Day 255 - 23 May 96 - Page 07

     
     1        the authors of The Guardian article.
     2
     3   Q.   Right.  So, as far as you remember it, this was the first
     4        thing you saw and it has a contact address of:  "For
     5        Transnational Information Centre"?
     6        A.  Yes.
     7
     8   Q.   And it was then that you asked the Economic League to find
     9        out about the organisation?
    10        A.  Well, I asked them if they knew anything about it
    11        certainly, yes.
    12
    13   Q.   Right.  Presumably you read the whole pamphlet before you
    14        asked the solicitors to take any kind of action?
    15        A.  No, we had already decided that we would take action
    16        against The Guardian.
    17
    18   Q.   OK.
    19        A.  And I think Barlows wrote to the Editor of The
    20        Guardian.  In the meantime, we acquired copies of the
         pamphlet. Realising it was the same authors, we took action
    22        against the authors and the organisation.
    23
    24   Q.   But it says date of action for The Guardian article was
    25        September 1987 and date of action for the transnational
    26        pamphlet working for Big Mac was November 1987, so did you
    27        read the pamphlet before you asked the solicitors to take
    28        action on the Big Mac pamphlet?
    29        A.  Certainly.
    30
    31   Q.   Right.  Did you ask them to take action over all the parts
    32        that you considered to be libellous?
    33        A.  Yes.
    34
    35   Q.   You did not think that you would let some parts slip and
    36        whatever?
    37        A.  No.  Myself and the solicitor from Barlows who dealt
    38        with this, which was Mr. Ian Jenkins, went through this
    39        carefully and enumerated every occasion in which we felt
    40        the document was libellous of McDonald's.
    41
    42   Q.   Thank you.  I think we heard -- I actually was not here so
    43        I do not know what Harriet Lamb said, and I still have not
    44        read the transcript of it.  They started fighting this case
    45        but eventually had to bow out because they did not have the
    46        money?
    47        A.  No, I do not think they did.
    48
    49   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  How can he answer that?  There must be a
    50        limit to the number of occasions you can put that in unless 
    51        you think that the witness particularly knows.  I cannot 
    52        see how Mr. Nicholson could possibly know that. 
    53
    54   MS. STEEL:  I do not know, he might do.
    55
    56   MR. JUSTICE BELL: Well it is unlikely, is it not?
    57
    58   MS. STEEL:   I will move on to tab 5 then.  This is
    59        Kingston-on-Thames Polytechnic?
    60        A.  I cannot bring this one to mind.