Day 308 - 28 Nov 96 - Page 39


     
     1        typists' fingers throughout these closing submissions.
     2        I do believe in some sense I owe your Lordship an apology
     3        for the length of this document, for it is in truth one
     4        document.
     5
     6        There is one section still to come, which I expect that
     7        your Lordship will get in the early part of next week,
     8        which shall be volume 6 which, after reflection, I have
     9        decided to put in writing and will be publication, malice,
    10        counterclaim and damages.
    11
    12        My Lord, there are really three reasons why it is as long
    13        as it is.  First, of course, it has been a long trial and
    14        there has been a lot of evidence, and there are an awful
    15        lot of documents.  The second reason is, as I am sure your
    16        Lordship will understand, that I think probably I have had
    17        too much preparation time.  I have therefore probably put
    18        in a very great deal more detail than your Lordship
    19        actually needs.
    20
    21        The third reason is this, and this is an important reason:
    22        one of the acute problems which I faced in the preparation
    23        of this document, these submissions, has been the question
    24        of relevance.  I have always taken it that a defamation
    25        action has boundaries or limits which are primarily set by
    26        the meaning of the words complained of.  That bites
    27        particularly on the ambit of any defence of justification
    28        or fair comment.
    29
    30        As I, in the last three or four months, or whatever it has
    31        been through the evidence and before that, reflected on
    32        what the true meaning of the leaflet is in these various
    33        areas I have, in large part, been very tempted simply to
    34        ignore huge chunks of the evidence, because it has seemed
    35        to me -- and your Lordship may or may not agree -- that in
    36        very large part the case which the Defendants have sought
    37        to advance on their behalf has had very little to do with
    38        the message which would have been conveyed by the words
    39        complained of to ordinary readers.
    40
    41        In the end, I am afraid, I have to a large extent chickened
    42        out and I have not taken the brave man's course; I have not
    43        on the whole said I am simply not going to go down that
    44        road because it has nothing to do with this case.  To
    45        borrow a phrase of your Lordship's I have picked up the
    46        gauntlet and I have dealt with the issues.  One obvious
    47        example would be CFCs, which, so far as I can tell, finds
    48        no place anywhere in the leaflet and therefore probably in
    49        this case.  However, I have dealt with it, though not, as
    50        your Lordship will see, at very great length. 
    51 
    52        There are some topics which I have completely ignored, 
    53        mostly for that reason but in some cases simply because
    54        there is not any satisfactory evidence.  This is from
    55        memory; they are diabetes, sugar, food additives, residues
    56        in meat, methane, polystyrene foam, except in so far as
    57        that involves a consideration of the use of CFCs, and in
    58        relation to food poisoning, if you can call it that,
    59        foreign bodies.
    60

Prev Next Index