Day 307 - 27 Nov 96 - Page 53
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2 MR. MORRIS: Yes. I mean, all the points about they had other
3 means of being able to put over their points of view
4 through their contacts with the media -----
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6 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Store those up for malice, which you have to
7 deal with at some stage.
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9 MR. MORRIS: I probably will not have time and you probably
10 will not remember everything I have said, but if you can
11 assume that everything I have said up to now also relates
12 to the malice as well, because to understand the motivation
13 of McDonald's in this one has to understand the context in
14 which it has taken place and the character of the material,
15 the fact they had other methods of being able to get their
16 point of view over, the fact that the trial was about to
17 take place; all that kind of stuff; the fact that they were
18 not under attack, also can go to malice; what was the
19 motivation, then, for producing this document? But is the
20 document legitimate as a self-defence and, indeed, it goes
21 to malice as well.
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23 First of all, in self-defence, is the scale of the
24 publication appropriate to what -- well, there is just no
25 evidence at all of any attack by me and Helen, so it is
26 hard to compare it. But let us assume it is found that we
27 did give out a copy of the fact sheet in 1989, or
28 something, 1990. Is the issuing of 300,000 leaflets and
29 press releases to all the major press attacking our
30 character and the fact sheet as lies an appropriate scale
31 of response, if, indeed, it be a response? We would say
32 no. It is an abuse of the privileged self-defence. Even
33 if they were to be able to invoke it, the scale of their
34 self-defence is completely out of proportion. Secondly,
35 the character of the material, the attack -- well, the word
36 "lies" I think is the important word, really; it was eight
37 or nine times used in the press release. There is
38 absolutely no -- there is nothing in the material that says
39 why it should be lies, nothing at all. Therefore, it is
40 completely -- it is character assassination without any
41 back-up.
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43 Of course, there are things about how McDonald's apparently
44 wrote to the group, and all this kind of stuff, about the
45 fact sheet which we all know is absolute rubbish anyway.
46 But, apart from that, there is nothing to justify in it why
47 me and Helen should not be believing what we are saying.
48 It is a real attack on our character before we walk into
49 court, saying, "We believe this" and we have been attacked
50 outside of court for actually not believing what we are
51 saying. We are just, presumably, making it all up because
52 we have nothing better to do.
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54 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can I express that in another way?
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56 MR. MORRIS: Please do, yes.
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58 MR. JUSTICE BELL: All these things are attacks on character,
59 otherwise you would not be in the situation of asking
60 whether there is qualified privilege and malice, anyway,
