Day 177 - 26 Oct 95 - Page 44
1 clarification of what the article is actually about. But,
2 as I have submitted a moment ago, in the generality of
3 cases, the two combine together to convey a single
4 message. There is no conflict; there is no need to
5 consider them separately, because they complement each
6 other, they point together to a single answer. This is, in
7 our submission, what has happened in this case. We say
8 that the headlines perfectly and concisely reflect, as does
9 the cartoon, the sense of the particular passage about
10 nutrition; and that, after all, is what the reasonable
11 reader is going to assume was intended -- not that I can
12 give evidence about what was actually intended. But if he
13 asks himself: "What message am I supposed to get from all
14 of this", then he can easily answer that question by
15 looking at the headlines and just as easily by looking at
16 the text with the headlines; not in reality, of course,
17 that anything so laborious happens in the mind of the
18 ordinary person who reads material of this kind. All that
19 process, "What does it mean? Shall I read both together",
20 and so on and so forth, is done subconsciously; and what he
21 takes away with him, as the House of Lords and others have
22 repeatedly said, is an impression of what he has been told.
23
24 Then the question, which I do not take to be controversial
25 at all: is evidence allowed to explain the natural ordinary
26 meaning of the words complained of in a defamation action?
27 Answer: no, it is not; and that has been an established
28 principle for a very long time -- evidence of any kind.
29 Scrutton L.J. says it plainly at the top of page 28 in
30 Hobbs v. Tinling, which is at divider -----
31
32 MR. JUSTICE BELL: 7.
33
34 MR. RAMPTON: 7. [1929] 1 K.B. 1. At the top of page 28:
35
36 "He" -- that was, I suppose, counsel for the
37 defendant -- "argued that there was no evidence
38 to enable the jury to find that the words bore
39 the meaning alleged. But the words, being plain
40 English words, and having been read with the
41 alleged innuendo to the jury, they were the
42 judge's, without further evidence, of whether
43 the words would be reasonably understood to bear
44 the meanings alleged."
45
46 There is also a passage to similar effect, though at
47 substantially greater length, in the judgment of
48 Diplock L.J.
49
50 MR. MORRIS: Hold on. We are just trying to find the last one.
51
52 MR. RAMPTON: Divider 7, page 28, at the top of the page.
53
54 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is the third sheet, divider 7
55
56 MS. STEEL: Thank you.
57
58 MR. RAMPTON: Then Slim v. Daily Telegraph, divider 8, page 172.
59 I am not going to read any of this, unless your Lordship
60 wishes me to do so. Page 172, letter D down to letter E on
