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Day Twenty three of Closing Speech for the defence

Monday, 25th Nov 96 - Day 305 of the Trial


Mr Morris began with some points about himself and some general comments before Ms Steel continued with the detailed evidence. He said that there was no case to answer on publication of the London Greenpeace factsheet complained of since there was not one shred of evidence showing that he had published the factsheet himself directly, or indeed any evidence establishing the that he was indirectly responsible for the publishing of the factsheet to a member of the public. He claimed that McDonald's must be able to show direct publication and that even if showing indirect responsibilty for publication was considered sufficient, then they would still have to show a causal path between him and the publication of the factsheet.

Mr Morris asked the court to consider that despite having seven spies infiltrating London Greenpeace over a period of 18 months - agents whose brief was to establish who was responsible for the factsheet and the anti-McDonald's campaigns - "it is absolutely remarkable that not one piece of evidence has been uncovered or established to show my causal responsibility directly or indirectly for the words complained of."

He said that the whole drift of the witnesses on this subject even is that he was not involved in the anti-McDonald's campaign. In fact, the general drift was that he was not even by their standard, effectively involved in London Greenpeace.

Mr Morris concluded:

Mr Morris moved on to the subject of the so-called admissions he had allegedly made. The admissions he was talking about were the 'Haringey affidavit' and the claims of Allan Clare. He said that extreme caution sould be taken when considering these admissions as the only evidence against him in the light of 18 months of infiltration, and yet no direct evidence. The weight of evidence from both defence and plaintiff witnesses indicated that Mr Morris was effectively not involved in London Greenpeace, and not at all involved in the anti-McDonald's campaign.

He said that if any weight at all were to be given to the evidence of Mr Clare, one would have to have 100 per cent faith in the witness to take an admission against the weight of the rest of the evidence at all seriously. He said that he would show how Allan Clare was completely unreliable and that his evidence could not be trusted. He pointed out that at the meeting where this admission was allegedly made, one of the other McDonald's spies was present and yet failed to notice any such admission. Ms Steel would later draw attention to the notes by Mr Clare that talked of her attendence at a meeting on a date on which she had proved she was in the Outer Hebrides.

Mr Morris moved onto the 'Haringey affidavit'. This had been prepared on his behalf by a solicitor representing him on a separate case. Mr Rampton interupted and said that Mr Morris was not giving evidence. Mr Morris pointed out that he had signed and sworn an affidavit to the effect of what he was about to say but Justice Bell insisted that his counter affidavit had not been entered as evidence.

Mr Morris was shocked. He had obviously been relying on this counter affidavit.