Day 288 - 28 Oct 96 - Page 11
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2 MR JUSTICE BELL: No. I will hear what Mr. Rampton has to say,
3 but I am not too impressed at the moment with either the
4 word 'utterly' or the word 'grossly', because it seems to
5 me that they add nothing. I mean, if you are indifferent,
6 you are indifferent. It seems to me if you are inhumane,
7 though perhaps absolutely less clearly, you are inhumane.
8
9 But what about inhumane? The only reference is 'supposedly
10 inhumane', which is obviously a jibe, but I think what may
11 be said is, put murder on one side, because we heard what
12 Mr. Rampton said about that before and it may amount to
13 this, that if you feel strongly about these things -- and
14 people do -- you could describe killing animals to feed
15 people as murder. And there we are. So, no complaint
16 about that. What about torture?
17
18 MS. STEEL: Well, I was going to come on to this.
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20 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Does that not impute an element of cruelty or
21 inhumanity?
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23 MS. STEEL: I was going to come on to this. We believe that
24 the position as stated on day one and day 30 by Mr. Rampton
25 is correct, i.e. that torture and murder are expressions of
26 opinion and that they are expressions of opinion based on
27 the facts laid out in our fact sheet.
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29 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I have looked at all these things. I did not
30 understand him to say that torture was a matter of
31 opinion.
32
33 MS. STEEL: I will come back to that later.
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35 MR. JUSTICE BELL: In any event, whether he did or not, I have
36 never understood it to be his case that that was it, and
37 I have to decide what the leaflet means at this stage.
38
39 MS. STEEL: I mean, I am going to be jumping ahead if I carry
40 on with this.
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42 MR. JUSTICE BELL: As long as you are going to deal with it, do
43 not let me take you out of order. But I do need some help
44 on it, so come to it in due course. Yes.
45
46 MS. STEEL: OK. That "McDonald's are responsible for the
47 deaths of countless animals by this supposedly humane
48 method", we say is true, and that it follows as night
49 follows day that McDonald's are responsible. If you hire
50 contract killers to kill somebody you are responsible in
51 law, and so McDonald's are hiring other people to carry out
52 the rearing and slaughter of animals and they are therefore
53 responsible for the torture and murder of the animals.
54
55 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Why do you not just get on with your
56 submissions and at lunchtime Mr. Morris can tell you all
57 the things you missed out, and you can tell me about them
58 yourself?
59
60 MR. MORRIS: I was making the point that the same applies to
