Day 080 - 30 Jan 95 - Page 53


     
     1   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Could you keep your voice up again?
     2        A.  Sorry, sir.  I am thinking my way through it.
     3
     4   MS. STEEL:   Would Mr. Rampton stop speaking so loudly, please.
     5        A.  It is very difficult, you see, to relate an order to an
     6        invoice because the order is for 30 tonnes, but you can see
     7        straightaway from the invoices that when it comes in off a
     8        ship it comes in at different weights.  But an order is not
     9        30 tonnes to the pound; it could be 29 tonnes and 100
    10        weight or it could be 31 tonnes.  I can see what you are
    11        trying to do.  You are trying to find the invoice that
    12        relates as near as possible to that 30 tonnes.
    13
    14   Q.   Well, on page 15 of the older set of documents you have got
    15        an invoice dated 8th of the 12th 1983, and I think that
    16        that was the third consignment?
    17        A.  No.  The order did not go out until 1984, so it cannot
    18        be invoiced on 8th of the 12th 1983.
    19
    20   Q.   What is that an invoice for then?  Is that for another
    21        consignment, a different consignment?
    22        A.  It must be.  There only appears in my bunch of
    23        documents to have one purchase -- no, I have found another
    24        one.  There was only 83 tonnes altogether.
    25
    26   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  If you look at document 6 it has a price on
    27        it of 60.5 which, for instance, is the price on page 18,
    28        £60.50.  Then you have got -- what is the MCA £7.50?
    29        A.  Yes, that would not be -- that is 7.50 old pence, sir,
    30        giving a total in delivered price of £68.08 as MCA was
    31        payable on balance sheet.
    32
    33   Q.   What I suggest you do, it seems to me that Mr. Walker at
    34        the moment cannot relate one document to another and so
    35        on.  If you have a suggestion to make, what I suggest is
    36        you put that.  If, for instance, you are going to ask, "Was
    37        there an extra 30 tonnes which we cannot find accounted for
    38        in the documents we had originally?" then put that.
    39        Whether some future witness ties it up or not I do not
    40        know, but Mr. Walker no doubt understands his own business
    41        but cannot expect to be the accounts clerk as well
    42        necessarily.  So if you suspect as a result of that a
    43        certain state of affairs, what I suggest is put the state
    44        of affairs to him, see what his answer is and we will see
    45        whether it is cleared up later.
    46
    47   MS. STEEL:  First, if you put in an order for beef, for this
    48        beef, how long after that order would it arrive -- a few
    49        days?
    50        A.  A few days. 
    51 
    52   Q.   A few days? 
    53        A.  If it was in bond, yes.
    54
    55   Q.   Then how long after the delivery would you get the invoice?
    56        A.  28 days.
    57
    58   Q.   28 days later?
    59        A.  Yes.  What has just been said I understand very
    60        clearly, and I tell you that there were 83 tonnes.  What

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