Day 262 - 13 Jun 96 - Page 38


     
     1        amendment, because none of that material, as it were, has
     2        been proffered or suppressed (if I can use that word) in
     3        any sense as a result of or in connection with the agency
     4        amendment, since all the agency facts are already in the
     5        case.
     6
     7        It might be, at the end of the case -- and I think I ought
     8        it say this -- that there was material relevant to the
     9        amended defence -- and by the amended defence, I mean the
    10        re-re-re-re-reamended defence, the recent one -- material
    11        relevant to that plea which also bore upon the agency
    12        question, by a side wind, which your Lordship might think
    13        it appropriate to take into account.  But your Lordship's
    14        leave was given on the basis of the facts and the pleadings
    15        as they existed at the time; and, therefore, I ignore the
    16        agency amendment for this purpose.
    17
    18        Can I ask your Lordship -- maybe you have already done it,
    19        I do not know -- just to remind yourself of what the
    20        amended defence is actually about?
    21
    22   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Well, if I can find it.
    23
    24   MR. RAMPTON:  That is a very good question.
    25
    26   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Because I think I invited your instructing
    27        solicitors, or Mr. Atkinson, to provide an extra divider
    28        for the abstract pleadings with it on; and all I have,
    29        I think, at the moment, is the draft upon which I wrote
    30        various things by way of addition.
    31
    32   MR. RAMPTON:  That is all I have got.  My Lord, in essence, it
    33        is this.  I will read, if I may, while Mrs. Brinley-Codd
    34        looks for a copy, its introduction before one gets to the
    35        particulars.  Its introduction is -- and it is 9A of the
    36        amended defence:
    37
    38        "If, which is denied, the leaflet entitled What's wrong
    39        with McDonald's? is defamatory and the Plaintiff is
    40        libelled the Defendants will rely upon the defence of leave
    41        and licence in that the Plaintiffs and each of them
    42        expressly or impliedly authorised and/or assented to the
    43        publication of the words complained of."
    44
    45        That is the whole nature of the amended defence.
    46
    47        What I will do, if I may, is pass up my copy, because
    48        Mrs. Brinley-Codd has written -- I will not call them
    49        personal notes -- but, my Lord, that is my version.
    50        I have, in mistake, crossed out the introductory paragraph 
    51        which I just read out, but I put a post-it on it.  (Handed) 
    52 
    53        My Lord, what, in essence, it says in support of the
    54        pleading of the defence of leave and licence, what in
    55        essence, it says is three things, starting at 9A(a).
    56        First, that the Plaintiffs expressly or impliedly
    57        instructed the inquiry agents to act as (and I summarise)
    58        agent provocateur.  Second, that when they got there, they
    59        did indeed do that, so that they -- it was really only
    60        through their activities that the dying campaign was blown

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