Day 200 - 12 Dec 95 - Page 14

     
     1   MR. RAMPTON:  No, it does not.  I am not really concentrating on
     2        this part, that first reason for supposed unhealthy
     3        quality, because it seems to us that it is a separate
     4        matter, and it is either right or wrong that a meal or an
     5        item of food which has that quality is healthy or
     6        unhealthy.  I am not troubled by that.  I certainly do not
     7        believe it requires any further evidence.
     8
     9        The second part because eating it, that is to say the food,
    10        may well make your diet high in fat, etc., and low in
    11        fibre, etc., with the very real risk that you will suffer
    12        cancer of the breast or bowel or heart disease as a result,
    13        I take to be the whole of the second reason.   My Lord, it
    14        is a natural and ordinary meaning.  Therefore, as we
    15        understand it, it must be taken at face value.
    16
    17        I say that, subject to this, that in the light of the
    18        passage on page 24, to which I drew attention a moment ago,
    19        one must insert a gloss to this effect, that this
    20        allegation is not made in relation to occasional meals
         because, as your Lordship has said, the ordinary reader
    22        would know that the occasional meal cannot have these
    23        effects.
    24
    25   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Ms. Steel volunteered that in her argument.
    26
    27   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes.  But your Lordship has actually found that it
    28        is not part of the natural and ordinary meaning that an
    29        occasional meal of the food will have the alleged effects.
    30        I have incorporated that in this way -- I have not
    31        redrafted your Lordship's meaning; I am not allowed to do
    32        that -- for my own benefit, when one sees "and because
    33        eating it", I insert the words parenthetically in my own
    34        mind to read, "and because it is eating other than
    35        occasionally may well make your diet high in fat".
    36
    37   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  That is what I understood Ms. Steel to be
    38        saying in argument.  So there may not be any dispute about
    39        that.  Let us see.
    40
    MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, I have accepted that too.  I have
    42        accepted the pamphlet does not say that the occasional meal
    43        will have the alleged effect.  But, my Lord, if we are to
    44        take this as it stands, as we believe we must, since it is
    45        a natural and ordinary meaning, then this first part of the
    46        meaning being descriptive of the supposed characteristics,
    47        unhealthy characteristics, of the food, would, it seems to
    48        us, inevitably suggest that mere consumption of the food
    49        beyond the occasional meal will or may have these
    50        undesirable effects, starting with "making the diet of the 
    51        consumer high in fat" and so on, and finishing with "as a 
    52        consequence of that, the very real risk of these 
    53        degenerative diseases".
    54
    55        My Lord, if that is right, and consumption of the food of
    56        itself carries these risks, even if it be only moderate
    57        consumption, then, my Lord, very likely (and , perhaps,
    58        I had better pose it as a question) it may be, your
    59        Lordship may think, that evidence of frequency or of
    60        quantity beyond the occasional eating becomes irrelevant,