Day 307 - 27 Nov 96 - Page 32
1 about this paragraph as well.
2
3 Even if they could prove all those things, which we say
4 they simply cannot, those matters are all within the court
5 case and, therefore, all the interrogatories, witness
6 statements, and so on, are all within the court case and,
7 therefore, not known to the public. So, how can they
8 justify a public statement which relates to us making
9 claims publicly that we are not involved or that we do not
10 have prominent roles in the campaign or leading roles in
11 the campaign? The allegation in the press releases -- the
12 clear implication is that we have been publicly stating
13 that we are not involved with the campaign; we are not
14 leaders of the campaign, or whatever. It is about public
15 statements, not about what is going on behind the closed
16 doors of the court.
17
18 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
19
20 MR. MORRIS: Can I just say, while I think of it, just in case
21 I forget. This paragraph in the press release is almost
22 impossible to understand, actually, what it does mean. But
23 it can only really mean, as you say, it is something to do
24 with publication up to 1990. But then, in that case, of
25 course, anything that happened, you know, say six months or
26 more before this press release cannot really be relevant to
27 privileged self-defence, which would only be if someone is
28 under attack and unable to deal with that attack in any
29 kind of coherent way, so they are given the privilege to
30 lash out, you know, immediately to respond, because they
31 are so under threat they have to be able to respond.
32
33 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Has Ms. Steel not just said that? What she
34 says is that you cannot justify a public counter attack by
35 reference to an attack which is not made public, or a
36 matter which was made public.
37
38 MR. MORRIS: Yes, or was made years before, whatever; yes.
39
40 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Anyway, we will adjourn there and resume at
41 two o'clock.
42
43 (Luncheon Adjournment)
44
45 MS. STEEL: I can't remember where I got up to.
46
47 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You were making various comments on the end
48 of paragraph 7 on page 10, and the last one was you asking
49 rhetorically how they could rely on matters in your
50 statements and answers to interrogatories to justify the
51 making of their public counter attack, in inverted commas.
52
53 MS. STEEL: OK. The other point I wanted to make about the
54 paragraph is that since I have got it available to hand at
55 the moment, in terms of them asserting that we are lying by
56 -- well, there is a completely confused bit in the press
57 release that says about "contrary to their claims that they
58 are not actively involved, they have for many years taken
59 leading roles in a consistent campaign against McDonald's
60 including responsibility for organising demonstrations and
