Day 307 - 27 Nov 96 - Page 21


     
     1        the point on this issue.  As far as I can see, McDonald's
     2        have brought absolutely no evidence whatsoever to show in
     3        any way, shape or form that myself or Mr. Morris did not
     4        believe that the contents of the fact sheet were true.
     5        Obviously, there is all the evidence to the contrary.  I
     6        mean, there is common sense apart from anything else; would
     7        we really want to spend six years of our lives defending a
     8        libel case over a leaflet which we thought was untrue?  We
     9        would have to be complete masochists, which obviously we
    10        are not.
    11
    12        Moving on through the Plaintiffs' pleadings on page 5 of
    13        the defence to counterclaim paragraph 3 alleges that
    14        "notwithstanding the fact that they have never had any, or
    15        any substantial, evidence to support the allegations made
    16        in the leaflet, 'What's wrong with McDonald's', (referred
    17        to in paragraph 3 of the Statement of Claim) or any of the
    18        other terms containing allegations to the same or similar
    19        effect and despite the lack of any or any substantial
    20        support for the said allegations in the evidence served in
    21        the main action by way of discovery and witness statements
    22        on behalf of both the Plaintiffs and the Defendants since
    23        the institution of proceedings...", and then they go on to
    24        say we have continued to distribute and publish the
    25        statements.
    26
    27        Now, the first part is the "notwithstanding the fact that
    28        they have never had any or any substantial evidence to
    29        support the allegations".  This is just ludicrous, really,
    30        this is a completely ludicrous statement on behalf of
    31        McDonald's.  We have called over 60 live witnesses plus
    32        several Civil Evidence Act witnesses, and that simply
    33        cannot be called insubstantial.  I think anybody would
    34        consider 60 witnesses a sufficient amount of evidence.  If
    35        there is not substantial evidence, then how has this case
    36        lasted for over 300 days?   I mean, obviously, the court
    37        still has to weigh up the evidence, but if it was
    38        irrelevant and insignificant, as McDonald's have tried to
    39        suggest here, then the court would not have allowed the
    40        case to proceed.  It would have all been thrown out.  It is
    41        quite obvious, really, that, whatever decision at the end
    42        of the day, it cannot be said that we have not got any
    43        evidence to support our case.
    44
    45        Just in relation to the "no evidence to support any of the
    46        other material", we would say that the evidence in this
    47        trial that we have called and, for that matter, much of the
    48        evidence called by the Plaintiffs, does support the other
    49        leaflets too but we would say that this pleading is
    50        actually irrelevant, since the main action is about the 
    51        fact sheet and we have no requirement, and indeed we are 
    52        not allowed to bring evidence, to prove the other leaflets. 
    53
    54   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Just while you are on that, is there any
    55        other leaflet which you have got in mind which you are
    56        concerned about on this point?
    57
    58   MS. STEEL:   What do you mean by concerned about?
    59
    60   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Concerned in the sense that there may be

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