Day 305 - 25 Nov 96 - Page 37


     
     1        goes to show how unreliable the notes of Mr. Clare are.
     2        Obviously, the main point on this is that, in any event, it
     3        is completely untrue.  There is my own evidence, there is
     4        the evidence of Mr. Gravett and the evidence of
     5        Ms. Laporte, and, indeed, the acceptance by McDonald's that
     6        I was not responsible for production of the fact sheet.
     7
     8        Moving on to the second statement, paragraph 2, Mr. Clare
     9        asserts that in relation to the BBC's invitation for
    10        somebody to appear or somebody to be interviewed or have a
    11        debate on World Service Radio with McDonald's, and the fact
    12        that McDonald's representatives had refused to appear on
    13        the programme, and Mr. Clare was saying that the group
    14        treated it as a great moral victory and would not let it go
    15        or die down; and he said that certain members of the group
    16        thought that McDonald's refusing was lucky, effectively,
    17        because people in the group admitted to not having any
    18        sources for backing up most of their points in the
    19        leaflets.
    20
    21        Firstly, he does not say who are the members he was
    22        referring to.  Mr. Gravett was quite happy to do the debate
    23        on the World Service Radio.  So, it can hardly have been
    24        his view that there were not any sources to back up the
    25        points in the leaflet, unless he wanted to go on the radio
    26        and make a complete idiot of himself -- which I am sure he
    27        would hardly set out to do.
    28
    29        Secondly, this ridiculous allegation by Mr. Clare is
    30        contradicted by all the other evidence from Mr. Gravett,
    31        myself and Ms. Laporte, who were at the meeting and who
    32        never heard any such thing said.  Also, Mr. Pocklington was
    33        at this meeting as a spy for McDonald's, and his notes of
    34        this meeting, which are on page 76 of the notes bundle, do
    35        not mention this incident -- well, they mention the World
    36        Service interview, but it does not mention any such
    37        admission that there were no sources for the information in
    38        the leaflet -- which you would have thought, since he was
    39        there to find out precisely that sort of information, he
    40        would have made a note of it if it had been said.
    41
    42        Mr. Pocklington confirmed what he had written.  On day 262,
    43        page 25, we asked him that if he had heard anyone at a
    44        meeting saying that they did not have any information to
    45        back up what was in the leaflets, that he would have made a
    46        note of that, and he said he presumed he would have done,
    47        yes.  He summed up everything in his notes that he thought
    48        was relevant, which was that Mr. Gravett was willing to
    49        take part in the BBC World Service interview, whereas
    50        McDonald's were not. 
    51 
    52   MR. MORRIS:  Can I just say that also evidence was heard that 
    53        there were plenty of sources of information available at
    54        London Greenpeace in a file which Paul had compiled, as we
    55        heard.  So, in fact, even if somebody did say that as an
    56        aside, someone unknown said that to Mr. Clare, it is not
    57        true.  It just goes to show how unreliable it is, if he is
    58        taking asides by somebody else and trying to make it appear
    59        that is the opinion of the whole group or something.
    60

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