Day 307 - 27 Nov 96 - Page 59
1
2 Can I also point out, on the subject of lies, that
3 Mr. Pocklington said on day 263, page 46: "Did you get the
4 impression that people believed in the views that they
5 expressed?" This is people at London Greenpeace meetings.
6 Answer: "Yes, I would say that most people believed in
7 what they were expressing." Question: "And that they
8 believed the material they were circulating was true?"
9 Answer: "Yes, I never heard anything to suggest
10 otherwise." "I never heard anything to suggest otherwise",
11 emphasise "suggest". Question: "That went for me and
12 Helen, from what you remember of us?" Answer: "Yes, yes."
13 That was on page 46, let alone five or six years later
14 after the extremely substantial preparations for this
15 trial.
16
17 Do not forget that Mr. Beavers said that all the criticisms
18 in the London Greenpeace fact sheet were in the public
19 domain to some extent in the USA, which would, we believe,
20 rule out a case of this kind being brought in the USA, and
21 we would certainly pray that in aid in terms of it cannot
22 be said to be lies unless it can be shown that we -- that
23 they are positively untrue and we believed they were
24 untrue.
25
26 Nothing had been made up in the London Greenpeace fact
27 sheet in terms of -- nothing had been fabricated or even
28 written by us, in fact, let alone fabricated.
29
30 I did touch on this and it may not automatically fit into
31 the framework which you approached this matter, but I think
32 it is an important point which may relate to how the law is
33 developing in this country about the protection on
34 political criticism, that, for example, the removal of the
35 right to sue for libel by governmental organisations and we
36 are going to be bringing evidence about how that has been
37 extended and will be further extended under European
38 legislation.
39
40 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You do not mean what you actually said.
41
42 MS. STEEL: Legal submissions.
43
44 MR. MORRIS: --- bring in submissions. That is one of our
45 submissions that we are going to make. But, in terms of
46 this particular counterclaim and the privileged
47 self-defence, here we have a multi-national corporation, or
48 the UK subsidiary, claiming for itself what, indeed, we are
49 claiming should be the case in terms of the protection of
50 political criticism made by the public against powerful and
51 public bodies who have chosen to be in the spotlight; and
52 we would say that our case is much more compelling, and it
53 is interesting that they have used this privileged
54 self-defence argument which we were going to raise in -- we
55 will raise it -- in writing.
56
57 MR. JUSTICE BELL: In relation to a what?
58
59 MR. MORRIS: That society has a privileged right to criticise
60 and protect itself from bodies such as multi-nationals who
