Day 203 - 12 Jan 96 - Page 52
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I appreciate that, but I am sure you will
2 remember what the main thrust of your case is; in effect,
3 this was endemic in Colchester because of the pressure to
4 meet targets. That is, as I understand it, your case.
5 Then what I will have to ask myself is, was Colchester a
6 rogue store in this respect, either because Mr. Coton is a
7 rogue manager and/or because Mr. Davis and Mr. Coton were
8 rogue managers.
9
10 MS. STEEL: Or that Mr. Skehel knew about it as well.
11
12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I thought that really the main thrust of your
13 case was that it was endemic in Colchester.
14
15 MS. STEEL: It was a continuous process. It is just a
16 particular point that Mr. Rampton said, that he authorised
17 that specific incident.
18
19 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think the point basically is this, however
20 Mr. Rampton has expressed, it is really what I was hinting
21 at yesterday, I am not going to stifle your
22 cross-examination of Mr. Skehel, because I have tried to
23 summarise what I thought the importance of his evidence was
24 this morning, but a lot of the detail about why there
25 should be a fall out between Mr. Skehel and Mr. Coton if
26 there was one is rather on the sidelines of the main
27 issues, as I see it.
28
29 MS. STEEL: I mean, I do not think I have asked any questions
30 about why there should be a fall out. I was concentrating
31 on -- I mean, if the Plaintiffs are coming to court, which
32 they are, to say that Ray Coton is a rogue Manager and they
33 are trying to discredit him, the only real way that we have
34 to defend Mr. Coton and to say that this was a widely
35 condoned practice is to discredit the witnesses by saying,
36 "You knew about this; you knew it was going on, and this
37 is just a personal axe that you have to grind with
38 Mr. Coton".
39
40 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, you have put that, have you not?
41
42 MS. STEEL: Yes, I sat down and Mr. Morris was moving on.
43
44 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Very well.
45
46 MR. MORRIS: It is difficult because ------
47
48 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can I say this, I appreciate the question of
49 being loyal to your witness. It is only human nature; if
50 someone on the other side has a dig at your witness, you
51 want to have a dig back. But, having done your duty by
52 your own witness, so far as that is concerned, keep a broad
53 perspective in mind that nothing would suit your case more
54 than, in a way, Ray Coton was doing it on a large scale,
55 but you would say not because he is a fundamentally flawed
56 person, because of the pressures which were put on with
57 regards to targets and percentages and so on.
58
59 MR. MORRIS: Yes. OK.
60
