Day 313 - 13 Dec 96 - Page 40
1 MR. MORRIS: I am doing that now.
2
3 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- what the comments are, not at great length
4 but just say, 'We say it is comment rather than statement
5 of fact because...' and then give me the reasons. What
6 I am anxious to avoid is, as you know because I have said
7 it so often now, is just going back into arguing what
8 conclusions I should draw from this bit of evidence or that
9 bit of evidence.
10
11 MS. STEEL: Just in relation to the test about balance of
12 probabilities. I mean, this is a particular point about
13 before October 1989, that the test about balance of
14 probabilities should be weighed with particularly strict
15 conditions in relation to prior to October 1989 because
16 this amendment came very late in the day and the Plaintiffs
17 have no evidence to put myself or Mr. Morris in the frame.
18 The only evidence of what was going on in the group was
19 from Mr. Gravett and myself, who both stated that neither
20 of us were involved. Neither myself nor Mr. Morris were
21 involved in the anti-McDonald's campaign, and since there
22 is no evidence to the contrary there is no balance of
23 probabilities to weigh up and the finding must therefore,
24 on that test, be that we cannot be held responsible for
25 publication during the period from September 1987 to
26 September 1989 approximately -- which was added at the time
27 of the amendments, and it is particularly important to bear
28 in mind the point that we could have called more evidence
29 on this if the Plaintiffs had made this a pleading at the
30 time they issued the writs, and so on, and so the balance
31 of probabilities test should be particularly strict on that
32 area of the case.
33
34 On the spies' notes -- sorry, the inquiry agents' notes --
35 we say that the notes of the inquiry agents should not be
36 accepted as evidence unless they were disclosed in full,
37 and certainly they should not be accepted as evidence of
38 overall impressions. Anything that is not specifically
39 mentioned in the notes should not be allowed since the
40 Plaintiffs failed to disclose all of them. Whether or not
41 they were ordered to do so, they could have actually chosen
42 to do so, and they chose which ones to disclose, and such
43 impressions, i.e. overall impressions, may be based in part
44 on meetings which the Plaintiffs had chosen to deem as
45 relevant or that they-----
46
47 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am going to stop you, I am afraid, because
48 you are just arguing the issue of publication again. I do
49 not see-----
50
51 MS. STEEL: I am arguing the principles on which you should
52 weigh up the evidence.
53
54 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No, if that is a point of law it is certainly
55 not a proposition of law as I understand it. You had five
56 weeks to argue your case on all these matters and I am just
57 not going to... And I refused your application that
58 Mr. Rampton should go first and you should go second and
59 that was not pursued before the Court of Appeal, and you
60 are not to use the opportunity I gave you to reply on
