Day 311 - 06 Dec 96 - Page 43
1 does), but it has everything to do with the counterclaim.
2
3 But the murder illustration is only an example of what
4 I was submitting to your Lordship this morning, namely,
5 that you can have an honest belief in a number of things,
6 but if you cloak them with a whole lot of other serious
7 allegations for which you do not have an honest belief,
8 then the court may well infer that your dominant motive for
9 the publication was an improper one.
10
11 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I understand that. It is just if I was
12 missing some point in relation to -----
13
14 MR. RAMPTON: No, no, no.
15
16 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I can see it might be relevant in this way,
17 that the Defendants say part of the meaning is all the
18 killing of animals; and if I thought that was the
19 defamatory and I expressed reservations about that ---
20
21 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, I agree.
22
23 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- for the ordinary reader, then I suppose
24 that the Defendants might say: But it is fair comment,
25 and, since it is fair comment on part of what is
26 defamatory, then it washes away a lot of what else is in
27 that part of the case. You say no, it does not.
28
29 MR. RAMPTON: It is not in what is that part of the case; it is
30 what is in the leaflet as a whole.
31
32 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, indeed.
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34 MR. RAMPTON: It may not even wash as far as torture.
35
36 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No. But now you have said that it was
37 written before we had the discussion -----
38
39 MR. RAMPTON: I should have said that.
40
41 MR. JUSTICE BELL: If we go on to counterclaim, then.
42
43 MR. RAMPTON: Yes.
44
45 MR. JUSTICE BELL: In fact, there are not an awful lot of
46 questions I have to ask this afternoon. What I think would
47 be helpful -- because I think I have got hold of it, and
48 I will express what I understand -- but it reverts back to
49 when you stood up a few days ago and said that Ms. Steel
50 and Mr. Morris were missing the point, and Mr. Morris
51 wanted you to explain.
52
53 MR. RAMPTON: I have done it now.
54
55 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is in here, but I think it might be just
56 as well if you went through it in your own way. Can I say
57 what I understand? What I understand Ms. Steel was arguing
58 particularly -- this was, you were saying, in response to
59 an attack -- that the attack had come in the leaflet which,
60 it was said, had not been published since the writs were
