Day 245 - 07 May 96 - Page 76
1
2 MR. MORRIS: He said that about the London Greenpeace fact sheet
3 and I thought I would give him the opportunity, which he
4 says every line is with all the words he said-----
5
6 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I have taken that on board.
7
8 MR. MORRIS: (To the witness): In this leaflet is there any
9 sentence which you can say has not -----
10
11 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It does not help me, Mr. Morris, whether he
12 says it. He can say it is untrue or not. I have got a
13 wealth of evidence and I have still got more to hear as to
14 whether particular statements are true or not.
15
16 MR. MORRIS: As long as McDonald's cannot use this leaflet --
17 refer to this leaflet in terms of our, me and Helen's state
18 of mind because there has been no evidence on this leaflet
19 -----
20
21 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What Mr. Preston says about it I do not think
22 can help me.
23
24 MR. RAMPTON: I have never heard of anything so peculiar in all
25 my life. I shall certainly use this leaflet for a number
26 of purposes - one of them is that it contains a number of
27 false statements.
28
29 MR. MORRIS: That is what I am asking the witness.
30
31 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I do not think the witness can answer.
32
33 MR. MORRIS: We have not had any evidence about this leaflet.
34
35 MR. JUSTICE BELL: We have had a lot of evidence about matters
36 to which statements in the leaflet refer, and I am going to
37 have make up my mind in so far as the truth or otherwise of
38 document 77 is relevant to an issue, whether it is true or
39 not.
40
41 MR. MORRIS: It can only be relevant to the counterclaim and to
42 the press statements issued by McDonald's and their general
43 wild assertions that we are responsible for everything in
44 the publications bundles -- to do with the counterclaim,
45 I am talking -----
46
47 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Just pause. That may or may not be so. All
48 I am saying is it is not a useful exercise to ask one
49 individual who has heard only part of the evidence, and no
50 doubt if he had heard more would not be able to recall it,
51 to say whether this statement is supported by the evidence
52 or not supported by the evidence. It does not matter, in
53 my view, that he is Chief Executive of the Second
54 Plaintiff. It just is not apposite to ask one witness
55 whether he has got evidence to support that or not.
56
57 MS. STEEL: I think the point is that, basically, all the
58 evidence that I have seen is that the -- and certainly what
59 I know the case to be -- is that the fact sheet we are
60 being sued over has, basically, been unavailable since
