Day 119 - 02 May 95 - Page 60
1 admissible or falls foul of the hearsay rule, it will in
2 fact be brought in by McDonald's themselves when they put
3 forward that positive evidence.
4
5 Of course, you will say: "Well, what is the basis for your
6 information as to why people leave?" In order to justify
7 her evidence that it is because it is the end of school
8 term, or something of that kind, or going back to
9 university at the beginning of October, or whatever it is,
10 they will have to produce some kind of survey to show this,
11 and the same survey should show other reasons as well. I
12 mean, this is pure speculation, I just do not know.
13
14 But at the moment you have Mr. Nicholson in the witness box
15 who is not even sure whether there was any compilation of
16 these statistics. He says there certainly was, he thinks,
17 with regard to salaried staff. You are more interested in
18 crew, in fact; that is not to say you are not interested in
19 salaried staff, but you are more interested in crew.
20
21 At the moment I see a great potential for it being hearsay
22 and, therefore, under our rules not admissible unless you
23 can put it within an exception to the hearsay rule. A lot
24 of modern judges do not have a great deal of time for the
25 hearsay rule, but it is there and it has to be observed.
26
27 MR. MORRIS: Maybe I will put it as a question to Mr. Nicholson.
28 (To the witness): Have you that document in front of
29 you?
30 A. Which document?
31
32 MR. MORRIS: It is the Operations and Training Manual which I am
33 sure you are familiar with.
34
35 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Judge Devine in the Slough County Court
36 always used to say that the hearsay rule had no effect in
37 his court, but I am not brave as he was.
38
39 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I am not fond of the hearsay rule either
40 if it does not have any affect upon the use of the court's
41 time and the progress of this cross-examination. For
42 Mr. Nicholson to speculate what might be the most common
43 reasons that people give for leaving would not, in my
44 respectful submission, be a useful use of your Lordship's
45 time.
46
47 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I will come back to deciding if there is a
48 formal argument. What you are really saying at the moment
49 is when Mrs. Mead -- if that is her proper title -- comes
50 into the witness, if she is going to say: "There is
51 turnover for all these innocent reasons", you want the
52 documentation which, for all I know, maybe in the papers
53 somewhere to support it, and by that method, if no other,
54 you may get the information you are looking for now.
55
56 MR. MORRIS: If I ask the question to Mr. Nicholson.
57 (To the witness): Have you got page 87?
58 A. Yes.
59
60 Q. Under "Retention of Crew"?
