Day 262 - 13 Jun 96 - Page 38
1 amendment, because none of that material, as it were, has
2 been proffered or suppressed (if I can use that word) in
3 any sense as a result of or in connection with the agency
4 amendment, since all the agency facts are already in the
5 case.
6
7 It might be, at the end of the case -- and I think I ought
8 it say this -- that there was material relevant to the
9 amended defence -- and by the amended defence, I mean the
10 re-re-re-re-reamended defence, the recent one -- material
11 relevant to that plea which also bore upon the agency
12 question, by a side wind, which your Lordship might think
13 it appropriate to take into account. But your Lordship's
14 leave was given on the basis of the facts and the pleadings
15 as they existed at the time; and, therefore, I ignore the
16 agency amendment for this purpose.
17
18 Can I ask your Lordship -- maybe you have already done it,
19 I do not know -- just to remind yourself of what the
20 amended defence is actually about?
21
22 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Well, if I can find it.
23
24 MR. RAMPTON: That is a very good question.
25
26 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Because I think I invited your instructing
27 solicitors, or Mr. Atkinson, to provide an extra divider
28 for the abstract pleadings with it on; and all I have,
29 I think, at the moment, is the draft upon which I wrote
30 various things by way of addition.
31
32 MR. RAMPTON: That is all I have got. My Lord, in essence, it
33 is this. I will read, if I may, while Mrs. Brinley-Codd
34 looks for a copy, its introduction before one gets to the
35 particulars. Its introduction is -- and it is 9A of the
36 amended defence:
37
38 "If, which is denied, the leaflet entitled What's wrong
39 with McDonald's? is defamatory and the Plaintiff is
40 libelled the Defendants will rely upon the defence of leave
41 and licence in that the Plaintiffs and each of them
42 expressly or impliedly authorised and/or assented to the
43 publication of the words complained of."
44
45 That is the whole nature of the amended defence.
46
47 What I will do, if I may, is pass up my copy, because
48 Mrs. Brinley-Codd has written -- I will not call them
49 personal notes -- but, my Lord, that is my version.
50 I have, in mistake, crossed out the introductory paragraph
51 which I just read out, but I put a post-it on it. (Handed)
52
53 My Lord, what, in essence, it says in support of the
54 pleading of the defence of leave and licence, what in
55 essence, it says is three things, starting at 9A(a).
56 First, that the Plaintiffs expressly or impliedly
57 instructed the inquiry agents to act as (and I summarise)
58 agent provocateur. Second, that when they got there, they
59 did indeed do that, so that they -- it was really only
60 through their activities that the dying campaign was blown
