No ‘cloak and dagger stuff’ in defence, says counsel

Press, 9 December 1983, Page 7

No ‘cloak and dagger stuff’ in defence, says counsel

There would be no “cloak and dagger stuff” in the defence to the $66,000 damages claim against 11 members and former members of the Drivers, Union, said Mr B. McClelland, Q.C., when opening his case in the High Court late yesterday morning.

The case for Patrick Martin O’Boyle, an unemployed tanker driver, who alleges conspiracy and intimidation against all defendants and assaults against some of them, has been concluded. Mr McClelland said that unlike Mr Willy his address would not take long and he would not be afraid to say who his witnesses would be. His case would not be very good if he had to use cloak and dagger tactics.

The defence would call four witnesses: Mrs Betty Roberts, who took shorthand notes for minutes of a meeting of the Drivers’ Union, and Messrs Rogatski, Taylor and Rayner would also give evidence. He briefly outlined what they would say. Betty Edith Roberts, a secretary employed by the Canterbury Drivers’ Union, said that she had gone over her shorthand notes of a meeting of the executive held in May 27, 1981, and Liggett was the only defendant present at that meeting. The subject of Mr O’Boyle was never mentioned at the meeting. She was there for the whole of the meeting. She was present at a meeting of all company drivers, in the Limes Room at the Town Hall on October 6, 1980. It was chaired byCollins and among those present were Lew Burns and Ken Taylor. To put it mildly, there was an argument about Mr O’Boyle after a letter was read out. She thought it might have been from the Registrar of Industrial Unions, but was not sure. It related to Mr O’Boyle. There was an uproar and members asked for the letter to be retracted and Mr O’Boyle said that it was too late. The meeting was very rowdy from then on. It was something she was not used to and it made her quite nervous. Mr O’Boyle got up and accused the secretary of misusing the funds and she put that word in the minutes. She was very upset about that remark because she was partly responsible for keeping the accounts.

“There was a monstrous uproar from the meeting. The whole place was going berserk. The secretary asked for that to be retracted and then told me we were about to leave.

“Mr O’Boyle stood up and said he abided by what he had said — that the secretary had misapproriated the funds. I did not write that in the minutes because I was packing up and walking out. I am quite certain about what I heard. I am on oath. I left the meeting and never returned,” said Mrs Roberts. To Mr Willy, Mrs Roberts said that she worked with Liggett, but not closely. She worked with all the staff organisers and the secretary.

She admitted that she had been in Court the previous afternoon when evidence was given by a Mr Wisheart and other witnesses. She did not know that she was being called as a witness. Nobody told her there that was an order excluding witnesses. Why did you say “certainly not” when asked if Mr O’Boyle’s name came up at the first meeting you referred to. Why shouldn’t it? — That is one of the things I heard Mr Wisheart say yesterday and it was one of the things I looked

up. Asked if there was bad language at the meeting, Mrs Roberts said that she supposed there would be knowing the people there. She assumed it was directed at Mr O’Boyle. There were about 60 men present. Noone stuck up for Mr O’Boyle.

The letter could have been from Mr O’Boyle’s solicitors. She did not know.

Questioned about the word “misappropriated,” Ms Roberts said that she did remember Mr O’Boyle saying it but she had not included it in the minutes. That was the first and last time she had taken minutes of an oil tanker drivers’ meeting. She deniedthat it was done because Liggett wanted her record of what took place about the O’Boyle affair. She was there because it was held after a meeting in the Town Hall, Mrs Roberts said. Ronald John Rogatski, a Mobil Oil contract tanker operator, aged 44, said that he had worked for 22 years as a tanker driver for the company and the Atlantic Oil Company which it absorbed.

He was no longer in the union and now owned his own truck. He left the union in January, 1982. Tanker drivers had a separate award from ordinary drivers. Tanker drivers got paid extra allowances: meal money, cups of tea on the road, travel, clothing and shoe money — “every allowance available we got.”

Mr Rogatski said that he became a union delegate about April, 1980 and Mr O’Boyle started as a driver in 1979. Witness had to attend annual award talks in the North Island and sometimes additional meetings were held in Wellington.

He vaguely remembered

the meeting in August, 1979 at which the levy was set up. Liggett had said that there were only 63 oil company drivers and the 80c a week paid in union fees was not enough to send delegates to Wellington. Eventually it was decided that the levy should be 25c a week and it was voted on by a show of hands. That meant $1.05 was taken weekly out of their wages. The decision was unanimous.

On September 8, 1980, Mr Rogatski said that he had telephoned Mr O’Boyle because he had heard from management that he had stopped his 25c payment out of his wages. He did not speak to him in the hard manner that Mr O’Boyle had stated. He just told him to pay the 25c or there could be trouble in the morning. Mr O’Boyle did not agree to resume the levy payments. Mrs O’Boyle telephoned him the same evening but he had never threatened her as she had said. He mentioned what he was trying to do. There was trouble at Mobil over Swandri jackets and several other things. “The pressure was on down there. There was a 6 o’clock start and we had lost a lot of time and the jokers were getting pretty hot under the collar. They didn’t want any more stoppages and I rang Mr O’Boyle to calm things down a bit,” Mr Rogatski said.

Earlier Mr O’Boyle called Kenneth Johnson, petrol depot manager of Petone, who said that he was formerly manager of the Mobil depot at Chapmans Road, Woolston, where Mr O’Boyle worked.

Mr O’Boyle was involved in a dispute with the Drivers’ Union. He drove a small rigid tanker with a capacity of about 9000 litres. Neither he nor the management had any real complaint about Mr O’Boyle’s work. The dispute arose over the payment of a levy and an accusation about the use of the funds. Those involved from the union were Bennison, Rogatski, Collins and others.

After the first meeting of drivers they were very blunt in their demands.

They wanted Mr O’Boyle removed from the Woolston terminal and sent to Lyttelton, or sacked.

The men refused to work with him but as the company had no complaint about his work it did not give in to the union. The approach came from the union after a meeting. The men were very angry and spoke from anger. The demands were made on a number of occasions but the approach moderated after the first time. Some of the men’s attitude towards Mr O’Boyle softened but Mr Johnson said he was not in a particularly good position to learn what was happening. Some of those who did not relent were Penn, Taylor, Rogatski, Lynn, Bennison, Bloomfield, and a couple of others who he could not quite recall.

At that time there were rumours and accusations about Mr O’Boyle being subjected to harassment at his work.

“Unfortunately, in my time at the depot we could not substantiate anything. I was told nobody saw anything. Mr O’Boyle complained to me about harassment a few times.

“I investigated to the best of our ability with the people on the site at the time but we were not able to find any evidence from the other drivers,” Mr Johnson said. There was an accusation that Mr O’Boyle had been hosed down by Lynn. He inquired into other accusations. The result was that it was just Mr O’Boyle’s word against the rest and he did not feel that the company could take any action. “I felt there was a possibility of a bit of wrong on both sides and in that case I wasn’t prepared to take any action against one particular person,” said Mr Johnson.

He had heard rumours that persons put things in Mr O’Boyle’s truck and greased his steering wheel but nobody had complained directly to him as he remembered.

To Mr McClelland, Mr Johnson said that during his meetings with the union delegates he normally had another person from the supervisory staff at Woolston present. He did not know that Mr O’Boyle was taping their conversations. By the time Mr O’Boyle was transferred to Lyttelton he had left Christchurch. Kevin James Hickman, a licensed private investigator and former policeman, said that he was requested by a solicitor to serve the writs on the defendants.

It was extremely difficult to serve the writs and he had never had such difficulty in a collective case before. Some of the defendants took steps to evade service.

He had not followed any of the defendants except to serve the writs on them. Both Liggett and Root performed minor assaults on his person.

“I served Mr Liggett at the Town Hall because I had no success in locating him at his address or office. It was at the end of a meeting. After effecting service he became very excited and said words to the effect: ‘How dare you serve a writ on me in here.” “As I turned to leave he ran up behind me and pushed the writ up my jersey,” Mr Hickman said. Mark Brian David Sadler, an author and psychologist, said that he went to see Mr O’Boyle after publicity in the newspaper about his troubles. There were aspects of the behaviour he wanted to inquire into. After talking to Mr O’Boyle he was concerned that he had suffered quite a bit of persecution and he went to see Liggett in the hope that he could persuade him that enough had happened. He told Ligget that he could not understand certain aspects of the case and that it appeared that the men had gone on strike against Mr O’Boyle because he had objected to a levy. Surely there had to be some other reason.

Liggett’s response was that there was no other reason and that Mr O’Boyle had called him a “fucking thief.”

When witness referred to the assault case Liggett said that Rayner had been acquitted and he seemed to want to maintain that that proved that there had been no assault. Mr Sadler said that he argued that there had been an assault but there was some doubt about the identity of the assailant. “I said: ‘Suppose Mr O’Boyle were to apologise for suggesting that you were a thief and he had been assaulted etc, don’t you think he has suffered enough?’ I was unable to persuade Mr Ligget,” Mr Sadler said.

In reply Ligget had said: “He made his bed and he can lie\on it. He caused all this trouble. It is ridiculous that the law prevented us from getting rid of Mr O’Boyle. I’ve got rid of others before him.” Mr Sadler said that he did not mention the incident where Lynn had tried to run over Mr O’Boyle but Liggett raised the matter. He claimed that Mr O’Boyle had deliberately walked in front of a moving tanker and was being provocative. He even counter-claimed that Mr O’Boyle had tried to run over somebody. Liggett said that he had no sympathy for Mr O’Boyle, who had got $9OOO in redundancy when he left Marlin Carpets. He had paid the original levy of 25c without complaining but when the men had voted for an increase of 95c he had started making trouble. Liggett said that it was a travel and education levy, said Mr Sadler.

John Patrick O’Boyle, aged 46, an unemployed former tanker driver, is claiming $66,000 damages from 11 men, who are or were members of the Drivers’ Union, for allegedly conspiracy and intimidation against all, and for assault against some of them.

All defendants deny liability and are represented by Mr B. McClelland, Q.C., and P. H. B. Hall.

Messrs A. A. P. Willy and I. Brooks appear for Mr O’Boyle.

Mr Justice Roper is presiding over the trial which is expected to take about a fortnight.

The defendants are: Peter Reginald Liggett, secretary of the Canterbury and Westland Drivers’ Union; Daryl Collins, former president of the union; Rodney Kennedy Root, Ronald John Rogatski, Murray Allan Rayner, Kevin Maxwell Penn, Roger Frank Carson, Brian Richard Bennison, Robert William Michael Taylor, William Douglas Lynn, and George Edward Robert Bloomfield.