Day 300 - 14 Nov 96 - Page 11


     
     1
     2   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Which part are you thinking of now?
     3
     4   MS. STEEL:   Well, that they use a lot of advertising aimed at
     5        children.
     6
     7   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Where do you say I get the particular
     8        susceptibility of children?
     9
    10   MS. STEEL:   I think that is just a matter of common sense.
    11        People know that children are vulnerable and have
    12        impressionable minds.
    13
    14   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   So you say that is as a matter of common
    15        knowledge?
    16
    17   MS. STEEL:   Yes.  I mean, obviously, that is recognised by the
    18        fact that advertising of alcohol and cigarettes is not
    19        allowed to children, for example.  It is just that
    20        obviously, our view is -----
    21
    22   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Is that susceptibility or that they are not
    23        supposed to have them at all?
    24
    25   MS. STEEL:   Obviously susceptibility is part of it.
    26
    27   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I understand that.
    28
    29   MR. MORRIS:   Can I ask a question?   The common knowledge
    30        justification for a comment, is that part of the picture
    31        that we are allowed to rely on, what we could say is common
    32        knowledge?
    33
    34   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You may give me some help on that, because
    35        I may still have to do some reading.  I will listen to
    36        anything Mr. Rampton wants to say about it.  But somewhere
    37        I have come across comment.  I cannot remember it now.
    38
    39        If we go back to what I was saying on the first day, I will
    40        put it in these very neutral terms, that if you are saying
    41        fair comment, you can rely on matters of fact which you
    42        have proved to be true which are stated in the leaflet,
    43        which are sufficiently referred to in the leaflet, or it
    44        may well be which are of matters of common knowledge.  I
    45        have not heard Mr. Rampton about that yet.  But there is a
    46        possibility of that.
    47
    48   MR. MORRIS:   It makes sense.
    49
    50   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   It makes sense.
    51
    52   MR. RAMPTON:   My Lord, I think it is probably right.  I don't
    53        think -----
    54
    55   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It has got to be something which is quite
    56        clearly of common knowledge, not just that you would say to
    57        me a lot of people must know that.
    58
    59   MR. RAMPTON:   That is what I was going to say.  If I said
    60        "I don't think Adolf Hitler had a very good war", I would

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