Day 194 - 01 Dec 95 - Page 04

     
     1        was here.  Nothing has happened.
     2
     3        On this rare occasion, I do take strong and formal
     4        objection to anything that is not in the statement that is
     5        more than just peripheral being led from this witness, for
     6        that reason.
     7
     8   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  What do you say, Mr. Morris?
     9
    10   MR. MORRIS:  I do not really know what the Plaintiffs are afraid
    11        of.  They have had their witnesses -----
    12
    13   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It is not what they are afraid of.  I made
    14        directions in a ruling a little while ago about giving at
    15        least five clear working days' notice of any additional
    16        evidence you wanted to give.  I have been fairly gentle
    17        about that ruling, because I appreciate the difficulties
    18        you are in.  But there can be no difficulty with
    19        Mr. Sutcliffe, because he was here in court months ago, and
    20        I specifically asked you to take the opportunity to take
         instructions from him then.  So, unless you can tell me
    22        that there is a good reason why you now want to adduce
    23        anything at all in addition to the statement, at the
    24        moment, I do not see why you should.
    25
    26   MR. MORRIS:  I was going to ask him to explain a couple of
    27        things.
    28
    29   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Tell me about them and what they are.
    30
    31   MR. MORRIS:  For example, on the first section, I was going to
    32        ask him about being told to hurry up and the pressure to
    33        carry more and more box loads, and how that was being done,
    34        and who was doing that, kept telling him to do that, in
    35        terms of positions -- which management, whatever.
    36
    37        The second section was about accidents.  I was going to
    38        refer to Mr. Sexton's evidence on that and ask
    39        Mr. Sutcliffe to comment; why he wanted to join a union; he
    40        talked about a number of practices at the store, and ask
         him to explain that, and who was responsible for such
    42        practices, whatever.
    43
    44        The union incident, obviously, Mr. Sexton has made a number
    45        of comments about nobody being interested in a union as far
    46        as he knew, and things like that.  I was going to ask him
    47        about the union incident -- well, the union matter -- and
    48        how many were interested, what happened, and put to him
    49        what Mr. Nicholson said about unions in terms of in-store
    50        activity, and what happened, after "the junior manager 
    51        advised us that McDonald's did not like trade unions". 
    52 
    53        The mice incident, I think, is pretty clear.  I was not
    54        going to ask him any questions about that, except that
    55        Mr. Sexton had denied throwing away individual
    56        (inaudible).
    57
    58        I was going to ask him about his father being an official
    59        in the Transport and General Workers Union, and the meeting
    60        with Mr. Sid Nicholson -- which will not take two seconds,