Day 205 - 17 Jan 96 - Page 20
1 believe, 100 per cent. Dr. Gregory gave his evidence after
2 the opening but before I made that mistake on 3rd October.
3 All the Defendants' rearing and slaughter evidence came
4 after I had made the position crystal clear on 21st
5 November 1994, and all the rest of the evidence about
6 animals, our witnesses as well, Mr. Walker,
7 Dr. Gomez-Gonzales and so on and so forth. But the idea
8 that they can have been in any sense misled or
9 disadvantaged by what I said on 3rd October 1994 is, with
10 respect, a complete nonsense.
11
12 My Lord, that is all I have to say about that at the
13 moment. There are some difficult questions of law or
14 difficult, at any rate, questions of law which will require
15 some care and attention by your Lordship in relation to the
16 distinctions between justification and fair comment as to
17 defences, but now is probably not the time to draw
18 attention to those matters.
19
20 MR. MORRIS: Yes, we do not want to say anything in response.
21
22 MS. STEEL: Apart from we do not accept what Mr. Rampton says.
23
24 MR. JUSTICE BELL: All I want to say is to repeat something I
25 have said already and I will say it very shortly, that you
26 should understand that the Plaintiffs rely upon the word
27 "torture" in the arch "McTorture" in part, at least, for
28 what they say is an inferential meaning of utter
29 indifference to the welfare of the animals and for the
30 inhumanity which they say is part of the meaning of this
31 leaflet.
32
33 When you come to address me in relation to rearing and
34 slaughter, in case I decide that the meaning, part of the
35 meaning, is that the Plaintiffs are utterly indifferent to
36 the animals concerned, you should come armed with headlines
37 -- that is all you need to come armed with -- from the
38 evidence in the case which you say amount to practices of
39 which the Plaintiffs must be aware which would demonstrate
40 utter indifference to the welfare of the animals on their
41 part.
42
43 MR. MORRIS: Yes. I do want to bash on, but maybe it might be
44 a good time -----
45
46 MR. JUSTICE BELL: We will have the five minute break.
47
48 (Short adjournment)
49
50 MR. MORRIS: I am sorry, I did not actually do a list of the
51 documents which I served; I neglected to do that. But, if
52 you like, the third document down in my packet is about the
53 Sub-committee of Congress dealing with child labour
54 violations which has already, I believe, been put behind
55 Stan Stein's statement, but there are an additional opening
56 pages headed "Children at Risk in the Workplace" which
57 actually locates what the hearing was that we had already
58 disclosed, the cross-examination or whatever it was,
59 examination or cross-examination, of Mr. Stein.
60
