Day 307 - 27 Nov 96 - Page 64
1 fact sheet. He was sitting at the back of the court. How
2 can he possibly tell, based on the so-called thickness of
3 the documents -- which would be three sheets at a time,
4 maybe, if it was the fact sheet -- how can he tell from the
5 back of the court, looking down here, with people sitting
6 in between, that they were all copies of the fact sheet?
7 He just cannot. It is just completely unreliable evidence,
8 and no weight at all can be attached to it. That is
9 obviously aside from the point that he did accept that he
10 had not seen where these tourists had got their copy from,
11 and he did not see any being taken from this so-called pile
12 behind us. So, I think that really deals with that
13 evidence.
14
15 Obviously, there was my evidence to the effect that
16 I certainly was nothing to do with distributing any copies
17 of the fact sheet in court. I have not looked that up, but
18 that is mainly because I feel that we have not even got a
19 case to meet on that point.
20
21 The other alleged instance of publication of the fact sheet
22 is the publication on McSpotlight and the Web site. As
23 I gave evidence before, I did not actually know that the
24 fact sheet was on the McSpotlight Web site when we launched
25 the site.
26
27 MR. MORRIS: I don't think there was any evidence that it
28 actually was on the site. McDonald's brought some
29 document, but there was no witness to back it up.
30
31 MS. STEEL: The document they brought is dated two days after
32 the launch. But even if the fact sheet was on the
33 McSpotlight site at the launch of it, the fact that you
34 launch something or open something does not mean that you
35 can be held responsible for everything that is done on
36 whatever you are launching. For example, if some MP opens
37 a library, or something like that, they cannot be held
38 responsible for every book that is available in that
39 library. So, it is basically completely irrelevant; and
40 that is really what the Web site is: it is a library of
41 information about McDonald's which -- I was cross-examined
42 about this, and I did say, as far as I am aware, the aim of
43 it was to provide accurate information about McDonald's,
44 and I did not see that there was anything wrong with that.
45 Presumably, an MP would express the same sentiments about a
46 library, that they could not see anything wrong with having
47 information available to the public for them to read.
48
49 The other point that I wanted to raise about the fact sheet
50 being on the McSpotlight Web site, according to this
51 document on 16th February 1996, is that -- I don't know if
52 you have still got a copy of this thing?
53
54 MR JUSTICE BELL: Well, somewhere. Do you want me to turn it up
55 now, or are you just going to tell me?
56
57 MS. STEEL: I will just read it. It will be on the transcript,
58 so you can get it in three weeks' time.
59
60 In the top right-hand corner of the page where the fact
