Day 311 - 06 Dec 96 - Page 37


     
     1        party is represented by counsel and solicitors and in which
     2        the only real opportunity the judge or the jury gets to see
     3        what sort of people they are is when they go into the
     4        witness box, if they do, in this case your Lordship has had
     5        the advantage of seeing the Defendants in action every day
     6        for the last 300 and however many days it is.
     7
     8   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I have a recollection -- I have not looked it
     9        up because, even if I do, I am not sure that I do have the
    10        transcripts of the arguments and interlocutory matters, and
    11        what you have just said about the strains of being a
    12        litigant in person may explain it anyway -- but I have some
    13        recollection, I believe, of Mr. Morris, some three years
    14        ago now when we were in chambers, saying something to the
    15        effect that he was nearly 40 then -- it is three years ago
    16         -- that he was determined to live longer than McDonald's.
    17        Is that the sort of comment which one can take into
    18        account?
    19
    20   MR. RAMPTON:  Indeed, it is.  That is in his opening speech, my
    21        Lord, and that is one of the specific matters on which we
    22        rely.
    23
    24   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Is it one which is in one of your
    25        references?
    26
    27   MR. RAMPTON:  It is not specifically referred to, because I have
    28        not made specific references to the Defendants' opening.
    29        I was hoping that since they were quite short -- it took a
    30        day or so -- your Lordship might just jog back and read
    31        those.
    32
    33   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  But then I am back on the same question:
    34        whether, if that is Mr. Morris's view, it is because he
    35        really thinks they treat their employees badly and they
    36        should not be responsible for the rearing and slaughter of
    37        animals for food, or whether it is a malicious motive.
    38
    39   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, one comes back to what Lord Diplock said
    40        in Horrocks v. Lowe, to this effect: no sense of duty, no
    41        desire to express one's honest opinion about a person or a
    42        corporation can justify one in telling deliberate and
    43        injurious falsehoods about that person; and if the court
    44        should find that the defendant was indifferent as to the
    45        truth or falsity of those injurious statements, then he
    46        will be treated as if he knew that they were false; and
    47        except in one category, which has no application to this
    48        case, the inevitable consequence is that the court will
    49        find that he is malicious.  I am simply not allowed,
    50        because I feel strongly about employment or animals, to 
    51        lard my comments or feelings, expressed feelings, about 
    52        those matters with other material which I think is going to 
    53        help do down the object of my disapproval for which I have
    54        no foundation.
    55
    56   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  What is the situation, then, if there is
    57        something like -- suppose there is a dozen areas of
    58        allegation in a particular newspaper, and, in relation to
    59        some parts of two of them (albeit important parts of them)
    60        one concludes that the person publishing the article did

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