Day 245 - 07 May 96 - Page 62


     
     1
     2   Q.   Exactly, so why should I assume any of it is incorrect
     3        after you took action against Veggies only over one
     4        section, came to an agreement.  Why should I believe any of
     5        it is in fact not true?
     6        A.  Well, the fact that we did or did not take issue with
     7        Veggies on other matters is quite a separate subject.
     8
     9   Q.   No, it is not.  It is absolutely relevant to your saying in
    10        your press statement that you issued to the world that we
    11        were issuing lies in the London Greenpeace fact sheet.
    12
    13   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Well, that is a statement.  Let me put a
    14        question:  What I think is being put to you is this, that
    15        use of the word "lies" does not just impute that a
    16        statement is inaccurate or factually wrong, but that the
    17        maker of the statement knows that it is wrong and you said
    18        something to that effect this morning.
    19
    20        What is being put to you is this: If you were prepared to
    21        let Veggies publish a leaflet which contained many of the
    22        allegations which you complain of in the leaflet, which is
    23        the spring for this case, the only, it is suggested,
    24        relevant changes being in relation to destruction of
    25        rainforest and torture and murder of animals, if that be
    26        so, how could you say, as it is suggested you did in the
    27        press releases, et cetera, that the leaflet was all lies,
    28        because it is suggested that the Defendants, among others,
    29        might think that many of the allegations in it are true
    30        because you did not complain about them when Veggies made
    31        the publication.
    32
    33        I am not offering any comment on that but I think that is
    34        rather long windedly the question which Mr. Morris is
    35        putting to you.
    36        A.  I think, your Lordship, time had moved on from 1987 to
    37        1990.  I had gotten wind of this Aims and Objectives
    38        Leaflet of London Greenpeace.  I had seen comments in it
    39        about smashing McDonald's.  I said earlier I had seen the
    40        support for Animal Liberation. I had been through the fire
    41        incendiary device issues on 4 occasions in Britain, in
    42        restaurants here, and I thought that that, combined with
    43        statements in documents that are attached to my
    44        supplementary statement regardless of the verdict in this
    45        case, we are going to continue to distribute this
    46        document.  I thought the combination of those took this to
    47        an entirely different level.
    48
    49        What I might have been willing to do, or the Company
    50        through the solicitor's advice in willing to deal with the 
    51        Veggies organisation had entered a local new plateau, one 
    52        where my customers, my staff, had been endangered in one 
    53        restaurant.  There had been an incendiary device go off on
    54        a very busy Saturday afternoon, and the blatant disregard
    55        for the law and "we are going to continue to distribute
    56        this regardless" very much affected me in my thinking.
    57
    58   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Mr. Morris, I suggest you leave it there
    59        because it is up to you if you wish in due course to give
    60        evidence or make a comment, but on the basis of the point

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