Day 307 - 27 Nov 96 - Page 56
1 McDonald's own agents that has been admitted by them in the
2 witness box. There is the reading out by Mr. Rampton on
3 the first day of trial the entire fact sheet, which made
4 every word that he read out, therefore, in the public
5 domain and entitled to be commented on by anybody; and,
6 thirdly, the distribution of the fact sheet by
7 Mrs. Brinley-Codd on 27th June 1996 which Ms. Steel
8 testified to in her evidence.
9
10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I would like you to explain to me just what
11 you say the relevance of that is to an issue in the case.
12
13 MR. MORRIS: Yes, because if they are saying that they are
14 entitled to legitimate self-defence against the
15 distribution of the fact sheet, or indeed if similar words,
16 but the point is the fact sheet itself, we have three
17 definitely proven examples which is the admission by the
18 agents, Mr. Rampton reading it out on day one and
19 Mrs. Brinley-Codd handing it out, which would be
20 Plaintiffs' own public dissemination of those points, of
21 those statements. Therefore, if they say Mr. Howes got
22 something from somebody who may have been associated with
23 the Defendants on another day when in fact, under
24 questioning, it turned out there was nothing at all to
25 connect myself or Ms. Steel with that distribution, and
26 they have also brought in the launch of McSpotlight, which,
27 I think, was earlier this year which was nothing to do with
28 the fact sheet anyway. So, they are trying to rely on
29 trying to find some examples of our distribution of the
30 fact sheet which would necessitate justification of
31 self-defence, even though, of course, some of them took
32 place after the counterclaim pleadings were served.
33
34 So, all I am saying is that they cannot say they were
35 justified in having self-defence when they, themselves,
36 have published and made public the contents of the document
37 that they are complaining about. That is what I am
38 saying. The only other examples we have heard, obviously,
39 is the Veggies fact sheet which McDonald's have accepted
40 the continued distribution of as well.
41
42 The reason I said at the beginning that we need to have a
43 sense of perspective on this is because it just seems an
44 Alice in Wonderland situation, this counterclaim, and,
45 indeed, so much of this case in many ways, but it seems
46 like surely we should be concentrating on the detail, you
47 know, because, fundamentally, it is almost hard to believe;
48 it just seems to me so out of perspective, so completely
49 unjustifiable that it needs to be -- it just has to be
50 stated that way, you know.
51
52 That the law -- well, at every stage the burden of proof is
53 on the Plaintiffs to prove every point of justification
54 which they will need to rely on. So we should not have to
55 prove the opposite, even though we have demonstrated the
56 opposite is the case.
57
58 Can I just say that if McDonald's raise this point that
59 when they say "the leaflet", what they mean is, of course,
60 any leaflet called "What's wrong with McDonald's", which we
