Day 309 - 03 Dec 96 - Page 43
1 children who are asked by the children to take them to
2 McDonald's have some modicum of judgment and experience and
3 responsibility of their own.
4
5 If I can make another one of my little scenarios, one can
6 well imagine one of them going something like this: Can we
7 go to McDonald's; answer, no, I cannot afford it this
8 week. You cannot, for example.
9
10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think that is all I have in mind on
11 advertising for the moment.
12
13 Rearing and slaughter, which is divider 3 in the same
14 volume of submissions. Among the submissions, Ms. Steel
15 primarily, but Ms. Steel and Mr. Morris, made was the sting
16 of this part of the leaflet, my note was: "Animals are
17 suffering as a result of the methods used to rear and
18 slaughter them and McDonald's are responsible for that".
19
20 Just pausing for a moment, if that was the sting, would
21 that be defamatory?
22
23 MR. RAMPTON: I would not have thought so, no. I am just
24 looking at what your Lordship said and my eyesight...
25 I have the wrong focal length for the screen. Not without
26 something more than that, no, because that would express to
27 the ordinary reader exactly what he would expect, namely
28 that a degree of suffering on the part of farm animals is
29 an inescapable part of the keeping and killing of animals
30 for human consumption.
31
32 So the answer is, no, most people, being the ordinary man
33 in the street, would regard that as being within the canons
34 of acceptability and therefore not defamatory of either the
35 farmer, the slaughtermen, the food processor or the food
36 retailer.
37
38 MR. JUSTICE BELL: In any event, you say the leaflet goes beyond
39 that suggested theme?
40
41 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, I do. I am not going to repeat what I said
42 in my submissions only insofar as your Lordship invites me
43 to do so, but can I pick up what your Lordship was saying a
44 moment ago; can I put it this way? If what your Lordship
45 put a moment ago was all that the leaflet said, then it
46 would not have been the subject of a claim for libel by
47 McDonald's; that is quite clear. It does go beyond, and
48 that is why there is a complaint about it, and the reasons
49 why it goes beyond are given in this relatively short
50 submission that I have made -- Mr. Atkinson has done the
51 work on this section of the case -- in this tab of the
52 file. Tab 3.
53
54 MR. JUSTICE BELL: The matter I wanted to ask you about there is
55 where one gets the indication of utter indifference from.
56 If I can just think aloud, let us suppose I were to go
57 along with you and say that the leaflet goes beyond the
58 Defendants' suggested and attractively simple meaning
59 because torture, taken in the context which follows,
60 imputes cruelty or inhumanity in respects for which
