Day 245 - 07 May 96 - Page 62
1
2 Q. Exactly, so why should I assume any of it is incorrect
3 after you took action against Veggies only over one
4 section, came to an agreement. Why should I believe any of
5 it is in fact not true?
6 A. Well, the fact that we did or did not take issue with
7 Veggies on other matters is quite a separate subject.
8
9 Q. No, it is not. It is absolutely relevant to your saying in
10 your press statement that you issued to the world that we
11 were issuing lies in the London Greenpeace fact sheet.
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Well, that is a statement. Let me put a
14 question: What I think is being put to you is this, that
15 use of the word "lies" does not just impute that a
16 statement is inaccurate or factually wrong, but that the
17 maker of the statement knows that it is wrong and you said
18 something to that effect this morning.
19
20 What is being put to you is this: If you were prepared to
21 let Veggies publish a leaflet which contained many of the
22 allegations which you complain of in the leaflet, which is
23 the spring for this case, the only, it is suggested,
24 relevant changes being in relation to destruction of
25 rainforest and torture and murder of animals, if that be
26 so, how could you say, as it is suggested you did in the
27 press releases, et cetera, that the leaflet was all lies,
28 because it is suggested that the Defendants, among others,
29 might think that many of the allegations in it are true
30 because you did not complain about them when Veggies made
31 the publication.
32
33 I am not offering any comment on that but I think that is
34 rather long windedly the question which Mr. Morris is
35 putting to you.
36 A. I think, your Lordship, time had moved on from 1987 to
37 1990. I had gotten wind of this Aims and Objectives
38 Leaflet of London Greenpeace. I had seen comments in it
39 about smashing McDonald's. I said earlier I had seen the
40 support for Animal Liberation. I had been through the fire
41 incendiary device issues on 4 occasions in Britain, in
42 restaurants here, and I thought that that, combined with
43 statements in documents that are attached to my
44 supplementary statement regardless of the verdict in this
45 case, we are going to continue to distribute this
46 document. I thought the combination of those took this to
47 an entirely different level.
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49 What I might have been willing to do, or the Company
50 through the solicitor's advice in willing to deal with the
51 Veggies organisation had entered a local new plateau, one
52 where my customers, my staff, had been endangered in one
53 restaurant. There had been an incendiary device go off on
54 a very busy Saturday afternoon, and the blatant disregard
55 for the law and "we are going to continue to distribute
56 this regardless" very much affected me in my thinking.
57
58 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Mr. Morris, I suggest you leave it there
59 because it is up to you if you wish in due course to give
60 evidence or make a comment, but on the basis of the point
