Day 283 - 21 Oct 96 - Page 32


     
     1        about malice and lies -- because these are matters of
     2        public interest, they should be protected from - what is
     3        the word - transparently thin allegations of malice or
     4        lying, the test should be higher because it is different if
     5        these were matters that were just some private feud with
     6        McDonald's or something like that, but these are matters of
     7        public interest that need to be aired and the public must
     8        be protected.
     9
    10        Secondly, and this really goes actually to a wider issue as
    11        well, which is reputation, is that no one concludes from
    12        the fact sheet that what the distributors are saying is
    13        McDonald's is terrible, go to their competitors, because
    14        their competitors are all criticised in identical terms,
    15        although McDonald's is the focus of the fact sheet.  So it
    16        is not motivated by an intent to damage the business in
    17        relation to the competitors of McDonald's.
    18
    19        If I can make another point I have to make, that the
    20        plaintiffs have not shown and they cannot show, apart from
    21        the fact they cannot show that we ever distributed the fact
    22        sheet or were responsible for it, even if they could, that
    23        we would have done it for personal gain, monetary gain or
    24        any other reason.
    25
    26        If we contrast this with McDonald's aim of issuing their
    27        vicious press release and their much more toned down
    28        leaflet, although the leaflet was much more widely spread,
    29        their motive was to defend -- well, the timing of it
    30        suggests their motive was to attack myself and Helen and
    31        critics in general in the eyes of the public, to discredit
    32        them in the eyes of the public.
    33
    34        And McDonald's have tried to plead...  Sorry, and the point
    35        about that is what are they defending anyway.  They are
    36        defending their right to make profits; therefore it is not
    37        the same as a human being defending their reputation about
    38        what people think of them.  We are talking about a
    39        corporation, in this case it was McDonald's UK, a UK
    40        company, which already has all the publicity and all the
    41        ability to put over its point of view, trying to justify
    42        its right to continue making profits in the way that it has
    43        always done in this country.  And that cannot be the same
    44        as human beings trying to protect their reputation, with
    45        feelings, emotions, because McDonald's reputation, in any
    46        event, is something that is manufactured through their
    47        advertising.
    48
    49        But they have argued now privileged self-defence.  And we
    50        are going to try and do a proper legal submission on this 
    51        later, but I wanted to flag this up now because it is part 
    52        of the whole context here. 
    53
    54        Now, I can see some merit in an argument of privileged
    55        self-defence if somebody is attacked in the street and
    56        insulted, that they would resist and insult back and argue
    57        privileged self-defence or justified self-defence, but we
    58        are not talking about an emotional reaction by McDonald's
    59        Corporation to criticisms, as they have argued.  You know,
    60        something where they can justify self-defence because they

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