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.
