Day 300 - 14 Nov 96 - Page 16
1 the heading, and therefore "fair comment".
2
3 I do not want to lead you into something which you do not
4 think is so. I mean, this is just a thought which had
5 crossed my mind anyway, that you might suggest that.
6
7 MR. MORRIS: It is not necessarily what is following. I mean,
8 you have to take the other text in the leaflet which may
9 relate to that issue as well.
10
11 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I will put what follows under the heading,
12 and any other relevant material in the leaflet. What
13 I would like to do, I would like Ms. Steel to continue with
14 what she has to say about advertising, and, if Mr. Rampton
15 would agree, I would like to be given a transcript of the
16 discussion which started with Ms. Steel speaking of
17 different standards of what is acceptable around the world
18 and finishing now. I suggest you let Ms. Steel get on with
19 the advertising and then read what has passed, so that you
20 can come back to it at some stage, just as you may want to
21 come back to the matter of principle, of what can be relied
22 upon as fair comment. We had that discussion on the first
23 day. I think you have a copy of that.
24
25 I did say, reading it through again this morning, that when
26 we came to employment, I would want to ask you about that.
27 It is a question of what is comment, what is statement of
28 fact, what you say you can rely on to make the comment fair
29 or to justify a statement of fact in so far as it is a
30 general charge. I have not particularly chosen my words
31 carefully, but that is the broad scope.
32
33 MR. RAMPTON: Can I just add one thing that might be helpful,
34 since this is going to be a section that the Defendants
35 will have for future reference? The reason why there is
36 this difference in the rules about statements of fact and
37 fair comment, so far as I can tell, at the bottom is this:
38 that if it is apparent from the words complained of that
39 the defamatory statement is a comment and opinion, then the
40 reader is free to make up his own mind whether or not he
41 agrees with it in the light of the facts stated or
42 referred, whereas with the statement of fact, of course, he
43 does not have that opportunity.
44
45 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Let us take the five minute break there.
46 Unless you think you have got some hard and fast answer to
47 what I have put forward which you want to declare now,
48 I suggest that when I come back you carry on with your
49 advertising.
50
51 (Short Adjournment)
52
53 MS. STEEL: Going back to that, it is the same point that I was
54 on before, that Miss Dibb said that in 1977 the UK
55 government ANNAN committee recommended a ban on advertising
56 during children's programmes, on advertising child-targeted
57 products until after 9 p.m. That committee was concerned
58 that these increased children's desire for products which
59 their parents could not afford. The ban did not come into
60 effect primarily because the IBA reported that such a ban
