Day 305 - 25 Nov 96 - Page 02
1 Monday, 25th November, 1996
2
3 MR. MORRIS: For one reason or another, I am just not prepared,
4 but I am going to say a few things about myself ---
5
6 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
7
8 MR. MORRIS: -- and some general comments, and then Helen is
9 going to move along, going back to the details. I am not
10 going to concentrate on the details at this stage.
11
12 The general thing about my situation is that I would say
13 there is no case to answer on publication of the
14 fact sheet, the London Greenpeace fact sheet complained of,
15 by myself. There is not one shred of evidence showing that
16 I published the fact sheet myself directly, or, indeed, any
17 evidence establishing that I indirectly was responsible for
18 the publishing of the fact sheet to a member of the
19 public.
20
21 The Plaintiffs, I submit, would have to show direct
22 publication. But even if it is thought that they have to
23 show indirect responsible for publication, they have to
24 show a causal path between me and the publication of the
25 fact sheet. They would have to show, for example, that
26 I said to somebody: "Give that fact sheet out to X, a
27 member of the public"; or, "Put it in that envelope", or
28 something.
29
30 They have not even got an even more watered-down and
31 inadequate case of, for example, me voting at a meeting on
32 a decision which was later carried out to publish the
33 fact sheet, or something like that -- some kind of
34 organisational, causal responsibility.
35
36 I am going to come to this, actually. But if we consider
37 that they had seven spies over a period of 18 months,
38 active in London Greenpeace, who were all briefed -- well,
39 some were briefed -- but, in general, the firm was
40 concerned to clearly establish me and my involvement in the
41 group, at meetings, and responsibility for the
42 anti-McDonald's fact sheet and campaign, it is absolutely
43 remarkable that not one piece of evidence has been
44 uncovered or established to show my causal responsibility,
45 directly or indirectly, for the words complained of. That
46 is not even taking into consideration all of our witnesses
47 of course, including one of their own spies, who gave
48 evidence for us -- the whole weight of which completely
49 would neutralise anything other than direct observed
50 publication by myself by the Plaintiffs' witnesses. But in
51 terms of any kind of indirect causal responsibility, then
52 our witnesses clearly stated the opposite; and, of course,
53 there are all (which I will come to when I get a chance to
54 go through the detail) McDonald's own witnesses, in
55 general, the drift of their evidence -- despite, obviously,
56 the intentions of the Plaintiffs, despite the purposes of
57 the investigation -- the whole drift of the Plaintiffs'
58 witnesses on this subject, even, is that I was not involved
59 in the anti-McDonald's campaign. In fact, the general
60 drift is that I was not, even by their standards,
