Day 306 - 26 Nov 96 - Page 31


     
     1        Greenpeace picket.
     2
     3        On day 272, page 47, line 8, Mr. Gravett actually said
     4        there would not have been people from London Greenpeace at
     5        the picket for the reasons I have just given, because
     6        nobody had reported the fact.
     7
     8        A suggestion was put by Mr. Rampton that people from, for
     9        example, Veggies might have got there in the afternoon.  If
    10        you were thinking that was remotely likely, I would just
    11        like to point out that if people from London cannot get to
    12        a picket because of the effects of the hurricane on the
    13        transport systems in London -- you know, roads being
    14        blocked, and so on -- it is hardly likely that people
    15        setting off from Nottingham would have made it there.
    16
    17   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   I don't know about that.  I mean, I have got
    18        evidence that transport was disrupted in north London in
    19        the morning.  I know it was not disrupted all over London,
    20        because I remember driving out from west London down into
    21        Sussex.  The reason I refer it is that I unfortunately
    22        passed a fatal accident where a large tree had fallen
    23        across a van killing three people in it, and I had no
    24        trouble driving out through west London, though when I went
    25        into Richmond Park a day later there were trees down all
    26        over the place.  So it was very patchy and variable.
    27
    28   MS. STEEL:   I do not know, I would say realistically -----
    29
    30   MR JUSTICE BELL:  I think the point which is put on that by
    31        Mr. Rampton is that it is all consistent with there being
    32        transport difficulties in the morning, that notwithstanding
    33        that the publicity material for the picket said "meet 7.45
    34        a.m."  just a few people turned up in the afternoon.  But
    35        there you are, these are the sort of things I have got to
    36        weigh and come to a conclusion about.
    37
    38   MS. STEEL:   Right.  I mean, generally, if people are going to
    39        go to a picket they try and get there on time or fairly
    40        soon afterwards, and they would not expect it to be still
    41        going, you know, 10 hours later, or whatever, eight hours
    42        later.
    43
    44        The other thing was in relation to the picket of McDonald's
    45        head office in 1988 that Mr. Nicholson asserted took
    46        place.  Mr. Gravett referred to the leaflet in tab 24 of
    47        pink 1A, on day 272, page 34, line 38, and he said that
    48        there was no London Greenpeace picket of McDonald's head
    49        office that year and that he would have known if there had
    50        been since he was the organiser of the pickets that year. 
    51        That was also referred to on page 48, line 32. 
    52 
    53        Then, I was going to move on to the evidence of
    54        Mr. Carroll.  My notes start getting a little more
    55        haphazard now.  Day 236, page 41, line 24 -- actually,
    56        maybe the easiest way, I will just run through a couple of
    57        points from his statement first.  In paragraph 8 of his
    58        statement he refers to people meeting up outside the
    59        station, and he said, "Their ringleader appeared to be
    60        Paul Gravett".

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