Day 245 - 07 May 96 - Page 71
1
2 Q. What activities were affecting that department?
3 A. I am sorry?
4
5 Q. You have said, "... as the trial got nearer, the
6 Communications Department kept me abreast of activities
7 affecting that department"; which activities are you
8 referring to?
9 A. I think they refer to in the appendices in the back
10 where press releases were made by the McLibel Support
11 Campaign, or there were press conferences to be held.
12 Until January of 19 -- no, until March or April of 1994 we
13 had never said anything publicly about this. We had done
14 quite the opposite and very consciously so; yet the McLibel
15 Support Campaign had begun in early January, issuing
16 statements and continued to do so on two or three
17 occasions. As they became -- as we became aware of those,
18 the Communications Department had a job to do.
19
20 Q. Just what you have said is not strictly true, is it,
21 because you have commented personally to the media in 1991,
22 for example, about this case. You may not have put out
23 press releases and leaflets to your customers, but you and
24 other people on behalf of the Company have commented to
25 newspapers about this case?
26 A. You will have to show me where. I may have, but
27 I certainly made no press release, no big story of it in
28 any way, shape or form. I do not remember what I would
29 have said or to whom.
30
31 Q. I can remember, for example, that you said something to
32 Mr. Andrew Tyler when you spoke to him for an article that
33 he was writing for The Independent. Do you remember that?
34 A. I do not remember, no. It is not the only issue I deal
35 with.
36
37 Q. You would accept, though, that you may have spoken to
38 journalists about the -----
39 A. Well -----
40
41 MR. JUSTICE BELL: This is before the trial started, is it?
42
43 MS. STEEL: Before the trial started, yes.
44 A. Is it possible? I do not know, I suppose it is
45 possible. The comment would have been something like, "We
46 are going to court and why and I cannot talk about it any
47 further". But I do not remember to whom it would have
48 been.
49
50 Q. We will find the article overnight, or something. I am not
51 sure where it is.
52
53 Anyway, when you are talking about activities affecting
54 that department, are you only talking about responding to
55 things that were put out by the McLibel Support Campaign or
56 London Greenpeace?
57 A. I am talking about the whole issue. The press releases
58 were primary.
59
60 Q. What about the other activities affecting that department,
