Day 186 - 10 Nov 95 - Page 52
1 than that". I have dealt with that submission just now in
2 relation to this particular passage, but, my Lord, at the
3 risk of repeating what I said when I opened this argument,
4 one only has to look at the very front page of this leaflet
5 and -----
6
7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I have that point of yours, Mr. Rampton.
8
9 MR. RAMPTON: Then I will not, therefore, repeat it. What I
10 will say is this, that when it comes to -----
11
12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is "Everything they don't want you to
13 know".
14
15 MR. RAMPTON: And it is the mask.
16
17 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I appreciate that.
18
19 MR. RAMPTON: Yes. What is the point of the mask unless someone
20 is hiding behind it? My Lord, when one comes to your
21 Lordship's -- maybe I am pushing at an open door and, if
22 so, I would be obliged if your Lordship would tell me
23 because I do not want to waste time -- I have certainly
24 taken the last part of your Lordship's meaning "and they
25 falsely claim" to mean that they know, or jolly well ought
26 to know, what the true position is and, in that knowledge
27 or obligation of knowledge, have made what they know or
28 ought to know are false claims. In other words, a clear
29 allegation of deceptive concealment; if you like, in the
30 broad sense, fraud.
31
32 Then perhaps, more importantly, in the sense that there is
33 arguably something more of a contest in this area of the
34 argument, the question: What degree of risk or hazard the
35 reader will think that this leaflet is telling him
36 McDonald's food carries with it and is being concealed by
37 McDonald's as those two things go together? I do not say
38 (and never have said) that the headlines can be divorced
39 from the text or the cartoon for that matter, or the
40 introduction or any other part of the leaflet. I have
41 always said that they all have to be read together and that
42 if one reads them together they are productive of a single
43 meaning or impression.
44
45 Put it in this way, if I may: The headings starting, and I
46 will read them all, "McCancer", "McDisease" and "McDeadly",
47 on which I have not really focused -- perhaps I ought to
48 have done so -- "McDeadly" which has no other reference
49 point in the whole of the leaflet can only, as it were, be
50 indicative of the degree of risk which is flagged up by the
51 text.
52
53 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I thought "McDeadly" could refer to both
54 nutrition and to the animals.
55
56 MR. RAMPTON: It might do, but then when one looks at the
57 headings "McTorture" and "McMurder", and one sees in the
58 animal section: "In what way are McDonald's responsible
59 for torture and murder", one is, I would respectfully
60 submit, inclined to think, as a reasonable reader, that
