Day 036 - 13 Oct 94 - Page 43


     
     1        they are.
     2
     3   MS. STEEL:  We will argue this in due course with the meanings
     4        part but -----
     5
     6   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I appreciate that.  You have not got to
     7        argue it yet for a variety of reasons.
     8
     9   MS. STEEL:  It is just that looking at transcripts of previous
    10        occasion, it is quite clear that the Plaintiffs are
    11        shifting the goalposts.
    12
    13   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You say that, but we have not got to decide
    14        it at this moment.  We will have to decide fairly soon
    15        whether they are allowed to amend their Statement of Claim
    16        or not, and there are various points which will be argued
    17        one way and the other on that.  We cannot decide it at the
    18        moment.
    19
    20        I am not saying it would not be possible to decide it at
    21        the moment -- of course it would -- but we want to get
    22        Dr. Barnard through the witness box; we want to get other
    23        witnesses on this area through the witness box; you want
    24        did take advice in relation to it and then we will argue
    25        the point.
    26
    27   MS. STEEL:  I am sorry then.  We are just getting a bit
    28        frustrated by the approach the Plaintiffs are taking.
    29
    30   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes, I have no doubt it is very frustrating but,
    31        my Lord, I do urge the Defendants through your Lordship to
    32        grapple with this, that, as a matter of principle, their
    33        defence of justification on any part of the case must be
    34        apt to meet, if it is to succeed, that meaning which the
    35        tribunal of fact rules or finds is the meaning which
    36        ordinary readers of the words complained of would have
    37        attached to it.  And it is for that purpose we have been
    38        cross-examining, for example, Dr. Barnard for a day and a
    39        half.
    40
    41   MR. MORRIS:  I was going to say a remark but it would be
    42        unfair.  But if I may say, without any disrespect, that is
    43        one of the reason we wanted a jury because, if that is the
    44        central point of the whole purpose of elongating this part
    45        of the case, it is precisely -----
    46
    47   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  No, I am going to stop you -- if you had a
    48        jury you would not know, you would probably, in fact,
    49        never know, just what meaning they attributed to certain
    50        sets of words in the leaflet.  So, when calling your 
    51        evidence and when cross-examining the other side's 
    52        witnesses, you would have to deal with it on the basis 
    53        that it could be any one of a variety of possible
    54        meanings.  So, far from shortening the case, if anything,
    55        it would lengthen it.  You would have to deal with all
    56        possibilities so far as meaning is concerned.  You are in
    57        no worse position today -- you may be in a better one but
    58        you are certainly not in a worse one so far as that is
    59        concerned.
    60

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