Day 052 - 21 Nov 94 - Page 18
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, could you just pause a moment? You
2 remember I raised the question of -- I have to say, subject
3 to having heard what you have just said, subject to
4 anything which the Defendants may wish to say, whatever the
5 outcome of this application, I have come to the view that
6 it would be unnecessary and probably, therefore, unwise to
7 reach a conclusion as to what the relevant parts actually
8 meant because that would quite unnecessarily mean that
9 I could not hear further argument later on which might help
10 me to the actual meaning.
11
12 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I am not asking your Lordship to do it at
13 the present time. The only advantage it might have is that
14 it might exclude some evidence which is still to come.
15 That is all -- it might. But even then, I am by no
16 means sure that it would. That is the only advantage it
17 would have.
18
19 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That would be the only advantage.
20
21 MR. RAMPTON: I think it would be the only advantage.
22
23 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It would; in some cases it is a very
24 considerable advantage but whether it would in this case is
25 another matter.
26
27 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I rather doubt it. My Lord, one sees
28 this is chiefly about advertising, of course, but one sees
29 the consequence of the seduction which McDonald's are
30 alleged to have perpetrated on children stated at the end
31 of passage under "Toy Food" and above "Ronald's dirty
32 secret". In the last paragraph: "Not a lot of children
33 are interested in nutrition, and even if they were, all the
34 gimmicks and routines with paper hats and straws and
35 balloons hide the fact that the food", that must be to say
36 McDonald's food, "they're seduced into eating", that must
37 be to say by McDonald's, "is at best mediocre, at worst
38 poisonous - and their parents know it's not even cheap".
39
40 My Lord, that said, perhaps I need not press the point very
41 hard. It must be a meaning of which the words in their
42 proper context, the whole of this pamphlet, are capable of
43 bearing this, that the meals which McDonald's serve to
44 their customers cause them cancer of the breast and bowel
45 and heart disease. This leaflet is about one thing and one
46 thing only, McDonald's and its supposed faults and
47 defects. The passages to which I have referred your
48 Lordship are concerned both generally and specifically with
49 the supposed ill-effects of eating McDonald's food.
50
51 For all that the Defendants might wish it otherwise, this
52 is not a learned article discussing the aetiology of
53 coronary heart disease and cancer.
54
55 My Lord, while your Lordship has the pamphlet open, it
56 might be as well to look at the bit about animals which is
57 on the same page: "In what way are McDonald's responsible
58 for torture and murder? The menu at McDonald's is based on
59 meat. They sell millions of burgers every day in 35
60 countries throughout the world. This means the constant
