Day 188 - 15 Nov 95 - Page 18


     
     1
     2   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Would you like to sit down, Miss Tobin,
     3        because this does not concern you at all.
     4
     5   MR. MORRIS:  First of all, I do not want to labour the point,
     6        but I think that Ms. Tobin is in a slightly different
     7        category to other witnesses, in that she is a professional
     8        researcher and that what people tell her is significant as
     9        part of her building up a picture of reality and her
    10        conclusions about working at McDonald's.  That is the first
    11        thing.  But I do not want to push it, because I know what
    12        will happen; we will just get a worse ruling than if I do
    13        not argue the case.  So -----
    14
    15   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You know you will get a perfectly honest
    16        ruling from me, according to the rules of evidence -- but
    17        it must be according to the rules of evidence.
    18
    19   MR. MORRIS:  Right.  So I will not labour that point.  I did
    20        want to say that Mr. Rampton did say on day 161 -- sorry,
    21        I have not got the dates, but it was on day 161 -- page 9,
    22        line 6: "My Lord, here I have a problem, in that at least
    23        half of Miss Tobin's allegations appear to be hearsay.
    24        I will, if I may nonetheless, ask Miss Anteneh, because we
    25        believe it to be the case that the Defendants would be
    26        entitled to ask her about particular topics even though the
    27        source for them is hearsay."
    28
    29        Then you say: "Whatever the source, if it is an allegation
    30        which by one route or another is made, then it seems to me
    31        you are entitled to ask about it, as the Defendants would
    32        be in cross-examination."
    33
    34        Anyway, I will take the course that has been suggested.
    35        But before I go to the statement, we have already -----
    36
    37   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  What are you going to do about the bits which
    38        I put pencilled brackets round?
    39
    40   MR. MORRIS:  I will ask Miss Tobin what the source for that
    41        information was.  If it was her own observations or if it
    42        was the managers, then it would clearly be admissible.  If
    43        it was just what some crew member told her, then -----
    44
    45   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Well, no.  I want you to think about that,
    46        because I do not think that helps you in some respects.
    47        For instance, if you look at the paragraph on the first
    48        page which Mr. Rampton has just referred to, where he has
    49        had an afterthought -- I will read out the bit which
    50        Mr. Rampton has not excluded: 
    51 
    52        "At the Croydon store whilst working, again during the 
    53        lunchtime period, a tray of buns was dropped by a fellow
    54        team member.  The buns were retrieved from the floor and
    55        quickly used."
    56
    57        I am assuming that that is what Miss Tobin observed
    58        herself.  There is certainly nothing in her statement which
    59        indicates to the contrary, so she is perfectly entitled to
    60        give that evidence; and it can be tested in

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