Day 245 - 07 May 96 - Page 71


     
     1
     2   Q.   What activities were affecting that department?
     3        A.  I am sorry?
     4
     5   Q.   You have said, "... as the trial got nearer, the
     6        Communications Department kept me abreast of activities
     7        affecting that department"; which activities are you
     8        referring to?
     9        A.  I think they refer to in the appendices in the back
    10        where press releases were made by the McLibel Support
    11        Campaign, or there were press conferences to be held.
    12        Until January of 19 -- no, until March or April of 1994 we
    13        had never said anything publicly about this.  We had done
    14        quite the opposite and very consciously so; yet the McLibel
    15        Support Campaign had begun in early January, issuing
    16        statements and continued to do so on two or three
    17        occasions.  As they became -- as we became aware of those,
    18        the Communications Department had a job to do.
    19
    20   Q.   Just what you have said is not strictly true, is it,
    21        because you have commented personally to the media in 1991,
    22        for example, about this case.  You may not have put out
    23        press releases and leaflets to your customers, but you and
    24        other people on behalf of the Company have commented to
    25        newspapers about this case?
    26        A.  You will have to show me where.  I may have, but
    27        I certainly made no press release, no big story of it in
    28        any way, shape or form.  I do not remember what I would
    29        have said or to whom.
    30
    31   Q.   I can remember, for example, that you said something to
    32        Mr. Andrew Tyler when you spoke to him for an article that
    33        he was writing for The Independent.  Do you remember that?
    34        A.  I do not remember, no.  It is not the only issue I deal
    35        with.
    36
    37   Q.   You would accept, though, that you may have spoken to
    38        journalists about the -----
    39        A.  Well -----
    40
    41   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  This is before the trial started, is it?
    42
    43   MS. STEEL:  Before the trial started, yes.
    44        A.  Is it possible?  I do not know, I suppose it is
    45        possible.  The comment would have been something like, "We
    46        are going to court and why and I cannot talk about it any
    47        further".  But I do not remember to whom it would have
    48        been.
    49
    50   Q.   We will find the article overnight, or something.  I am not 
    51        sure where it is. 
    52 
    53        Anyway, when you are talking about activities affecting
    54        that department, are you only talking about responding to
    55        things that were put out by the McLibel Support Campaign or
    56        London Greenpeace?
    57        A.  I am talking about the whole issue.  The press releases
    58        were primary.
    59
    60   Q.   What about the other activities affecting that department,

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