Day 309 - 03 Dec 96 - Page 42


     
     1        they were being persuaded to buy something rather than
     2        being entertained?
     3
     4   MR. RAMPTON:  One could say that there was a danger in it, yes.
     5        I think I would agree, one could say that.  Whether one
     6        would say that, of course, is another question entirely.
     7
     8   MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
     9
    10   MR. RAMPTON:  I know, speaking on the evidence at least of only
    11        very small children, that piece of research which
    12        I cross-examined Miss Dibb about seems to demonstrate
    13        fairly well that even a four-year-old may know the
    14        difference between a television programme and a commercial
    15        shown in the course of it.  I would be very, very cautious
    16        about that last proposition of your Lordship's simply
    17        because from experience, both as a child and a parent, one
    18        knows -- members of the jury as it were -- that this
    19        supposed gullibility of children is in fact a myth.
    20
    21   MR. JUSTICE BELL: I do not know.  My next question was to what
    22        extent can I take my own experience?
    23
    24   MR. RAMPTON:  You have to, this is where the 12/13ths of the
    25        judge are so important.  I do not have 12 jurors here, if
    26        I did I would be appealing to their respective experiences
    27        as parents and erstwhile children to delve into their
    28        experience and recollection and ask themselves the
    29        question, is it really right that children from, let us
    30        say, four and upwards are as gullible as the jury, if I may
    31        call them that, would suggest that they are, and the answer
    32        I would suggest is plainly, no, they are not.
    33
    34   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  The situation might be that, whether they are
    35        gullible or not, they are more susceptible than adults.
    36        They do not think of all the features, they do not think of
    37        how much it costs, or the extent to which, if at all, it is
    38        good for them, it just appears attractive and therefore
    39        they put pressure on their parents; and therefore the
    40        parents go off and do something which, left to their own
    41        judgment without the nagging child, they would not have
    42        done.
    43
    44   MR. RAMPTON:  Absolutely right, and if I suggested that children
    45        are just small sized adults, that is not what I mean at
    46        all; all I mean to say is people like Miss Dibb greatly
    47        exaggerate the susceptibility of children, their inability
    48        to distinguish reality from fiction, advertisements from
    49        programmes, and so on.  I am not suggesting at all that
    50        they have all the equipment which the adult target of the 
    51        advertising has.  The saving grace, if I can put it like 
    52        that, as I have noticed somewhere else in this submission, 
    53        is that the children do not actually make the decision.
    54        They do not have the money, they do not have the train
    55        fare, or the bus fare, they do not have the old bicycle.
    56        They have to rely on the parents.
    57
    58        That is really, perhaps, in the end the key to it.
    59        Whatever degree of susceptibility one thinks small children
    60        may have, one has to assume that the majority of parents of

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