Day 309 - 03 Dec 96 - Page 36


     
     1   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  If I could go back to the meaning I propose?
     2        You said two parts, exploitation of children by seductive
     3        means and exposing to risk on the other?
     4
     5   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes.
     6
     7   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  The part I put, the end of the meaning
     8        I suggested -- and seducing them into eating poor and
     9        possibly poisonous food -- really is no more than a
    10        reflection of seducing to eating the food that they are
    11        seduced into eating is at best mediocre, at worse
    12        poisonous, but the 'poor' was not meant to reflect any
    13        specific health risk as such.
    14
    15   MR. RAMPTON:  But the words-----
    16
    17   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Just food of indifferent quality, as it were;
    18        do you have anything to say about that?
    19
    20   MR. RAMPTON:  No, I do not have anything to say.
    21
    22   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Does it mean anything more than that?
    23
    24   MR. RAMPTON:  Mediocre means something like not very good.
    25
    26   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You were not suggesting when there was a risk
    27        that it reflects back to degenerative diseases and things
    28        of that kind?
    29
    30   MR. RAMPTON:  It must do in context, there is no escaping that;
    31        that any parents who reads this leaflet as a whole will be
    32        saying to him or herself, well, if I take my children
    33        there, at any rate over any longish period, not only is
    34        there a risk of food poisoning but they may well develop
    35        these degenerative diseases.  That, however, is not
    36        specific to the children.
    37
    38   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Can I get that from the words which relate to
    39        exploitation of children?
    40
    41   MR. RAMPTON:  Not directly from that passage of the leaflet,
    42        no.  But, of course, the health of children is as much a
    43        concern to the reader of this leaflet as is the health of
    44        an adult once they have read the nutrition part in
    45        context.  So, in a sense one does not need to focus on the
    46        advertising in relation to the children because the
    47        children are already potential victims of the food anyway
    48        because of the nutrition allegations.
    49
    50   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.  That is why I pose the question. 
    51        Ms. Steel and Mr. Morris have argued that where it says at 
    52        best mediocre, what it is really saying is they trap, 
    53        through their advertising they pull susceptible children
    54        into their restaurants to eat junk food, that was one
    55        expression of the way they put it, rather than food which
    56        will give you cancer.
    57
    58   MR. RAMPTON:  Well, that may be so, but the fact is, as
    59        your Lordship has already found, that meaning that the food
    60        may give you cancer, including children, and

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