Day 307 - 27 Nov 96 - Page 44
1 at the highest level with McDonald's and their PR firm, not
2 a wild response to defend themselves -- sorry, not a kind
3 of instinctive self-defence mechanism. It was also
4 carefully timed. The issuing of those leaflets and press
5 releases could have been done at any time in the previous
6 ten years, in fact. But it was done on the eve of the
7 trial after months of preparation. That is not a
8 coincidence; it was a deliberate timed act.
9
10 Now, I do not think it was a response at all. It was an
11 attack upon our character. The question is: In terms of
12 putting over, as Helen said, the views of the McDonald's
13 business about their business practices, are McDonald's
14 able to do that? First of all, they are a company with an
15 advertising budget and quite capable of putting over their
16 point of view. Secondly, they are probably the largest
17 advertisers, or certainly one of them, and promoters in
18 this country. They have an enormous amount of publicity in
19 the media. Therefore, their point of view is put over in
20 not just through their advertising, but through the media,
21 with the credibility that that gives to them. The case was
22 imminent -- and this is a very important point; I am going
23 to come on to that again in a minute -- wherein all their
24 points of view would be there laid bare in a public forum
25 about anything they had been criticised about; that it is
26 absolutely ludicrous to say that me and Helen could attack
27 a UK subsidiary of a multi-national corporation. In any
28 event, we are two impoverished members of the public and
29 they are an extremely powerful, high profile corporation
30 and that, in balance, would automatically, we say, rule out
31 the privileged self-defence line of McDonald's.
32
33 If I can say a couple of other things about this. On the
34 first day of the trial, Mr. Rampton, in his opening speech
35 on page 27 -- the whole page, in fact, is a complete
36 negation of what they have been saying about the necessity
37 for privileged self-defence, because the whole page,
38 Mr. Rampton talks about their consideration. It says:
39 "The Plaintiffs or the Defendants can expect a vindication
40 of their position in a reasoned judgment". That is in this
41 case.
42
43 "It is this consideration, coupled with the hope that they
44 may also obtain an injunction, which has led the Plaintiffs
45 to conclude that this action must be pressed to its end.
46 This is a small sacrifice for the Plaintiffs. .... When
47 these Defendants decided they would contest the case, the
48 Plaintiffs were driven to take the action to its conclusion
49 because, my Lord, the inescapable alternative was that the
50 world at large would say to itself this: 'McDonald's have
51 retired in the face of defence allegations', et cetera."
52
53 Then he moves on to say: "If the Plaintiffs are right, a
54 reasoned judgment asserting the validity of that
55 proposition and the reasons why it was valid, coupled with
56 an injunction, can only do the Plaintiffs an immense and
57 lasting service" -- the word "lasting" is important there
58 -- "however much it may cost in money to obtain it."
59
60 Then later on, line 28, he says: "What these Plaintiffs
