Day 262 - 13 Jun 96 - Page 51
1 questions asked by the Defendants -----
2
3 MR. MORRIS: Sorry, Sid Nicholson, is it?
4
5 MR. RAMPTON: Starting at the bottom of page 54. Some of the
6 questions are asked by the Defendants, both of them, and
7 some by your Lordship. Really, the key answer is one, we
8 would suggest -- it is all roughly to the same effect; I am
9 not being selective -- is on page 57 at line 48, in answer
10 to a question from your Lordship, where Mr. Nicholson said:
11
12 "I accept that litigation was always going to be a likely
13 outcome, but I was hoping to avoid litigation, because it
14 is terribly expensive."
15
16 That, if I may respectfully suggest, is a classical
17 exposition of the frame of mind of any sane person who
18 contemplates litigation.
19
20 The evidence of both Mr. Preston and Mr. Nicholson was --
21 and I do not need to make any reference to the transcript
22 of it -- that the point, the purpose of instructing the
23 inquiry agents was to find out who was doing what they
24 objected to and what those people were doing in pursuit of
25 that activity, and that the point of that inquiry, to find
26 out who was doing it, was to try and put a stop to it.
27
28 It is perhaps trite, it is obvious, that if a person who is
29 identified or a group of people who are identified as being
30 those primarily responsible for the dissemination of
31 defamatory material do not voluntarily agree -- which is
32 what any sane person would have hoped they would -- to stop
33 the dissemination, then the only alternative, alas, is
34 litigation and all the expense and trouble which that
35 involves.
36
37 One could put the matter rhetorically, if one is talking
38 about dominant purpose for these instructions and what the
39 inquiry agents did and the information they obtained. One
40 could ask it in this way: what earthly point would there be
41 in going to the expense and the trouble of instructing
42 these two firms of inquiry agents separately, unless it
43 were to put a stop to the publication ultimately, if
44 necessary, by means of litigation and a claim for an
45 injunction by way of relief?
46
47 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But if I thought the overall picture was that
48 instructions were given in the offices to inquiry agents to
49 investigate who was responsible for this, in order to
50 report back to Barlow's so that they can advise the
51 Plaintiffs, then does one have to ask whether litigation
52 was contemplated there?
53
54 MR. RAMPTON: No.
55
56 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That is just for the purposes of obtaining
57 legal advice, is it not?
58
59 MR. RAMPTON: I am being over elaborate. I have already seen I
60 have shot miles past three o'clock. No. I am being over
