Day 307 - 27 Nov 96 - Page 56


     
     1        McDonald's own agents that has been admitted by them in the
     2        witness box.  There is the reading out by Mr. Rampton on
     3        the first day of trial the entire fact sheet, which made
     4        every word that he read out, therefore, in the public
     5        domain and entitled to be commented on by anybody; and,
     6        thirdly, the distribution of the fact sheet by
     7        Mrs. Brinley-Codd on 27th June 1996 which Ms. Steel
     8        testified to in her evidence.
     9
    10   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   I would like you to explain to me just what
    11        you say the relevance of that is to an issue in the case.
    12
    13   MR. MORRIS:   Yes, because if they are saying that they are
    14        entitled to legitimate self-defence against the
    15        distribution of the fact sheet, or indeed if similar words,
    16        but the point is the fact sheet itself, we have three
    17        definitely proven examples which is the admission by the
    18        agents, Mr. Rampton reading it out on day one and
    19        Mrs. Brinley-Codd handing it out, which would be
    20        Plaintiffs' own public dissemination of those points, of
    21        those statements.  Therefore, if they say Mr. Howes got
    22        something from somebody who may have been associated with
    23        the Defendants on another day when in fact, under
    24        questioning, it turned out there was nothing at all to
    25        connect myself or Ms. Steel with that distribution, and
    26        they have also brought in the launch of McSpotlight, which,
    27        I think, was earlier this year which was nothing to do with
    28        the fact sheet anyway.  So, they are trying to rely on
    29        trying to find some examples of our distribution of the
    30        fact sheet which would necessitate justification of
    31        self-defence, even though, of course, some of them took
    32        place after the counterclaim pleadings were served.
    33
    34        So, all I am saying is that they cannot say they were
    35        justified in having self-defence when they, themselves,
    36        have published and made public the contents of the document
    37        that they are complaining about.  That is what I am
    38        saying.  The only other examples we have heard, obviously,
    39        is the Veggies fact sheet which McDonald's have accepted
    40        the continued distribution of as well.
    41
    42        The reason I said at the beginning that we need to have a
    43        sense of perspective on this is because it just seems an
    44        Alice in Wonderland situation, this counterclaim, and,
    45        indeed, so much of this case in many ways, but it seems
    46        like surely we should be concentrating on the detail, you
    47        know, because, fundamentally, it is almost hard to believe;
    48        it just seems to me so out of perspective, so completely
    49        unjustifiable that it needs to be -- it just has to be
    50        stated that way, you know. 
    51 
    52        That the law -- well, at every stage the burden of proof is 
    53        on the Plaintiffs to prove every point of justification
    54        which they will need to rely on.  So we should not have to
    55        prove the opposite, even though we have demonstrated the
    56        opposite is the case.
    57
    58        Can I just say that if McDonald's raise this point that
    59        when they say "the leaflet", what they mean is, of course,
    60        any leaflet called "What's wrong with McDonald's", which we

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