Day 196 - 06 Dec 95 - Page 12

     
     1        4.3 question - Please state (a) who told you to 'sack some
     2        of those involved under the pretext they were 'disruptive
     3        influential'', (b) when and were you were told this and (c)
     4        what position you held at the time.  Answer: Would have
     5        been Mark Davis and Frank Stanton." The position you held
     6        was Second possibly First Assistant?
     7        A.  That is correct.
     8
     9   Q.   "Question 4.4 - Please give the names of those sacked on
    10        this pretext.  I agree with Simon Gibney's reference", that
    11        is Simon Gibney, you gave various names.  He said Robert
    12        Pilgrim, Phil Claydon, Julian Kio, Paul Jackson and Omid
    13        Shafibeik.  "Assistant Managers were earmarked to deal with
    14        the various individuals, to get rid of them by harassment
    15        or pretext.  Trudie Jones took responsibility for one of
    16        them."
    17
    18        We will come back to that later.
    19
    20        "Question 4.5 - Give the date as nearly as you can
         remember when he re-hired Paul Jackson. Answer: Maybe two
    22        years later.  I was Store Manager.  I felt bad about it
    23        since it had happened."   The copy I have got is signed.
    24        In fact you signed that this morning, 6th December 1995.
    25
    26        Do you stand by that as your evidence based on your
    27        experience?
    28        A.  I do, yes.
    29
    30   Q.   I am going to ask you a few questions.  Before we go into
    31        the details, you mentioned a bit about when you were
    32        leaving and you said you wrote a letter to Head Office.
    33        Have you seen a letter in the documents?
    34        A.  I have.
    35
    36   Q.   Is that the letter which you wrote to Head Office?
    37        A.  That is the letter I wrote.  I must admit when I did
    38        see it I was surprised at how little it contained.
    39        I thought I had written more than I had done.
    40
    Q.   Explain more about your criticisms of the management staff
    42        in your statement; how did that come out?
    43        A.  At the time, although I was disillusioned with what was
    44        happening, I wanted to really make a point I suppose to
    45        leave.  It was never my actual plan to go through with it.
    46        I had looked at the options and really I wanted to get a
    47        reaction from the Company to possibly change what was
    48        actually happening.  I was quite surprised at the way it
    49        progressed.  At the end basically I was told either to put
    50        up or shut up, so I actually left at the time. 
    51 
    52   Q.   You were interested in getting a job with the TSB you said? 
    53        A.  I had already done that because I was disillusioned.
    54        My wife wanted me to leave.  Obviously I had to make sure
    55        that if I did leave I had another sort of career to move
    56        into, so that was actually a confirmed job before
    57        I resigned.
    58
    59   Q.   Can you just explain a bit more about when you first
    60        started voicing criticisms -- how did the criticisms that