Day 248 - 13 May 96 - Page 54
1 Q. Again, this comes from the press office of the so-called
2 McLibel Support Campaign. That is for immediate release,
3 and the second paragraph on page 2 says this, "Steel and
4 Morris are faced with libel laws which are complex,
5 oppressive and expensive to fight and no option but to
6 represent and finance themselves. They are determined to
7 resist censorship and defend the truth." So far as you are
8 concerned Mr. Preston, whether now or in March of 1994 or
9 when you issued the writ in this action, have the
10 Defendants been defending the truth?
11
12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Is it necessary?
13
14 MR. RAMPTON: OK, well, I would like to read the next bit which
15 is in quotes. They said, "We have had to fight every stage
16 to defend our legal rights and freedom of speech. The
17 business practices of multi-nationals should be subject to
18 public scrutiny without fear of censorship. Robert
19 Maxwell's dependence on legal intimidation to silence his
20 critics was eventually shown to have not been in the public
21 interest. This case is also of great public interest". Do
22 you remember that passage, Mr. Preston?
23 A. I do.
24
25 Q. Thank you. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Preston.
26
27 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Thank you, Mr. Preston.
28
29 MR. MORRIS: Can I just say, if you remember while we were doing
30 cross-examination -- before Mr. Preston is released --
31 I was going to put a leaflet, an A5 leaflet, to Mr. Preston
32 to see if he could show anything in inaccurate in it, or
33 that was both inaccurate and that we knew it, and it was
34 one that was dated June 1994. Do you remember? And it was
35 said that I should not need to do that. It was directly
36 relevant to what Mr. Rampton was doing, because the
37 leaflets that were in circulation on the eve of the trial
38 by the McLibel Support Campaign, or whoever, do not form
39 part of this action except inasmuch as they are the
40 leaflets which were actually available around the time that
41 McDonald's were putting out its 300,000 leaflets attacking
42 the Defendants for circulating lies.
43
44 So, what status does that leaflet have, and, if it has any
45 status, the one that was put out by supporters of
46 London Greenpeace, or whoever, on the eve of the trial, if
47 it has any status then we should be able to put it to
48 Mr. Preston.
49
50 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But what is the basis; put it for what
51 purpose?
52
53 MR. MORRIS: Well, because Mr. Rampton is making a great big
54 confusion here whether the fact sheet is uppermost in
55 Mr. Preston's mind when he authorised the issuing of the
56 McDonald's leaflet, and much of the material referred to,
57 for example, in the questions he put to him about the
58 25,000 leaflets available for distribution in London, he
59 asked Mr. Preston if that was something that was on his
60 mind, and he said it was, then it would have to be relevant
