2 A. That is correct.
3
4 Q. So, is it true in 1991 or 1992 you adjusted people's hours
5 at the end of the evening and were laughing about how you
6 were doing this randomly to reduce the labour percentage?
7
8 MR. RAMPTON: No, my Lord.
9
10 THE WITNESS: No, it is not true at all.
11
12 MR. RAMPTON: The witness has answered the question. The
13 question should never have been asked. In contrast,
14 probably it was the questions which were asked previously,
15 which I assume go only to credit. That question does seem
16 to me to go directly to the issue and I find nothing in
17 Mr. Logan's statement about it. I ask, why not, because it
18 is quite clear that Mr. Morris has been in very
19 considerable contact with Mr. Logan.
20
21 I was going to say (and I will say it now) that I suspect
22 strongly that that business about the so-called fights had
23 been deliberately suppressed and it is quite clear that
24 this has been, so as to try to take the witness by surprise
25 which is not the way business in these courts is done.
26
27 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Sit down, please, Mr. Richards.
28
29 MR. MORRIS: It has not been deliberately suppressed. I have a
30 mass of information about responding to -- Sean Richards
31 has responded to what Michael Logan has said. Michael
32 Logan told me the night before, as I was asked to contact
33 him and get some names, I did a list of names which I wrote
34 out, and he has given me a lot of information in response
35 to what Sean Richards has said. Sean Richards has made a
36 number of denials about the practices that are going on and
37 I am testing them. That is all.
38
39 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Has any notice of this been given to
40 McDonald's?
41
42 MR. RAMPTON: No.
43
44 MR. MORRIS: I cannot give notice of everything that a witness
45 tells me on the night before questioning one of McDonald's
46 witnesses, saying: "Put to him this and put to him that,
47 and say: 'What about such and such?'"
48
49 MR. JUSTICE BELL: We must grapple with this problem because
50 over two years ago now orders were made about the
51 disclosure of the evidence of witnesses. It is a problem
52 which potentially or in reality has reared its head from
53 time to time. The whole idea of it is that each side
54 should know the other side's case in advance. We have had
55 supplemental statements and supplemental supplemental
56 statements, some very late in the day. But what we cannot
57 have are allegations which might be directly relevant, not
58 just going to credit, just coming out for the first time in
59 cross-examination. It is not an answer to say: "Well, we
60 are representing ourselves". I have to make allowances for
