Day 313 - 13 Dec 96 - Page 39


     
     1        malice or not?
     2
     3   MS. STEEL:   No, I am about to make a legal point.  We would say
     4        that our conduct in court is consistent with good faith and
     5        with the serious concern at the consequences of the case.
     6        We would say that it is...  Well, I mean, it is a
     7        completely worthless point, but if our conduct in court is
     8        to be taken into account then so should Mr. Rampton's be
     9        taken into account when weighing up the Plaintiffs' motives
    10        and state of mind; for example, continual muttering, the
    11        repeated attempts to suggest that there was some sort of
    12        vegetarian conspiracy amongst the defence witnesses, the
    13        calling of Sue Dibb, the 'anti-brigade' in his summing up,
    14        and, for example, the gratuitous insult on day 100,
    15        page 17, line 18, when Mr. Morris was asking some question
    16        about food poisoning he made some comment about people
    17        having been poisoned by the Defendants, despite the fact
    18        that it was...  Well, it was not relevant to any issue, and
    19        it was just completely rubbish.  It was just an attempted
    20        slur, basically.  That was what Mr. Rampton said.
    21
    22   MR. JUSTICE BELL: All this is argument on matters of fact and
    23        what conclusions I should draw from the evidence.
    24
    25   MS. STEEL:  It is something that came up and it has never been
    26        pleaded that the Plaintiffs were going to bring this up.
    27
    28   MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do try and restrict yourself to any argument
    29        on a point of law now.  Malice only arises in relation to
    30        fair comment, if there is comment in this leaflet, and at
    31        the moment you have not even...  I thought I had understood
    32        what you said was comment, and Mr. Morris said before we
    33        broke off that you were going to tell me what in the
    34        leaflet was comment.  At the moment, it seems to me that
    35        there are two or three things only among all the statements
    36        made in this leaflet which might be said to be comment
    37        rather than statements of fact or alleged fact.  All this
    38        business of whether it is fair or not, and whether if it is
    39        comment it was made maliciously or not, just does not arise
    40        unless it is comment in the first place rather than a
    41        statement of alleged fact.
    42
    43   MS. STEEL:   We are going to deal with those.  We are trying to
    44        get through things in the most quick way possible, so...
    45
    46   MR. JUSTICE BELL: Well, I think you must at some stage...  I
    47        mean, from the very beginning of this case so much has been
    48        said about your right to comment and here we are on day 313
    49        and you have not told me where the comment is yet.
    50
    51   MS. STEEL:   We did plead originally various comments, and we
    52        have done some parts as we have gone through.  The thing is
    53        that we are not legal professionals.
    54
    55   MR. JUSTICE BELL: I know, and that is why I have not pressed you
    56        on it, but I said that if you really want me to find that
    57        any of this is comment, or want me to turn my mind to the
    58        question whether it is comment rather than statement of
    59        alleged fact, you must just list.
    60

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