Day 245 - 07 May 96 - Page 35
1 A. I object to that.
2
3 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I do not think that is an answer this witness
4 can answer. It is not going to help me decide this case
5 anyway whatever their motives were.
6
7 MS. STEEL: The reality is that the choice was yours Mr.
8 Preston, or rather McDonalds. It was your choice to sue.
9 You did not need to sue, did you?
10 A. I wanted to stop the leaflet. I had no other choice.
11
12 Q. You could have written to us. You could have shown us all
13 your records and shown us round all your supplier's
14 premises if you were so convinced of the truth of what you
15 were saying in order to convince us that the leaflet was
16 wrong, could you not?
17
18 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Are you suggesting that you would not have
19 defended the case if you had been granted those facilities
20 because, otherwise, again it is not going to help me decide
21 this case.
22
23 MR. MORRIS: He has said in his press statement, twice, in fact
24 it is also in the second bulletin point on that page as
25 well as the fifth one, that we, me and Helen, have chosen
26 to defend the leaflet and we are saying it was you.
27
28 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think that is just semantics. The fact is
29 you have been sued and you have defended it. I do not need
30 anything more into it than that.
31
32 MS. STEEL: (To the witness): You could have chosen not to sue
33 and to accept that people have a legitimate right to
34 criticise your business practices?
35 A. People do have a legitimate right to criticise our
36 business as long as it is legitimate, operative word. When
37 it is not legitimate, when it is not truthful, they have no
38 right to do so and I will defend that until my last day on
39 earth.
40
41 Q. We will come back to that.
42
43 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I hope you will be come back to it in a way
44 you did not deal with it in July because you did ask some
45 questions about this and we went through this before. So
46 be selective and do not ask questions which you asked on
47 I think it was 4th July, Day 5.
48
49 MS. STEEL: (To the witness): The next thing I want to turn to is
50 document number 14 in that bundle. This is a letter from
51 Mike Love to The Scotsman.
52
53 MR. JUSTICE BELL: 14?
54
55 MS. STEEL: It is not. It is a letter from Mike Love to The
56 guardian, on 18th January 1995.
57 A. I have it. It is number 14 in red.
58
59 Q. Did you see this letter before it was sent to The Guardian?
60 A. I do not remember if I did or not, I do not think so.
