Day 042 - 31 Oct 94 - Page 39
1 into the store, they get something which is bad for their
2 health. If they were going out, eating Alfalfa pie, I do
3 not suppose there would be an issue.
4
5 MS. STEEL: That is actually not the only issue.
6
7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do not pick up every gauntlet which is thrown
8 down. I realise there are other issues. The only purpose
9 of my interruption is so that you do not feel obliged to
10 take time, and we do not take time, on things which seem
11 obvious to me; and that seems one of them, and I did not
12 think there was any issue about it.
13
14 MS. STEEL: Okay. There is a separate advertising complaint in
15 the Statement of Claim that does not actually mention
16 food. I do not know whether-----
17
18 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What do you have in mind there?
19
20 MS. STEEL: What, the thing in the Statement of Claim?
21
22 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
23
24 MS. STEEL: I think it says: "Nearly always use advertisements
25 whose objective is to trap children into thinking they are
26 not normal if they do not go there", and it does not
27 mention food at all. So Mr. Rampton is just wrong, that is
28 all.
29
30 MR. RAMPTON: No, Mr. Rampton is not wrong, my Lord. What
31 matters is not what is in the Statement of Claim, with
32 respect to the Defendants who are cross-examining; it is
33 what is in the Defence. If one reads properly and as
34 whole, as I did last night, what they plead by way of
35 Defence to this part of case, in my respect submission, the
36 overall effect is that it matters that children are, as the
37 Defence put it, seduced to going into the restaurants,
38 because when they get there they are being fed food which
39 is bad for their health and, at worst, poisonous.
40
41 MS. STEEL: The first page of the defence does not mention
42 nutrition once.
43
44 MR. RAMPTON: One has to read it as a whole, as I say.
45
46 MS. STEEL: The whole is made up of separate parts.
47
48 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am not going to have an argument about this
49 now. I have not stopped you cross-examining. What
50 I attempted to point out is that, again, you were pushing
51 at an open door so far as that aspect was concerned.
52 Shall we break off now and resume at two o'clock.
53
54 (Short Adjournment)
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