Vora Snehlata Jayantilal 2017737 19-02-2013.pdf - General ...

11The issue is whether the confidence with which Mrs R expressed herself in relation to thecentral issues is in fact well founded. There was no exploration of the possibility that MrsR had made a mistake, i.e that at all times in July 2011 had had the item, but we havenonetheless considered this. We do agree that some aspects of Mrs R's evidence wereinconsistent. To take one example, she clearly said on two occasions in cross-examinationthat she had not spoken to Miss Vora on the telephone later on 14 July. When taken to herrecord made, dated 14 July, she had difficulty explaining why she had said therein that shespoke to Miss Vora on the telephone. In the event that she said she could not nowremember if she had spoken to Miss Vora. We find that based on her own nearcontemporaneous record, she must have been done so. Common sense and experience tellus that the memory can play tricks. We do not consider that this, or any other of theinconsistencies on which reliance was placed, materially undermined the core of Mrs R'saccount.If Miss Vora's evidence is reliable, she asked Mrs R if she would mind if she removed oneitem but, in the event, did not do so because Mrs R would not agree. In our view, it isimprobable that Miss Vora on her own admission would think to do the very thing that sheis accused of doing, but draw back at the request of Mrs R. It is plain to us that shestrongly felt that she had a claim of right to withhold prescribed medication.A great deal of emphasis has been placed by her upon the sign Ms Vora claims wasexhibited on the counter. If the sign was present on that day - and we make no finding asto this - it simply illustrates Miss Vora's attitude to commercial relations with hercustomers. We have no doubt that Mrs R did not see it and, in our view, its present orabsence has no material bearing on the core facts.There were several aspects of Miss Vora's evidence that we considered to be unsatisfactory.We highlight some of these, some of which are more or less important than others. Herevidence was to the effect that, in her own mind, she estimated the damage to the compactsto be £15, but this was the cost price rather than the sale price. She was unable to say atwhat price the compacts were on sale. Mrs R's evidence was that the price label was £2.99.If she is right on this, then £15 would roughly equate to five compacts at £2.99.Miss Vora explained this by saying that this was the price of the refills. We have hadconsiderable doubt that this damage analysis was in fact undertaken by Miss Vora, either inher mind or otherwise. Whether it was or not, we accept that the request for paymentrelated to an additional £2.99 further to the £3 already given by Mrs R.Miss Vora's evidence about the telephone calls is in our view significant. Her broad casewas that, because Mr R phoned when she was busy dispensing, she had asked if she couldring him back after work. On her evidence Mr R carried on saying exactly what Mrs R wassaying. Mr R was saying that she (Miss Vora) had not given Mrs R one of the items. MissVora said this in evidence that she said to Mr R: "I will tell you the whole story, whathappened, when I have finished work." On her evidence, the conversation with Mr R wasof one or two sentences, and she said "It lasted a couple of minutes - no, not even a