Day 306 - 26 Nov 96 - Page 40
1
2 Just another point on that thing about whether or not the
3 proceedings were under way or being considered.
4 Mr. Nicholson said that he asked Barlow Lyde and Gilbert to
5 write letters to us, but where is the evidence that that
6 was done? There is none. Wouldn't somebody who was
7 seriously interested in finding other means of resolving a
8 matter rather than going to court, would they not follow up
9 on whether or not letters had been sent and, if so, what
10 reply, you know, if any, had been received? The fact that
11 he did not follow it up indicates that either he never
12 asked in the first place or that he was not seriously
13 looking for other ways to resolve the matter rather than
14 taking it through the courts.
15
16 I want to make some quick points, other points from
17 Mr. Nicholson's first statement. In paragraph 7 he said
18 that -- he gave evidence that the London Greenpeace fair --
19 sorry, the anti-McDonald's fair in 1988 was well attended
20 and that the leaflet "What's wrong with McDonald's" was
21 arranged on the stall. Just to point out that he does not
22 say there which "What's wrong with McDonald's" leaflet he
23 is referring to, though later on in the next sentence he
24 says: "I observed many members of the public take this
25 leaflet complained of and other leaflets on the table."
26 That, again, sounds like something that would have been
27 inserted in terms of legal speak by solicitors.
28
29 In paragraph 12 of his first statement he says: "Since by
30 this time, i.e. October 1989, my attempts to trace and
31 identify members of the group had proved unsuccessful, and
32 because it had been impossible to take effective steps to
33 prevent repetition of the defamatory statements, I decided
34 and was authorised on behalf of the Plaintiffs to instruct
35 two firms of inquiry agents to seek to identify members of
36 London Greenpeace", and so on.
37
38 The point is that that paragraph is untrue, that decision
39 and authorisation to hire inquiry agents had been made in
40 June 1989 from Mr. Nicholson's own evidence and that the
41 firms had been instructed over two weeks before this picket
42 took place; for example, we know that Mr. Pocklington
43 attended the Hackney and Islington Animal Rights meeting on
44 2nd October 1989, and for him to have attended that on
45 McDonald's behalf the instructions must have been given
46 before 2nd October.
47
48 One of the reasons that Mr. Nicholson gave for not
49 instructing Mr. Carroll to take photographs of people
50 handing out leaflets or fact sheets -- and this was day
51 258, page 55, line 46 and also on day 250, page 35, line 40
52 -- he said that he did not want anyone to know he had
53 started this action. So he did not tell Mr. Carroll to
54 take photographs of people distributing the fact sheet. He
55 was asking Mr. Carroll to take photographs of people
56 distributing the fact sheet would mean that Mr. Carroll
57 knew that Mr. Nicholson was starting the action, and he
58 answered to that: "I just asked him to take photos of
59 people involved", which does not answer the question at
60 all.
