Day 309 - 03 Dec 96 - Page 44
1 McDonald's are to blame.
2
3 MR. RAMPTON: I picked that up. I know it came from
4 your Lordship originally but, 'they condone the degree of
5 suffering which ordinary people would regard as
6 unacceptable'.
7
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, and there again, purely and simply
9 because I find it easier to get my mind around these
10 matters if I write it down, I have written down this as a
11 possible meaning: it goes further than the Defendants, but
12 it does not have the utter indifference in.
13
14 I am not going to hand down a copy because it comes up in
15 CaseView anyway.
16
17 "The Plaintiffs are culpably responsible for
18 cruel/inhumane" -- I want to come back to 'cruel' in a
19 moment -- practices in the rearing and slaughter of animals
20 which are used to produce their beef in that..." And then
21 "(a) some of them, especially chickens and pigs, spend
22 their whole lives without access to open air or sunshine
23 and without feeding as normal; (b) when waiting to be
24 slaughtered they often struggle to escape; (c) cattle
25 waiting to be slaughtered become frantic as they watch the
26 animals before them in the killing line being garrotted,
27 beaten, electrocuted and knifed; and (d), finally, they
28 frequently have their throats cut while still fully
29 conscious because of ineffective stunning methods" ---
30
31 MR. RAMPTON: Yes. I do not think there is much difference.
32
33 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- what troubles me about utter indifference
34 to the welfare of animals. The first question is, if what
35 I have just suggested were the meaning of this part, is
36 that within the scope of the meaning which is pleaded on
37 behalf of the Plaintiffs by way of amendment, when it
38 speaks of utter indifference to the welfare of animals in
39 all those four respects which I have listed, A to D, and
40 gross inhumanity in respects of the three, B to D.
41
42 MR. RAMPTON: I would say so, because your Lordship's meaning is
43 not littered with rhetorical adjectives -- that is comment
44 -- "utterly" and "gross". The word "culpably", I would
45 respectfully submit, undoubtedly your Lordship could have
46 used the word "condone"; it makes not much difference,
47 because the word "culpably" encapsulates the state of mind
48 which we sought to convey by the use of the word
49 "indifferent". We cannot be truly speaking indifferent,
50 and you certainly cannot condone a bad state of affairs if
51 you do not know it is going on.
52
53 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What troubles me about that is that, at the
54 moment it seems to me that one can be responsible for some
55 cruel or inhumane practices, or allegedly cruel or inhumane
56 practices, like the ones which are specified in the
57 leaflet, without being utterly indifferent to animals'
58 welfare. It is not an exercise in mental gymnastics, and
59 it might be particularly material in this kind of case;
60 because it seems to me that you may perfectly well have
