Day 280 - 17 Jul 96 - Page 06

     
     1
     2   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It referred to some only of the meetings
     3        which they attended.
     4
     5   MR. STARMER:   Yes, but in terms of what they individually did.
     6        I mean, the thrust -- and I will come to it in a minute --
     7        of this application is that it is now that the Plaintiffs
     8        are seeking damages from these Defendants in relation to
     9        the very publication by the people that they put in place
    10        in London Greenpeace, because insofar as any one of the
    11        proposed third parties mail out a leaflet to any member of
    12        the public and in so far as that allegedly defamed the
    13        Plaintiffs and lowered their reputation, and for which the
    14        Plaintiffs now seek damages, they claim that from the
    15        Defendant, and that, really, is the change in, significant
    16        change, in this case as from the amended pleadings and, as
    17        I say, later in my skeleton, any onward transmission by the
    18        recipient, because what is said is it now does not matter
    19        how it got anywhere in the jurisdiction, it is all down to
    20        you, that claim simply could not have been got off the
         ground before the amendment.
    22
    23             My Lord, going back to the earlier point I was
    24        developing, as I understand it, the original witness
    25        statements made it clear that the proposed third parties
    26        were, as it were, infiltrating the group but did not make
    27        clear what it was they were doing within the group.  That
    28        came in the supplementary witness statements.  And the
    29        thrust, it seems to me, in the supplementary witness
    30        statements, was there was a degree of involvement I had to
    31        undertake in order not to blow my cover and that involved
    32        specific activities and therefore it was, as I understand
    33        it, about June of this year that those supplementary
    34        statements were signed.  They may have been served, I
    35        think, a little bit before that, and the evidence then
    36        developed the matter still further in relation, in
    37        particular, for example, to the George Roby event, but I
    38        think it was Mr. Bishop or Mr. Claire - Mr. Bishop.  I am
    39        grateful.
    40
              So, I have to accept that it is conceivable that a
    42        very thin case could have been prepared but it would have
    43        been difficult to say that the activities of the proposed
    44        third parties, on the state of the evidence then, could
    45        properly be said to have related to the particular dates
    46        that the Plaintiffs were then relying on.  One might have
    47        been able to put a case to say they were generally involved
    48        in their general distribution, but that was not the
    49        Plaintiff's case at this time and that is why I say this
    50        really could not have been made at an earlier stage.
    51
    52   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Yes.
    53
    54   MR. STARMER:   My Lord, going on, if I may, to paragraph 7, page
    55        35 of my skeleton argument.  The thrust of the Plaintiffs
    56        case is threefold, and this is taken from their pleadings.
    57
    58   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.
    59
    60   MR. STARMER:  "... that at all material times the group was