Day 042 - 31 Oct 94 - Page 44
1 Mr. Hawkes: "Did you not intend to do this?" Put to him
2 any further examples which you want to put. You have
3 already dealt with the chemicals matter, where you suggest
4 that regulatory authorities have criticised McDonald's in
5 any particular respect; and, in due course next week, call
6 your two witnesses as to what they make of the advertising,
7 so that I can consider their evidence, whether it is
8 critical or not.
9
10 MS. STEEL: There are other areas which we feel we have to
11 cover, because they were brought up by the Plaintiffs in
12 examination-in-chief and, if we do not challenge them, then
13 they stand as they are; and I do not know why they brought
14 them up. But, I mean, last Friday, Mr. Rampton did
15 say: "The third thing I wanted to ask you about was this:
16 in comparing the adult advertisements with the children's
17 advertisement, am I right that one notices in the
18 children's advertisements a relative absence of actual menu
19 items from the advertisements; is that right"; and the
20 witness said, "Yes."
21
22 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I understand that. Might I make this
23 suggestion, that when you are moving on to a line of
24 cross-examination which is not what I will call mainstream
25 challenge, that is, undue pressure, deceptiveness of the
26 ad, normality trap, pester power, something of that kind,
27 you just start by declaring what you are suggesting the
28 position is, because in some cases you might find that you
29 get agreement, and if you do not you can proceed to
30 demonstrate that the witness is wrong.
31
32 With the wisdom of hindsight, if you look at the
33 statement you have just mentioned, if you had said, or
34 Mr. Morris had, right at the beginning of that line of
35 cross-examination, to Mr. Hawkes, "I suggest, in fact, that
36 a very high proportion of the advertisements directed at
37 children do show particular McDonald's products", then, I
38 do not know, Mr. Hawkes might have agreed with you right at
39 the start. If he had not, then you could have demonstrated
40 your point in the way you did.
41
42 You do not have to go through all the ads to show it.
43 I mean, if we find that four out of the first five, or
44 three out of the first four, do show particular products,
45 it may be thought that you have made your point. Do you
46 see?
47
48 MS. STEEL: Yes. There are other points in the advertisements
49 that I wanted to bring up, as well. That was not the only
50 one.
51
52 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What I suggest is that you say, "This is the
53 point I am now seeking to demonstrate", and we can find out
54 straightaway whether Mr. Hawkes agrees with it or not. It
55 comes back to what I have said on a number of occasions in
56 the past, that if you have a witness who you think is lying
57 on purpose, and knows he is, then you may, although it need
58 not take long, want to manoeuvre him or her into a position
59 where they cannot backtrack. But we may find that, with
60 many of the witnesses, they will immediately concede the
