Day 262 - 13 Jun 96 - Page 51


     
     1        questions asked by the Defendants -----
     2
     3   MR. MORRIS:  Sorry, Sid Nicholson, is it?
     4
     5   MR. RAMPTON:  Starting at the bottom of page 54.  Some of the
     6        questions are asked by the Defendants, both of them, and
     7        some by your Lordship.  Really, the key answer is one, we
     8        would suggest -- it is all roughly to the same effect; I am
     9        not being selective -- is on page 57 at line 48, in answer
    10        to a question from your Lordship, where Mr. Nicholson said:
    11
    12        "I accept that litigation was always going to be a likely
    13        outcome, but I was hoping to avoid litigation, because it
    14        is terribly expensive."
    15
    16        That, if I may respectfully suggest, is a classical
    17        exposition of the frame of mind of any sane person who
    18        contemplates litigation.
    19
    20        The evidence of both Mr. Preston and Mr. Nicholson was --
    21        and I do not need to make any reference to the transcript
    22        of it -- that the point, the purpose of instructing the
    23        inquiry agents was to find out who was doing what they
    24        objected to and what those people were doing in pursuit of
    25        that activity, and that the point of that inquiry, to find
    26        out who was doing it, was to try and put a stop to it.
    27
    28        It is perhaps trite, it is obvious, that if a person who is
    29        identified or a group of people who are identified as being
    30        those primarily responsible for the dissemination of
    31        defamatory material do not voluntarily agree -- which is
    32        what any sane person would have hoped they would -- to stop
    33        the dissemination, then the only alternative, alas, is
    34        litigation and all the expense and trouble which that
    35        involves.
    36
    37        One could put the matter rhetorically, if one is talking
    38        about dominant purpose for these instructions and what the
    39        inquiry agents did and the information they obtained.  One
    40        could ask it in this way: what earthly point would there be
    41        in going to the expense and the trouble of instructing
    42        these two firms of inquiry agents separately, unless it
    43        were to put a stop to the publication ultimately, if
    44        necessary, by means of litigation and a claim for an
    45        injunction by way of relief?
    46
    47   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  But if I thought the overall picture was that
    48        instructions were given in the offices to inquiry agents to
    49        investigate who was responsible for this, in order to
    50        report back to Barlow's so that they can advise the 
    51        Plaintiffs, then does one have to ask whether litigation 
    52        was contemplated there? 
    53
    54   MR. RAMPTON:  No.
    55
    56   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  That is just for the purposes of obtaining
    57        legal advice, is it not?
    58
    59   MR. RAMPTON:  I am being over elaborate.  I have already seen I
    60        have shot miles past three o'clock.  No.  I am being over

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