Day 304 - 22 Nov 96 - Page 24
1 my evidence, but this cropped up in my evidence -- that in
2 the context of the note about Mr. Morris telephoning in on
3 meeting nights, that people who were at the meetings would
4 not take instructions from people or go running around
5 after people, you know, that if you wanted to participate
6 in something you should go to the meetings and say your
7 piece.
8
9 MR. MORRIS: I think those notes were put to a few witnesses.
10
11 MS. STEEL: I think that was the general agreement of anybody
12 who was asked about that.
13
14 So, really, to sum up the evidence from all of the
15 witnesses in the case, both the inquiry agents hired by the
16 Plaintiffs and witnesses for the defence, including myself,
17 the evidence shows that London Greenpeace was a disparate
18 collection of individuals who shared common values in the
19 broadest of terms, but really whose most distinctive
20 feature was the notion of individual responsibility and
21 autonomy through the free exchange of ideas and tolerance
22 of individual opinions.
23
24 MR JUSTICE BELL: Do you want to take the five minute break
25 there, or do you want to finish this section?
26
27 MS. STEEL: There is just one other thing I will add to that:
28 A further significant feature of the group is that the
29 nature of the organisation was based on anarchism, which
30 effectively makes the notion of hierarchy an anathema.
31
32 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Nobody explained to me what anarchism
33 means.
34
35 MS. STEEL: It does involve people not having positions of
36 authority over other people. In fact, I think, to use
37 Ms. Laporte's words, "working on egalitarian principles".
38 So everyone would have an equal say and nobody had control
39 over other people.
40
41 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. Is there anything more you want to say
42 before we break?
43
44 MS. STEEL: No. If we take the break.
45
46 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Five minutes, then.
47
48 (Short Adjournment)
49
50 MS. STEEL: Moving on: What, then, is the evidence that either
51 myself or Mr. Morris were in such positions of power that
52 we caused, procured or authorised publication? In reality,
53 there is no evidence from any agent that the use of the
54 fact sheet was ever discussed with or by either myself or
55 Mr. Morris, let alone, you know, actually telling people to
56 hand it out or asking people to hand it out.
57
58 Mr. Bishop stated on day 261 that people were not all
59 interested in the same things. That was page 16, line 21.
60 He also said on the same day that by his third meeting he
