Day 245 - 07 May 96 - Page 48
1 demonstrations at all?
2 A. No. I said twice before I kept totally away from it
3 once the project was given to Mr. Nicholson.
4
5 Q. Was that because you did not want to dirty your hands with
6 the use of spies?
7 A. No. Spies were not used.
8
9 Q. Whatever you call them, Mr. Preston, was it because you did
10 not want to dirty your hands?
11 A. It was not necessary. Sid is a trained individual. He
12 knows the rules of the game. He was given an instruction.
13 I left it in very capable hands and he did what had to be
14 done.
15
16 Q. When Mr. Carroll gave evidence, he said that he had sent
17 round instructions to all stores in the country to collect
18 leaflets and take photographs when the stores were picketed
19 and to send them back to Head Office or regional office
20 where they were collated. Were you aware of that going on?
21 A. Was I aware that they were taking pictures? I think I
22 was, yes.
23
24 Q. Yes, and he went on to say that the purpose of that was to
25 try and identify whether it was locally based protests or
26 whether it was a few people going all the way round the
27 country, and basically Mr. Carroll discovered that it was
28 local protests. You are aware of that presumably?
29 A. I can imagine that is true, yes.
30
31 Q. Right. Was it your instruction to Mr. Carroll to get
32 photographs and copies of all leaflets from around the
33 country to keep files on people?
34 A. No.
35
36 Q. It was not?
37 A. No.
38
39 Q. Can I just ask one thing which I forget to ask this morning
40 when we were referring to the letter which your solicitors
41 wrote to London Greenpeace in 1984 about a different
42 leaflet, did you have any knowledge, or do you have any
43 knowledge, that both of us were in the group in 1984?
44 A. No.
45
46 Q. Right, so for all you know, we had never even heard about
47 this letter from McDonald's?
48 A. I do not know.
49
50 Q. Mr. Preston, it is true to say that not all criticism of
51 McDonald's stems from London Greenpeace?
52 A. Well, I am sure there is criticism of McDonald's from
53 many quarters. I am not against criticising McDonald's.
54 I just suggest it should always be done truthfully with all
55 the facts.
56
57 Q. But you talked about all the leaflets that are in the
58 bundles being evidence of why it was necessary to stop the
59 London Greenpeace fact sheet?
60 A. Excuse me, could you say that again?
