Day 288 - 28 Oct 96 - Page 19
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2 MR JUSTICE BELL: It is helpful that I should know.
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4 MR RAMPTON: I find the general charge, as I shall say in due
5 course, but, so there is no secret about it, we find the
6 general charge imported in the word 'torture'.
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8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I thought you would. That is why I said what
9 I did earlier. I mean, you can make your comment, and
10 I have understood what you have said about that, but at the
11 moment I find it most readily in the word 'torture' and it
12 is just a question of what the actual expression of it is.
13 But whatever the accurate expression of the general charge
14 is, I do not think there is any technical objection to you
15 saying, "We can justify that general charge if we are able,
16 by reference to all the matters, we would say, of
17 mistreatment of animals", apart from which have cropped up
18 in the evidence for my decision one way or the other,
19 "quite apart from the specific ones which are alleged in
20 the leaflet".
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22 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, can I say more or less what I said the
23 other day, and I hope it will save time. The Defendants'
24 primary position is that torture is a comment. If that is
25 so, then by and large they are confined to the facts stated
26 in the leaflet. We say, no, on the contrary, it imputes a
27 state of mind to us which is an allegation of fact. The
28 Defendants are entitled to say, well, if we are wrong that
29 it is a comment and you are right that it is a allegation
30 of fact, then on all the evidence in the case it is true.
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32 MR JUSTICE BELL: All I say at the moment is that my inclination
33 is that it is a statement of fact rather than a comment,
34 but the result of that is that you can rely on lots of
35 things you would not be able to rely on if it was a
36 comment.
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38 MS. STEEL: To be honest, I think you can get the general sting
39 about animal suffering and McDonald's being responsible for
40 it throughout the text without the heading, but obviously
41 people would read the entire thing. I mean, I do not think
42 that our sting would fall if the heading was not there.
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44 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No. Well, there we are.
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46 MS. STEEL: Just on the subject about torture, the point about
47 torture is that it is what the animals are feeling and it
48 does not have to reflect on the state of mind of the
49 persons who are rearing or slaughtering them. I mean,
50 obviously, in some cases it would, but it does not
51 automatically follow that-----
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53 MR. MORRIS: Can I say there are at least two general charges
54 in the text? The entirely artificial conditions of huge
55 factory farms, hence they are forced to live in entirely
56 artificial conditions, factory farms; and the last
57 paragraph, which the Plaintiffs have not complained of,
58 says that animals have no choice at all, and that is a
59 general charge that animals do not have any choice, they do
60 not have the freedom to live their lives as they want, and
