Day 214 - 01 02 96 - Page 56

 
 

                                                                  DAY 214
 
                                           DAVID ROBERTS, Cross-examined:
 
 
 
     1        the fortnight they get one or two hours less than they had
     2        worked.  I understood you to be saying that the asterisked
     3        alterations could have been for genuine reasons.  For
     4        instance, the crew member making an error in clocking in,
     5        which was then adjusted, and that you could not find out
     6        whether it was ------
     7        A.  If a crew member had forgotten to clock out at
     8        12 o'clock, then if I am not there I do not know whether
     9        they have gone or what time they have gone.
    10
    11   Q.   I thought you were saying that people could not remember so
    12        that you could not check whether it was dishonest or not?
    13        A.  From the print-outs that you would get, you cannot
    14        tell.  I could not -- I can see the hours are there, but
    15        I do not know whether maybe the crew member has forgotten
    16        to clock out.
    17
    18   Q.   That is what I understood you to say, but Mr. Morris is
    19        asking on the questions on the premise that some of them
    20        anyway were illegal, as it were ---
    21        A.  I do not ------
    22
    23   Q.   -- cheating the crew?
    24        A.  I could not say exactly which ones were and which ones
    25        were not.
    26
    27   MR. MORRIS:  It is hard to know which ones were genuine and
    28        which ones were not because it was happening -- if it was
    29        happening, say you saw 10, some of them may be genuine,
    30        some of them may have been ---
    31        A.  Yes, that is right.
    32
    33   Q.   -- deliberately falsified?
    34        A.  I do not know which ones, you know, I do not know which
    35        ones they have done, so I could not really -- the way I saw
    36        it is just to solve the problem as quickly as possible, and
    37        I could have ended up disciplining somebody for something
    38        maybe they had not done anyway.  It was more important at
    39        that time to get it sorted out rather than launch a major
    40        investigation into it.
    41
    42   Q.   I mean, did you talk to the crew, individual members of the
    43        crew, and ask them whether they on particular days had, in
    44        fact, worked the time they had been scheduled to work?
    45        Say, for example, they started at 12.00 on the schedule,
    46        they came in at 12.00 and worked until 12.00 at night but,
    47        in fact, they might have done until 1.00 at night and then
    48         -----
    49        A.  No, I did not.  I would not -- I did not have the time.
    50 
    51   Q.   Some of them, presumably, would have -- well, OK, you did 
    52        not interview the crew individually anyway? 
    53        A.  No.
    54
    55   Q.   OK.
    56
    57   MS. STEEL:   You said that one way to prevent under-18s working
    58        past midnight would be to schedule them not later than
    59        I think it was an hour before?
    60        A.  Anything before 11.30, 11.45.
 
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