Day 203 - 12 Jan 96 - Page 29
1 Mr. Skehel before he even got going?
2
3 MR. MORRIS: Well .....
4
5 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am surprised if that is your case.
6
7 MR. MORRIS: Why would he be avoiding you unless -- hang on a
8 second -- you are going down to the store, you say, to give
9 bundles of help and support to a Store Manager; is that
10 correct?
11 A. I would certainly -- I go to -- I am not, sort of, you
12 know, I do not think I have been glib in any way. I think
13 that I genuinely would go to a restaurant to help the
14 management. That was my responsibility. That was my job.
15
16 Q. You said you had bent over backwards to be friendly with
17 Mr. Coton?
18 A. To be friendly and to help.
19
20 Q. And to help. So, basically, this thing about you saying,
21 "he could have been avoiding me", is really just put in
22 there as another way of attacking Ray Coton; why would he
23 want to avoid you?
24 A. Well, because I wrote this statement some time after he
25 was my Supervisor -- he was my subordinate and, you know,
26 I was discussing it, and it did occur to me at the time on
27 some occasions, "Is this guy avoiding me?" You know, is
28 this something -- it was a very small thing that did occur
29 to me maybe once or twice, is he avoiding me? I actually
30 discounted it, I mean.
31
32 Q. So you discounted it, but you felt it was important to put
33 it in your statement because it attacks Ray Coton which is
34 what you are here to do, is it not?
35 A. I am here to -- I understand I am here to say how it
36 was from my point of view when I was the Supervisor of the
37 Colchester restaurant. Ray Coton has made some untrue
38 statements about me in his statement and I am here, as
39 I understand it, from my point of view, to put the record
40 straight, and the record -- and the truth is that my
41 relationship, I did everything in my power to foster a good
42 relationship with Ray Coton when I was the Supervisor.
43
44 At times when I was the Supervisor it did occur to me once
45 or twice, it did occur to me that he could have been
46 avoiding me and, you know, I say that in the context that
47 I cannot help feeling with the benefit of hindsight that he
48 wanted to leave the Company, and it may be that he had
49 given up and was simply pretending to be a Manager. You
50 know, we found out that he applied for that job in January
51 and, perhaps, he was just sitting it out and I was -----
52
53 Q. He said in the witness box, I believe, from memory, that he
54 could not remember the exact date he applied. It was
55 around the time you became Supervisor. I do not know if it
56 was before. I cannot remember what Ray Coton said.
57
58 MR. RAMPTON: I can.
59
60 MR. JUSTICE BELL: In any event, it was around the turn of the
