Day 057 - 29 Nov 94 - Page 12
1 or McDonald's meal causes these illnesses, when actually he
2 came to give his evidence he took a step back from that.
3 Although he did at one stage, prompted by Mr. Morris,
4 actually mention McDonald's products, unsurprisingly,
5 perhaps, in the light of all the evidence on this topic
6 that your Lordship has heard, he did not make (and I would
7 suggest no sensible medical person or scientific person
8 would ever make) the attempt to assert that that meaning
9 was true.
10
11 MS. STEEL: Can I just say, he did not say it in his statement
12 either. I did go through and look at it. They are the
13 types of products that make a contribution.
14
15 MR. RAMPTON: We read his statement as foreshadowing, as I say,
16 a possible attempt to assert the truth of the proposition
17 that McDonald's food causes these illnesses without
18 qualification.
19
20 This is where I come, perhaps, to what may be the more
21 important part of this application: I say three things,
22 first -- I say this emphatically and clearly -- I do not
23 accept what the Defendants have told your Lordship about
24 their being taken in any way by surprise. I do not find it
25 credible on the materials which are before your Lordship.
26 They are (and they have shown they are) very careful in
27 their reading of the transcripts of the various hearings,
28 whether they be evidence, argument or rulings. I simply do
29 not accept their assertion that they have not known at
30 least since July of last year what the true issue was on
31 this part of the case.
32
33 My Lord, even if I did accept that, I do not accept that
34 their finding themselves in this position, if indeed they
35 do, is anybody's fault but their own. I do not and
36 I cannot ask your Lordship, as it were, to penalise them
37 for that failure to read the plain words on the page which
38 appeared so often over the last year. But I do say this
39 (which is, I think, the submission I made on the last
40 occasion) that it would be quite wrong for your Lordship to
41 penalise the Plaintiffs because the Defendants for some
42 reason of their own have failed to appreciate what the case
43 is actually about.
44
45 My Lord, I go to the third stage which is, perhaps, the one
46 which matters most. When one has read the
47 cross-examination of Professor Wheelock, of Dr. Arnott, the
48 evidence-in-chief of Professor Crawford, of Mr. Cannon and
49 above all of Dr. Barnard, one asks oneself, in my
50 respectful submission, this question: "What more could the
51 Defendants possibly expect to extract from witnesses of
52 that kind on the question: 'Is the relationship between
53 diet and cancer a causal one and, if so, in what sense'?"
54
55 The whole of the evidence of Dr. Barnard is concerned with
56 that question, sometimes answering the Defendants,
57 sometimes answering your Lordship. It goes without saying,
58 of course, that the whole of my cross-examination was
59 devoted to the same question. Indeed, on this area of the
60 case I doubt it would be possible to find a question from
