Day 205 - 17 Jan 96 - Page 20


     
     1        believe, 100 per cent.  Dr. Gregory gave his evidence after
     2        the opening but before I made that mistake on 3rd October.
     3        All the Defendants' rearing and slaughter evidence came
     4        after I had made the position crystal clear on 21st
     5        November 1994, and all the rest of the evidence about
     6        animals, our witnesses as well, Mr. Walker,
     7        Dr. Gomez-Gonzales and so on and so forth.  But the idea
     8        that they can have been in any sense misled or
     9        disadvantaged by what I said on 3rd October 1994 is, with
    10        respect, a complete nonsense.
    11
    12        My Lord, that is all I have to say about that at the
    13        moment.  There are some difficult questions of law or
    14        difficult, at any rate, questions of law which will require
    15        some care and attention by your Lordship in relation to the
    16        distinctions between justification and fair comment as to
    17        defences, but now is probably not the time to draw
    18        attention to those matters.
    19
    20   MR. MORRIS:   Yes, we do not want to say anything in response.
    21
    22   MS. STEEL:  Apart from we do not accept what Mr. Rampton says.
    23
    24   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  All I want to say is to repeat something I
    25        have said already and I will say it very shortly, that you
    26        should understand that the Plaintiffs rely upon the word
    27        "torture" in the arch "McTorture" in part, at least, for
    28        what they say is an inferential meaning of utter
    29        indifference to the welfare of the animals and for the
    30        inhumanity which they say is part of the meaning of this
    31        leaflet.
    32
    33        When you come to address me in relation to rearing and
    34        slaughter, in case I decide that the meaning, part of the
    35        meaning, is that the Plaintiffs are utterly indifferent to
    36        the animals concerned, you should come armed with headlines
    37         -- that is all you need to come armed with -- from the
    38        evidence in the case which you say amount to practices of
    39        which the Plaintiffs must be aware which would demonstrate
    40        utter indifference to the welfare of the animals on their
    41        part.
    42
    43   MR. MORRIS:   Yes.  I do want to bash on, but maybe it might be
    44        a good time -----
    45
    46   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  We will have the five minute break.
    47
    48                         (Short adjournment)
    49
    50   MR. MORRIS:  I am sorry, I did not actually do a list of the 
    51        documents which I served; I neglected to do that.  But, if 
    52        you like, the third document down in my packet is about the 
    53        Sub-committee of Congress dealing with child labour
    54        violations which has already, I believe, been put behind
    55        Stan Stein's statement, but there are an additional opening
    56        pages headed "Children at Risk in the Workplace" which
    57        actually locates what the hearing was that we had already
    58        disclosed, the cross-examination or whatever it was,
    59        examination or cross-examination, of Mr. Stein.
    60

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