Day 177 - 26 Oct 95 - Page 44


     
     1        clarification of what the article is actually about.  But,
     2        as I have submitted a moment ago, in the generality of
     3        cases, the two combine together to convey a single
     4        message.  There is no conflict; there is no need to
     5        consider them separately, because they complement each
     6        other, they point together to a single answer.  This is, in
     7        our submission, what has happened in this case.  We say
     8        that the headlines perfectly and concisely reflect, as does
     9        the cartoon, the sense of the particular passage about
    10        nutrition; and that, after all, is what the reasonable
    11        reader is going to assume was intended -- not that I can
    12        give evidence about what was actually intended.  But if he
    13        asks himself: "What message am I supposed to get from all
    14        of this", then he can easily answer that question by
    15        looking at the headlines and just as easily by looking at
    16        the text with the headlines; not in reality, of course,
    17        that anything so laborious happens in the mind of the
    18        ordinary person who reads material of this kind.  All that
    19        process, "What does it mean?  Shall I read both together",
    20        and so on and so forth, is done subconsciously; and what he
    21        takes away with him, as the House of Lords and others have
    22        repeatedly said, is an impression of what he has been told.
    23
    24        Then the question, which I do not take to be controversial
    25        at all: is evidence allowed to explain the natural ordinary
    26        meaning of the words complained of in a defamation action?
    27        Answer: no, it is not; and that has been an established
    28        principle for a very long time -- evidence of any kind.
    29        Scrutton L.J. says it plainly at the top of page 28 in
    30        Hobbs v. Tinling, which is at divider -----
    31
    32   MR. JUSTICE BELL: 7.
    33
    34   MR. RAMPTON:  7.  [1929] 1 K.B. 1.  At the top of page 28:
    35
    36             "He" -- that was, I suppose, counsel for the
    37             defendant -- "argued that there was no evidence
    38             to enable the jury to find that the words bore
    39             the meaning alleged.  But the words, being plain
    40             English words, and having been read with the
    41             alleged innuendo to the jury, they were the
    42             judge's, without further evidence, of whether
    43             the words would be reasonably understood to bear
    44             the meanings alleged."
    45
    46             There is also a passage to similar effect, though at
    47        substantially greater length, in the judgment of
    48        Diplock L.J.
    49
    50   MR. MORRIS:  Hold on.  We are just trying to find the last one. 
    51 
    52   MR. RAMPTON:  Divider 7, page 28, at the top of the page. 
    53
    54   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It is the third sheet, divider 7
    55
    56   MS. STEEL:   Thank you.
    57
    58   MR. RAMPTON:  Then Slim v. Daily Telegraph, divider 8, page 172.
    59        I am not going to read any of this, unless your Lordship
    60        wishes me to do so.  Page 172, letter D down to letter E on

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