Day 309 - 03 Dec 96 - Page 43


     
     1        children who are asked by the children to take them to
     2        McDonald's have some modicum of judgment and experience and
     3        responsibility of their own.
     4
     5        If I can make another one of my little scenarios, one can
     6        well imagine one of them going something like this: Can we
     7        go to McDonald's; answer, no, I cannot afford it this
     8        week.  You cannot, for example.
     9
    10   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I think that is all I have in mind on
    11        advertising for the moment.
    12
    13        Rearing and slaughter, which is divider 3 in the same
    14        volume of submissions.  Among the submissions, Ms. Steel
    15        primarily, but Ms. Steel and Mr. Morris, made was the sting
    16        of this part of the leaflet, my note was:  "Animals are
    17        suffering as a result of the methods used to rear and
    18        slaughter them and McDonald's are responsible for that".
    19
    20        Just pausing for a moment, if that was the sting, would
    21        that be defamatory?
    22
    23   MR. RAMPTON:  I would not have thought so, no.  I am just
    24        looking at what your Lordship said and my eyesight...
    25        I have the wrong focal length for the screen.  Not without
    26        something more than that, no, because that would express to
    27        the ordinary reader exactly what he would expect, namely
    28        that a degree of suffering on the part of farm animals is
    29        an inescapable part of the keeping and killing of animals
    30        for human consumption.
    31
    32        So the answer is, no, most people, being the ordinary man
    33        in the street, would regard that as being within the canons
    34        of acceptability and therefore not defamatory of either the
    35        farmer, the slaughtermen, the food processor or the food
    36        retailer.
    37
    38   MR. JUSTICE BELL: In any event, you say the leaflet goes beyond
    39        that suggested theme?
    40
    41   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes, I do.  I am not going to repeat what I said
    42        in my submissions only insofar as your Lordship invites me
    43        to do so, but can I pick up what your Lordship was saying a
    44        moment ago; can I put it this way?  If what your Lordship
    45        put a moment ago was all that the leaflet said, then it
    46        would not have been the subject of a claim for libel by
    47        McDonald's; that is quite clear.  It does go beyond, and
    48        that is why there is a complaint about it, and the reasons
    49        why it goes beyond are given in this relatively short
    50        submission that I have made -- Mr. Atkinson has done the 
    51        work on this section of the case -- in this tab of the 
    52        file.  Tab 3. 
    53
    54   MR. JUSTICE BELL: The matter I wanted to ask you about there is
    55        where one gets the indication of utter indifference from.
    56        If I can just think aloud, let us suppose I were to go
    57        along with you and say that the leaflet goes beyond the
    58        Defendants' suggested and attractively simple meaning
    59        because torture, taken in the context which follows,
    60        imputes cruelty or inhumanity in respects for which

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