Day 308 - 28 Nov 96 - Page 33


     
     1
     2        The other thing about malice is that -- I have not got time
     3        to go through this now, but it has to be malice on the part
     4        of an individual legally -- that is referred to in that
     5        Eggar v. Chelmsford case, which I referred to on the first
     6        day of the submissions about publication -- that they would
     7        have to prove malice for each of us, and they cannot just
     8        do it on the basis which they are alleging, for example, of
     9        a leaflet produced by London Greenpeace, which we will not
    10        accept as a basis for malice of the group as a whole
    11        anyway, but it certainly would not be evidence of malice of
    12        us on our part individually.
    13
    14        As Mr. Morris said about McDonald's trumpeting that they
    15        have obtained apologies from our three original
    16        co-defendants, and their use of that in the documents under
    17        scrutiny in the counterclaim to try and discredit myself
    18        and Mr. Morris for fighting this case, I would remind you
    19        that on day 272, page 44, Mr. Gravett -- who was originally
    20        the first defendant in this action -- explained that he
    21        made the apology to McDonald's because the advice we were
    22        given at the time was that it was unthinkable to fight a
    23        libel case on your own without Legal Aid, without financial
    24        resources and without any legal representation.  He goes
    25        into more detail about the reasons, if you look at that
    26        page of the evidence.  He does actually specifically
    27        state:  "I did not apologise because I thought the leaflet
    28        was lies."  So there is absolutely no basis for assuming
    29        that we thought that they apologised because the leaflet
    30        was untrue, because we were well aware of the reasons why
    31        they apologised.
    32
    33        The other thing in relation to malice on our part is just
    34        to remind you of my evidence.  Now, there are two
    35        references to this -- well, there is probably more, but
    36        I will not read out the two that I have got to hand.  But
    37        day 277, page 50, Mr. Rampton was asking me about whether
    38        or not I would stop at anything to see McDonald's smashed,
    39        and I said that, no, I have always believed it was
    40        important to put out the truth.  The other one is on day
    41        278, page 13.  It was a similar sort of line of
    42        questioning.  I pointed out that people do not want to
    43        attack McDonald's or other multi-nationals and, therefore,
    44        invent criticisms about them in order to do that; that
    45        people who are campaigning against multi-nationals, they
    46        are doing it because, firstly, they see what
    47        multi-nationals are doing to the world and they do not like
    48        what they are doing, and they want to expose what those
    49        multi-nationals are doing to the world; and it is that way
    50        round. 
    51 
    52        Also, as I pointed out right at the end of my evidence, it 
    53        is about putting forward positive alternatives to the way
    54        society is run and the way multi-national corporations
    55        dominate current society.  I did also say on this page,
    56        page 13, that I did believe that the fact sheet was true.
    57
    58        I mean, obviously, I would prefer to have spent longer
    59        going through malice.  But I think it is pretty clear
    60        anyway, that there is just no way that anybody can say we

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