Day 195 - 04 Dec 95 - Page 71
1 wrote that statement?
2 A. I do not think so, no.
3
4 MR. JUSTICE BELL: If I may go back while Mr. Morris is just
5 pausing to where you were asked about 30th March where you
6 have 3.45 to 12.50. When you said that you would not call
7 the 12.50 close reasonable, you should have been entitled
8 to a break and food allowance for an eight-hour shift?
9 A. Yes.
10
11 Q. What is your complaint about the 12.50 because if the close
12 should normally finish at 12 midnight, the restaurant
13 having closed at 11, then you would be entitled to your
14 break and free food for the eight hours you have done by
15 then?
16 A. Generally, on normal closes we never had a break after
17 the closure of the store. So we worked right through after
18 our first break, which was usually before 6 o'clock. We
19 worked right through until the close was actually shut and
20 locked and went home. We never had a break.
21
22 Q. I understand that you might complain about that, but
23 I wondered whether there was something special about you
24 saying that you should have been entitled to a break and a
25 food allowance for an eight-hour shift because you were
26 going to have an eight-hour shift even if you finished at
27 midnight?
28 A. What I am saying is that 4 o'clock till 12 o'clock
29 constitutes an eight-hour shift. Then for the extra 50
30 minutes that I did I was not actually allowed a break or an
31 extension of my break or food allowance. So when I took
32 the break, or anybody in that position took a break, the
33 length of the break was calculated on the basis of an
34 eight-hour shift; not eight hours and 50 minutes. Also the
35 food allowance was calculated on the same basis, so that,
36 in effect, they were calculating that not for eight hours
37 and 50 minutes, but eight hours.
38
39 MR. MORRIS: Just relating to that last question. If you
40 finished, as you said, regularly at 3 or 4 in the morning,
41 did you get a break?
42 A. Depending on what Manager was on the shift we would
43 have got, and whether he or she felt like a break. We were
44 not entitled to it, that is what we were told. But if a
45 Manager happened to be feeling generous and giving us a
46 break, he would have made sure that Mark Davies was not
47 around or he would have asked us not to mention it to Mark
48 because he would not approve.
49
50 MS. STEEL: You may not want to say anything more, but when
51 Mr. Rampton was asking you about a particular week in your
52 diary you said twice that it was an untypical week. You
53 were interrupted and I do not know whether there was
54 anything more you wanted to say about that?
55 A. It was an untypical week. So far as that particular
56 week Mr. Rampton was mentioning, I was not living in
57 Colchester, because my parents in law America were looking
58 after the place basically outside Colchester. So I asked
59 them not to put me on closes.
60
