Day 308 - 28 Nov 96 - Page 05
1 people involved in the campaign, or anybody expressing a
2 desire to say the truth -----
3
4 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is not answering one; that is not an
5 answer to the question of evidence that you are guilty of
6 deliberate deceit. It is really, as I read it, an answer
7 of the intention to continue.
8
9 MS. STEEL: Well, whatever it is, the point is that deceit does
10 have -- even if it is an intention to continue to deceive
11 the public, the point is that the thing that they have
12 quoted is talking about a desire to expose the truth and,
13 therefore, it cannot be an intention to deceive. It might
14 be, on McDonald's terms, an intention to continue putting
15 out inaccurate information, but it cannot be an intention
16 to deceive. Obviously, we would not accept that it is an
17 intention to put out inaccurate information, either, but
18 I am just -- anyway, I have made the point.
19
20 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
21
22 MS. STEEL: Page 26: this is about myself and Mr. Morris being
23 allegedly responsible for organising demonstrations and
24 fairs, and saying that that can be inferred from the fact
25 that we attended those demonstrations and that we had a
26 so-called leading role in the campaign against McDonald's.
27
28 I did deal with this yesterday, so I am not going to go
29 into it again. But just to make the point that there is no
30 proper basis on which to make any such inference. They say
31 in the pleadings: "The precise steps must be known to the
32 Defendants" -- about what steps we have taken to organise a
33 demonstration. That is a ridiculous pleading, because we
34 do not accept the assertion we were the organisers of all
35 these events. It is McDonald's who have the case to make,
36 and to prove. The fact that they cannot give any details
37 of what the steps were that we allegedly took to organise
38 these demonstrations and fairs just shows that they do not
39 have any evidence at all.
40
41 I would also reiterate the point here that it is important
42 not to assume that because we are now identified with the
43 fight against McDonald's, as a result of this court case,
44 it is important that you do not make the assumption from
45 that that we were, therefore, involved with organising or
46 responsible for organising demonstrations, and so on, in
47 the past.
48
49 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
50
51 MS. STEEL: Pages 28 and 29, McDonald's talk about their moral
52 -- or this is where they claim -- we have asked them to
53 identify the moral and the social duty that they referred
54 to in order to claim qualified privilege in the publication
55 of these defamatory press releases and leaflets, and they
56 set out their claim for moral and social duty on those
57 pages.
58
59 We do not consider that the occasion of qualified privilege
60 applies to the situation that we have here. As far as we
