Day 309 - 03 Dec 96 - Page 51


     
     1        fair comment; and since the reader does not need to have
     2        any facts stated to understand that, because everybody
     3        knows what murder means -----
     4
     5   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  But have Ms. Steel or Mr. Morris ever
     6        suggested or brought murder in at all, in any way, by any
     7        kind of route, into the case?
     8
     9   MR. RAMPTON:  I do not know that they would need to.  I mean, it
    10        is there.
    11
    12   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  That is why I wonder why you are dealing with
    13        it, you see.
    14
    15   MR. RAMPTON:  I have to.
    16
    17   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You only have to deal with their case as it
    18        is put, have you not?  If you had been saying: "There is
    19        some meaning we complain of related to the use of the word
    20         'murder'" -- but I do not think you are at all.
    21
    22   MR. RAMPTON:  No, I do not think that is, with respect, right at
    23        all.  What I said in opening, and have repeatedly said
    24        since, is that the word "murder", though defamatory, is
    25        capable of being regarded as a word of comment rather than
    26        an allegation of fact.  I agree that -- if I can find it,
    27        yes -- since the Statement of Claim was amended the first
    28        time, the word "murder" has disappeared.  It had been
    29        originally in the old meaning, but it has gone.
    30
    31   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It was.  It was "responsible for the inhumane
    32        torture and murder of cattle, chickens and pigs"; and so
    33        long as that was the meaning of which you were complaining,
    34        I could see that I might have to trouble myself about the
    35        word "murder" in its place in this matter.  But I have to
    36        confess I thought -- and small measure of relief it was,
    37        too -- that it had slipped out of the courtroom door when
    38        you made -----
    39
    40   MR. RAMPTON:  Let it go.  It does not matter.  I will not try
    41        and haul it back on deck.  It is not important enough.
    42
    43        I have written -- which your Lordship will get fairly
    44        shortly, I hope -- some several pages on malice, which
    45        obviously was originally aimed at displacing the fairness
    46        of the comment (if it be a comment) in the word McMurder;
    47        but no harm done, since everything what that I say about
    48        malice is relevant to the counterclaim.
    49
    50   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Unless I have missed something relating to 
    51        murder -- in which case I would be only too happy that 
    52        Ms. Steel and Mr. Morris tell me in due course -- my 
    53        natural feeling was to think that it was just a strong way
    54        of describing the intentional killing.
    55
    56   MR. RAMPTON:  Intentional killing of animals.
    57
    58   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  In fact, for murder of a person, it does not
    59        even have to be intentional.  There we are.  But that is
    60        what it means, what it means here.

Prev Next Index