Day 308 - 28 Nov 96 - Page 39
1 typists' fingers throughout these closing submissions.
2 I do believe in some sense I owe your Lordship an apology
3 for the length of this document, for it is in truth one
4 document.
5
6 There is one section still to come, which I expect that
7 your Lordship will get in the early part of next week,
8 which shall be volume 6 which, after reflection, I have
9 decided to put in writing and will be publication, malice,
10 counterclaim and damages.
11
12 My Lord, there are really three reasons why it is as long
13 as it is. First, of course, it has been a long trial and
14 there has been a lot of evidence, and there are an awful
15 lot of documents. The second reason is, as I am sure your
16 Lordship will understand, that I think probably I have had
17 too much preparation time. I have therefore probably put
18 in a very great deal more detail than your Lordship
19 actually needs.
20
21 The third reason is this, and this is an important reason:
22 one of the acute problems which I faced in the preparation
23 of this document, these submissions, has been the question
24 of relevance. I have always taken it that a defamation
25 action has boundaries or limits which are primarily set by
26 the meaning of the words complained of. That bites
27 particularly on the ambit of any defence of justification
28 or fair comment.
29
30 As I, in the last three or four months, or whatever it has
31 been through the evidence and before that, reflected on
32 what the true meaning of the leaflet is in these various
33 areas I have, in large part, been very tempted simply to
34 ignore huge chunks of the evidence, because it has seemed
35 to me -- and your Lordship may or may not agree -- that in
36 very large part the case which the Defendants have sought
37 to advance on their behalf has had very little to do with
38 the message which would have been conveyed by the words
39 complained of to ordinary readers.
40
41 In the end, I am afraid, I have to a large extent chickened
42 out and I have not taken the brave man's course; I have not
43 on the whole said I am simply not going to go down that
44 road because it has nothing to do with this case. To
45 borrow a phrase of your Lordship's I have picked up the
46 gauntlet and I have dealt with the issues. One obvious
47 example would be CFCs, which, so far as I can tell, finds
48 no place anywhere in the leaflet and therefore probably in
49 this case. However, I have dealt with it, though not, as
50 your Lordship will see, at very great length.
51
52 There are some topics which I have completely ignored,
53 mostly for that reason but in some cases simply because
54 there is not any satisfactory evidence. This is from
55 memory; they are diabetes, sugar, food additives, residues
56 in meat, methane, polystyrene foam, except in so far as
57 that involves a consideration of the use of CFCs, and in
58 relation to food poisoning, if you can call it that,
59 foreign bodies.
60
