Day 147 - 04 Jul 95 - Page 13
1 there are restrictions upon telling the outside world what
2 has happened in chambers, but not on honest reporting of
3 what has happened in open court. So, unless Mr. Rampton
4 wishes to address me on it, I propose to say that what
5 happened in chambers yesterday should be deemed for any
6 reporting purposes to have been said in open court.
7
8 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I do not disagree with that at all, but
9 I do pick up and stress your Lordship words "honest"
10 reporting.
11
12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: We are in just the same position, so far as
13 any reporting of the proceedings are concerned, as if we
14 were in open court yesterday.
15
16 MS. STEEL: Before I go into any detail, I just wanted to raise
17 a couple of things that Mr. Rampton said yesterday, which
18 was, firstly, that we did not respond to their letter about
19 transcripts of 10th March, 1995, and also -- well, just to
20 say that, we did respond, because it was brought up in
21 court and we presented our position at that time.
22
23 The other thing was that Mr. Rampton made mention again
24 yesterday of a file containing costs of transcripts, which
25 were on recycled paper, saying "Return to McLibel Two".
26 I do remember dealing with that on a previous occasion as
27 well. I do not know that it actually said "Return to
28 McLibel Two", but there was a file or a few files saying
29 "Return to the McLibel Defendants". As we said on a
30 previous occasion, they were copies of transcripts which we
31 had been giving to legal advisers to check through them for
32 legal advice. I think it was recognised that that was
33 perfectly justifiable and allowed at that time.
34
35 I do repeat what I said yesterday, that we have not
36 distributed copies of the transcripts other than to legal
37 advisers and witnesses.
38
39 As far as the complaint about reporting of statements made
40 during the court proceedings go, as I said yesterday, if
41 the statements are inaccurate then they cannot have been
42 taken from the transcripts; and if they are accurate, then
43 what is Mr. Rampton complaining about? These are public
44 proceedings and there is no reason why statements made in
45 court should not be reported to the public, to reach a
46 wider audience than that which is able to actually
47 physically attend the proceedings.
48
49 We consider that this is just a thinly veiled attempt by
50 Mr. Rampton and McDonald's to deter reporting of this case;
51 and, also, it is an attempt to make our lives even more
52 difficult in our conducting this case because, obviously,
53 if we have not got transcripts, then preparation and so on
54 is going to be much more complicated.
55
56 You asked us to address you on the subject of whether or
57 not you should receive copies of the transcripts if we are
58 not getting them. We believe that if we are denied copies
59 of the transcripts, it would be wrong for you to get a
60 copy, since we are not going to be able to see the
