Day 313 - 13 Dec 96 - Page 40


     
     1   MR. MORRIS:  I am doing that now.
     2
     3   MR. JUSTICE BELL: --  what the comments are, not at great length
     4        but just say, 'We say it is comment rather than statement
     5        of fact because...' and then give me the reasons.  What
     6        I am anxious to avoid is, as you know because I have said
     7        it so often now, is just going back into arguing what
     8        conclusions I should draw from this bit of evidence or that
     9        bit of evidence.
    10
    11   MS. STEEL:   Just in relation to the test about balance of
    12        probabilities.  I mean, this is a particular point about
    13        before October 1989, that the test about balance of
    14        probabilities should be weighed with particularly strict
    15        conditions in relation to prior to October 1989 because
    16        this amendment came very late in the day and the Plaintiffs
    17        have no evidence to put myself or Mr. Morris in the frame.
    18        The only evidence of what was going on in the group was
    19        from Mr. Gravett and myself, who both stated that neither
    20        of us were involved.  Neither myself nor Mr. Morris were
    21        involved in the anti-McDonald's campaign, and since there
    22        is no evidence to the contrary there is no balance of
    23        probabilities to weigh up and the finding must therefore,
    24        on that test, be that we cannot be held responsible for
    25        publication during the period from September 1987 to
    26        September 1989 approximately -- which was added at the time
    27        of the amendments, and it is particularly important to bear
    28        in mind the point that we could have called more evidence
    29        on this if the Plaintiffs had made this a pleading at the
    30        time they issued the writs, and so on, and so the balance
    31        of probabilities test should be particularly strict on that
    32        area of the case.
    33
    34        On the spies' notes -- sorry, the inquiry agents' notes --
    35        we say that the notes of the inquiry agents should not be
    36        accepted as evidence unless they were disclosed in full,
    37        and certainly they should not be accepted as evidence of
    38        overall impressions.  Anything that is not specifically
    39        mentioned in the notes should not be allowed since the
    40        Plaintiffs failed to disclose all of them.  Whether or not
    41        they were ordered to do so, they could have actually chosen
    42        to do so, and they chose which ones to disclose, and such
    43        impressions, i.e. overall impressions, may be based in part
    44        on meetings which the Plaintiffs had chosen to deem as
    45        relevant or that they-----
    46
    47   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I am going to stop you, I am afraid, because
    48        you are just arguing the issue of publication again.  I do
    49        not see-----
    50
    51   MS. STEEL:  I am arguing the principles on which you should
    52        weigh up the evidence.
    53
    54   MR. JUSTICE BELL: No, if that is a point of law it is certainly
    55        not a proposition of law as I understand it.  You had five
    56        weeks to argue your case on all these matters and I am just
    57        not going to...  And I refused your application that
    58        Mr. Rampton should go first and you should go second and
    59        that was not pursued before the Court of Appeal, and you
    60        are not to use the opportunity I gave you to reply on

Prev Next Index