Day 305 - 25 Nov 96 - Page 39
1 and we believe more, because there were lots of pages of
2 his notebook which were blanked out by the Plaintiffs which
3 indicate that there were other meetings that he attended.
4 He took numerous letters belonging to London Greenpeace
5 which had been sent to the group by members of the public,
6 letters which did not belong to him, and he took them in
7 order to provide copies for McDonald's files, and he broke
8 into the offices of London Greenpeace. Generally, he was a
9 completely unreliable and untrustworthy character.
10
11 We would say that the fact that he made a statement that
12 I was present at the meeting on 14th June 1990, which the
13 Plaintiffs now accept that I did not attend, means that his
14 evidence cannot be given any weight at all; it is
15 completely unreliable.
16
17 If you look at the notes of that date which appear on
18 page 139 of the bundle of spies' notes, it could not be a
19 simple mistake of adding my name to the list of people
20 present by accident, because he states at the end of his
21 report: "Meeting finished reasonably early, 9.30, because
22 Paul and Helen were going for a drink with friends." When
23 he wrote that report, he knew that that was untrue, but he
24 did not care; he just put it down anyway. It was really
25 quite fortunate that I actually spotted it by compiling a
26 list of all the meetings that the spies had attended and
27 noting that Mr. Bishop did not report that I had attended
28 that meeting, and that then reminded me that I was on
29 holiday at that time and I was able, fortunately, to get
30 hold of a postcard which I sent from the Outer Hebrides and
31 so prove that I was not at the meeting. Well, I think that
32 is generally quite fortunate all round, because we are
33 therefore able to show that Mr. Clare's evidence is totally
34 unreliable, and it would be quite..... (Pause)
35
36 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You have made your point.
37
38 MS. STEEL: Yes. Just, you know, that can apply to all of his
39 notes. He wrote down whatever he felt like at the time,
40 and they cannot be trusted.
41
42 I have sort of finished on the individual witnesses in
43 relation to the meetings for now, although I might want to
44 do a list of further points to hand in.
45
46 I just wanted to make a general point that just because we
47 were present at meetings does not mean that we took part in
48 any discussions; and that if there is nothing in the notes,
49 nothing recorded in the notes, it cannot be considered in
50 the balance of probabilities that we spoke in favour or
51 spoke at all about that subject. The test of balance of
52 probabilities is not did we say something, but have facts
53 been shown that we did say something upon which the balance
54 of probabilities could be taken that we were in favour or
55 involved?
56
57 MR. MORRIS: The point, as I say, and I was going to say earlier
58 on actually, it is not just general assent to say, "Oh,
59 yes, such and such is a good thing"; it has to be assent in
60 terms of affecting a decision for a particular course of
