Day 305 - 25 Nov 96 - Page 37
1 goes to show how unreliable the notes of Mr. Clare are.
2 Obviously, the main point on this is that, in any event, it
3 is completely untrue. There is my own evidence, there is
4 the evidence of Mr. Gravett and the evidence of
5 Ms. Laporte, and, indeed, the acceptance by McDonald's that
6 I was not responsible for production of the fact sheet.
7
8 Moving on to the second statement, paragraph 2, Mr. Clare
9 asserts that in relation to the BBC's invitation for
10 somebody to appear or somebody to be interviewed or have a
11 debate on World Service Radio with McDonald's, and the fact
12 that McDonald's representatives had refused to appear on
13 the programme, and Mr. Clare was saying that the group
14 treated it as a great moral victory and would not let it go
15 or die down; and he said that certain members of the group
16 thought that McDonald's refusing was lucky, effectively,
17 because people in the group admitted to not having any
18 sources for backing up most of their points in the
19 leaflets.
20
21 Firstly, he does not say who are the members he was
22 referring to. Mr. Gravett was quite happy to do the debate
23 on the World Service Radio. So, it can hardly have been
24 his view that there were not any sources to back up the
25 points in the leaflet, unless he wanted to go on the radio
26 and make a complete idiot of himself -- which I am sure he
27 would hardly set out to do.
28
29 Secondly, this ridiculous allegation by Mr. Clare is
30 contradicted by all the other evidence from Mr. Gravett,
31 myself and Ms. Laporte, who were at the meeting and who
32 never heard any such thing said. Also, Mr. Pocklington was
33 at this meeting as a spy for McDonald's, and his notes of
34 this meeting, which are on page 76 of the notes bundle, do
35 not mention this incident -- well, they mention the World
36 Service interview, but it does not mention any such
37 admission that there were no sources for the information in
38 the leaflet -- which you would have thought, since he was
39 there to find out precisely that sort of information, he
40 would have made a note of it if it had been said.
41
42 Mr. Pocklington confirmed what he had written. On day 262,
43 page 25, we asked him that if he had heard anyone at a
44 meeting saying that they did not have any information to
45 back up what was in the leaflets, that he would have made a
46 note of that, and he said he presumed he would have done,
47 yes. He summed up everything in his notes that he thought
48 was relevant, which was that Mr. Gravett was willing to
49 take part in the BBC World Service interview, whereas
50 McDonald's were not.
51
52 MR. MORRIS: Can I just say that also evidence was heard that
53 there were plenty of sources of information available at
54 London Greenpeace in a file which Paul had compiled, as we
55 heard. So, in fact, even if somebody did say that as an
56 aside, someone unknown said that to Mr. Clare, it is not
57 true. It just goes to show how unreliable it is, if he is
58 taking asides by somebody else and trying to make it appear
59 that is the opinion of the whole group or something.
60
