Day 311 - 06 Dec 96 - Page 37
1 party is represented by counsel and solicitors and in which
2 the only real opportunity the judge or the jury gets to see
3 what sort of people they are is when they go into the
4 witness box, if they do, in this case your Lordship has had
5 the advantage of seeing the Defendants in action every day
6 for the last 300 and however many days it is.
7
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I have a recollection -- I have not looked it
9 up because, even if I do, I am not sure that I do have the
10 transcripts of the arguments and interlocutory matters, and
11 what you have just said about the strains of being a
12 litigant in person may explain it anyway -- but I have some
13 recollection, I believe, of Mr. Morris, some three years
14 ago now when we were in chambers, saying something to the
15 effect that he was nearly 40 then -- it is three years ago
16 -- that he was determined to live longer than McDonald's.
17 Is that the sort of comment which one can take into
18 account?
19
20 MR. RAMPTON: Indeed, it is. That is in his opening speech, my
21 Lord, and that is one of the specific matters on which we
22 rely.
23
24 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Is it one which is in one of your
25 references?
26
27 MR. RAMPTON: It is not specifically referred to, because I have
28 not made specific references to the Defendants' opening.
29 I was hoping that since they were quite short -- it took a
30 day or so -- your Lordship might just jog back and read
31 those.
32
33 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But then I am back on the same question:
34 whether, if that is Mr. Morris's view, it is because he
35 really thinks they treat their employees badly and they
36 should not be responsible for the rearing and slaughter of
37 animals for food, or whether it is a malicious motive.
38
39 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, one comes back to what Lord Diplock said
40 in Horrocks v. Lowe, to this effect: no sense of duty, no
41 desire to express one's honest opinion about a person or a
42 corporation can justify one in telling deliberate and
43 injurious falsehoods about that person; and if the court
44 should find that the defendant was indifferent as to the
45 truth or falsity of those injurious statements, then he
46 will be treated as if he knew that they were false; and
47 except in one category, which has no application to this
48 case, the inevitable consequence is that the court will
49 find that he is malicious. I am simply not allowed,
50 because I feel strongly about employment or animals, to
51 lard my comments or feelings, expressed feelings, about
52 those matters with other material which I think is going to
53 help do down the object of my disapproval for which I have
54 no foundation.
55
56 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What is the situation, then, if there is
57 something like -- suppose there is a dozen areas of
58 allegation in a particular newspaper, and, in relation to
59 some parts of two of them (albeit important parts of them)
60 one concludes that the person publishing the article did
