Day 191 - 24 Nov 95 - Page 09

     
     1
     2   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Do you want to ask any further questions?
     3
     4   MR. MORRIS:  No further questions.
     5
     6   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Thank you, Mr. Baker.  Will you sit down for
     7        a moment?
     8
     9        Mr. Rampton, I had not really turned my mind to the
    10        question of Miss Baker's unfair dismissal application.
    11        But, if a point is to be taken on it, what is the
    12        explanation?  I remember she was pregnant.
    13
    14   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes, she was.
    15
    16   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It may be that that creates a special
    17        situation, but she certainly had not been employed for the
    18        qualifying period.
    19
    20   MR. RAMPTON:  I do not know what the legal position is.
    21
    22   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It occurs to me the reason may be that, just
    23        as you do not have to have a two year qualification period
    24        if you are dismissed for trade union activities, so you may
    25        not if your dismissal is alleged to relate to being
    26        pregnant, because there are specially protected rules in
    27        relation to matters such as that.
    28
    29   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, it may well be.
    30
    31   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  The only reason I raise it -- because I do
    32        not know the answer -- it may be that she had a right to go
    33        to the industrial tribunal, being pregnant, which
    34        Mr. Baker, for very obvious reasons, did not have.
    35
    36   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, that -----
    37
    38   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Do you see -- neither of them having built up
    39        the ordinary two year qualification.
    40
    MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, I am not sure it makes any particular
    42        difference in the light of the answers I have had in
    43        cross-examination.
    44
    45   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Well, it may or may not do.
    46
    47   MR. MORRIS:  With respect, I do not see how it can do, because
    48        Mr. Rampton made his allegations, whatever they were, and
    49        the witness denied them.  So -----
    50 
    51   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I appreciate that.  But in case Mr. Rampton 
    52        is going to argue that the witness must have known he had a 
    53        right to go to the tribunal, but chose not to do so for
    54        some reason, I am just querying whether that is the correct
    55        assumption.
    56
    57   MR. RAMPTON:  I think he said he was not bothered, actually.
    58
    59   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  No.  That would not surprise me, quite
    60        frankly,