Day 275 - 08 Jul 96 - Page 13
1 Then there would be a section where anybody could
2 bring up any major subject that they wanted to bring up.
3 For example, the IMF campaign, or the borders campaign or
4 the fayre or something like that. Then the final item on
5 the agenda would be coming events where people could bring
6 up any coming event that was happening in the next month or
7 so, whether or not it was organised by London Greenpeace.
8 And then the agenda would be pinned up on the wall or left
9 in the middle of the room, and it would be gone through one
10 by one and there was not any Chair. Anybody could say,
11 "Come on, let's move on to the next item". There was no
12 formal control about who could speak or when they could
13 speak. People just got on with what was on the agenda.
14
15 "At the meetings at Endsleigh Street it was slightly
16 more formal sometimes. If there was a public speaker from
17 another organisation then there might be somebody who would
18 introduce the speaker and maybe get the meeting going. But
19 even so, in my experience, there was never anyone saying
20 when anybody could and could not speak. It was just left
21 up to everybody present to obviously, you know, respect --
22 you do not butt in on other people, you just say what you
23 feel you want to say.
24
25 "London Greenpeace is an informal, open, collective,
26 anyone can attend meetings and suggest campaigns or actions
27 to organise or get involved in, and anybody who wanted to
28 would join in the discussion and/or campaign. And I should
29 add to that that there was no obligation to get involved in
30 any specific action or campaign, or whatever, discussion.
31 Nobody had to get involved with anything. People could
32 attend and do absolutely nothing if they wanted to. Some
33 people would attend and get involved with some campaigns,
34 other people would attend and get involved with other
35 campaigns. In fact, that was one of the reasons why I was
36 attracted to the group, because a lot of political groups
37 you do have to agree with everything that the group is
38 doing, you have to agree with aims and principles, you have
39 to, you know, take part in whatever the group is
40 organising, whereas with London Greenpeace it was just
41 completely informal and you could just get involved in
42 whatever you wanted. But if you weren't interested in a
43 particular campaign you did not have to do anything, did
44 not have to do anything concerning that campaign, you did
45 not have to get involved. If you did want to get involved,
46 it was up to you to what extent you got involved.
47
48 Just going on, I have never, at a meeting or anywhere
49 else, stated that I assisted with the production and
50 distribution of the leaflet complained of in this action.
51 I have never, at a meeting or anywhere else either said or
52 acknowledged that I, either alone or with others, was
53 responsible for organising McDonald's fight -- that last
54 part is in quotes.
55
56 I do not think that I had the infiltrators' witness
57 statements at the time I made this statement. I think that
58 this is taken from the pleadings, I am pretty sure about
59 that. And the part in quotes is from, I am pretty sure --
60 is it from the pleadings? But if it is not then it would
