[4] It seems to me that the two ways can be seen to meet in practice so as to produce a result in principle which may be stated thus: although the clause in its natural and ordinary meaning would seem to give exemption from or limitation of liability for a breach, nevertheless the court will not give the party that exemption or limitation if the court can say: “The parties as reasonable men cannot have intended that there should be exemption or limitation in the case of such a breach as this.” In so stating the principle, there arises in these cases “the figure of the fair and reasonable man”; and the spokesman of this fair and reasonable man, as Lord Radcliffe once said, is and “must be the court itself”: see Davis Contractors Ltd v Fareham Urban District Council [1956] AC 696, 728–729.

Thus we reach, after long years, the principle which lies behind all our striving: the court will not allow a party to rely on an exemption or limitation clause in circumstances in which it would not be fair or reasonable to allow reliance on it; and, in considering whether it is fair and reasonable, the court will consider whether it was in a standard form, whether there was equality of bargaining power, the nature of the breach, and so forth.Shaw and Waller LJJ concurred.

The House of Lords overturned the Court of Appeal and held that Securicor's exclusion clause was effective and exempt it from liability for damage.

He noted ‘the reports are full of cases in which what would appear to be very strained constructions have been placed upon exclusion clauses’ though the need should have gone since the passage of the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977.

Wilberforce explicitly rejected Denning's application of the doctrine of fundamental breach and opted for a "rule of construction" approach.

In the first case the Master of the Rolls, purportedly applying this House's decision in Suisse Atlantique Societe d'Armament SA v NV Rotterdamsche Kolen Centrale [1967] 1 AC 361, but in effect two citations from two of their Lordships' speeches, extracted a rule of law that the "termination" of the contract brings it and with it the exclusion clause, to an end.

That there was any rule of law by which exceptions clauses are eliminated, or deprived of effect, regardless of their terms, was clearly not the view of Viscount Dilhorne, Lord Hodson, or of myself.The case is remembered for these principal reasons: