Day 308 - 28 Nov 96 - Page 36


     
     1        Mr. Morris are responsible.  It would be easy to
     2        think: "Well, the fact sheet clearly exists and it must
     3        have been distributed at some stage and, therefore, someone
     4        must be responsible, and the only two people in front of me
     5        are the two Defendants who both deny responsibility for the
     6        campaign and therefore", you know ... (Dot, dot, dot).
     7
     8        The point is, we know who was responsible for running the
     9        campaign from 1987 onwards.  It was Mr. Gravett.  He has
    10        accepted that fact and gave evidence to that end.  It was
    11        the Plaintiffs' choice to discontinue proceedings against
    12        him, because it served their purposes to obtain an apology
    13        from him rather than taking the proceedings to court and
    14        risking exposure of their practices.  Additionally, they no
    15        doubt hoped that having three co-defendants apologise would
    16        increase the pressure on us to do the same.  They also knew
    17        that they could use the apologies and PR battle against the
    18        campaign and against myself and Mr. Morris in court.
    19
    20        Just to say that it does not actually take many people to
    21        run a campaign, and it is quite easily done with only one
    22        person; particularly when, as we have seen through the
    23        evidence in this case, the campaign has basically been run
    24        down or has been taken up by other groups around the
    25        country, and all that is really left is to answer letters
    26        and arrange an annual picket at the same time and same
    27        place each year.  One person could quite easily do that on
    28        their own.
    29
    30        It is clear from all the evidence that the fact sheet was
    31        out of print by the time the Plaintiffs issued proceedings
    32        in this case, and that there was no intention to reprint it
    33        in the form that it was then in.  So, I would remind you
    34        that it was also the Plaintiffs' own choice to leave the
    35        proceedings so late in the day, not to issue writs until
    36        1990, when, on their own evidence, they were aware of the
    37        fact sheet in 1986, 1987.
    38
    39        Just really to say that without proof of specific
    40        individual acts of consent or encouragement to publication
    41        of the fact sheet, we should not be held responsible for
    42        its distribution just because we are the only people who
    43        have ended up in a full-blown trial against McDonald's.
    44
    45        Just, really, we do not think that this case should be
    46        considered in isolation.  The proceedings were brought
    47        against us as part of a long running attempt by McDonald's
    48        to stamp out the voices of its critics.  This court has
    49        heard evidence about the numerous threats of legal action
    50        that have been made by McDonald's against its critics, 
    51        ranging from big organisations to small campaigning groups; 
    52        and over 50 examples have been referred to during the 
    53        course of this trial alone of McDonald's trying to silence
    54        its critics.  In our view, this goes to show that
    55        McDonald's had an improper motive in using the UK libel
    56        laws against us, namely, censorship, and that that should
    57        be taken into consideration when assessing the whole trial
    58        and the evidence in the trial and in assessing the
    59        Plaintiffs' claim for an injunction in damages.
    60

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