Day 309 - 03 Dec 96 - Page 50
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2 MR. RAMPTON: I am not sure that he did. Mr. Atkinson's
3 analysis really does repay careful study, I would
4 respectfully suggest. I have read it carefully; and
5 provided he has not left anything out -- which I am sure he
6 has not -- he does provide an answer, really, to every
7 single one of the Defendants', Ms. Steel's, points in a
8 convincing fashion; and it leads, I would submit, to the
9 inevitable conclusion that there is nothing in the way in
10 which the animals used for McDonald's are treated which
11 goes beyond that ordinary degree of suffering which the
12 ordinary person would regard as a necessary and acceptable
13 adjunct of eating animals.
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15 MR. JUSTICE BELL: The next matter I wanted to ask about is on
16 page 6, and it is paragraph (6).
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18 MR. RAMPTON: Yes.
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20 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can you explain that to me?
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22 MR. RAMPTON: I am in the wrong section, I am sorry.
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24 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is about two pages before the A divider;
25 it has "6" at the top. It is the paragraph above 43 --
26 (6).
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28 MR. RAMPTON: Yes. If -- and I may be wrong about this on
29 reflection; I have worried about this paragraph since
30 I wrote it -- if the allegation of murder incorporates
31 anything more of the leaflet -- obviously it does not
32 include the keeping of the animals in houses; perhaps I can
33 deal with that -- but if it incorporates the methods and
34 practices alleged at and just before the moment of
35 slaughter -- which also of course reflects upon the word
36 "torture", but there is no necessary distinction there,
37 because people under torture often die, and people would
38 say that that was murder -- if the allegation of murder
39 extends in context to the various allegations made below
40 the heading "Murdering a Big Mac", then the defence of fair
41 comment must fail, because the facts stated in the leaflet
42 in support of the allegation of murder (if, indeed, that is
43 what they are) must fail because they are, in large part,
44 false. On our view of the case, the only one which is
45 partly true is the allegation about chickens and pigs
46 living inside.
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48 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. You see, I thought I could discard
49 murder altogether from this case, in the light of what you
50 said early on. I will think again, but it might be said
51 that torture most obviously relates to practices in the
52 rearing and during the actual slaughter of the animals ---
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54 MR. RAMPTON: Yes.
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56 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- and that murder most obviously relates to
57 the mere fact of killing them.
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59 MR. RAMPTON: I have always accepted that that is all it relates
60 to, in the context here; and then it is incapable of being
