Day 306 - 26 Nov 96 - Page 31
1 Greenpeace picket.
2
3 On day 272, page 47, line 8, Mr. Gravett actually said
4 there would not have been people from London Greenpeace at
5 the picket for the reasons I have just given, because
6 nobody had reported the fact.
7
8 A suggestion was put by Mr. Rampton that people from, for
9 example, Veggies might have got there in the afternoon. If
10 you were thinking that was remotely likely, I would just
11 like to point out that if people from London cannot get to
12 a picket because of the effects of the hurricane on the
13 transport systems in London -- you know, roads being
14 blocked, and so on -- it is hardly likely that people
15 setting off from Nottingham would have made it there.
16
17 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I don't know about that. I mean, I have got
18 evidence that transport was disrupted in north London in
19 the morning. I know it was not disrupted all over London,
20 because I remember driving out from west London down into
21 Sussex. The reason I refer it is that I unfortunately
22 passed a fatal accident where a large tree had fallen
23 across a van killing three people in it, and I had no
24 trouble driving out through west London, though when I went
25 into Richmond Park a day later there were trees down all
26 over the place. So it was very patchy and variable.
27
28 MS. STEEL: I do not know, I would say realistically -----
29
30 MR JUSTICE BELL: I think the point which is put on that by
31 Mr. Rampton is that it is all consistent with there being
32 transport difficulties in the morning, that notwithstanding
33 that the publicity material for the picket said "meet 7.45
34 a.m." just a few people turned up in the afternoon. But
35 there you are, these are the sort of things I have got to
36 weigh and come to a conclusion about.
37
38 MS. STEEL: Right. I mean, generally, if people are going to
39 go to a picket they try and get there on time or fairly
40 soon afterwards, and they would not expect it to be still
41 going, you know, 10 hours later, or whatever, eight hours
42 later.
43
44 The other thing was in relation to the picket of McDonald's
45 head office in 1988 that Mr. Nicholson asserted took
46 place. Mr. Gravett referred to the leaflet in tab 24 of
47 pink 1A, on day 272, page 34, line 38, and he said that
48 there was no London Greenpeace picket of McDonald's head
49 office that year and that he would have known if there had
50 been since he was the organiser of the pickets that year.
51 That was also referred to on page 48, line 32.
52
53 Then, I was going to move on to the evidence of
54 Mr. Carroll. My notes start getting a little more
55 haphazard now. Day 236, page 41, line 24 -- actually,
56 maybe the easiest way, I will just run through a couple of
57 points from his statement first. In paragraph 8 of his
58 statement he refers to people meeting up outside the
59 station, and he said, "Their ringleader appeared to be
60 Paul Gravett".
