Flashback: 18 May 1997 – EastEnders actor plays me on “McLibel” television drama On Sunday 18 May 1997 Channel 4 showed the second part of a re-enactment of the famous libel trial between McDonald’s and two activists from London Greenpeace, Dave Morris and Helen Steel. In this 10 minute excerpt you’ll see barrister Richard Rampton arguing that LG wants to smash the company and Paul Preston, the chief executive of McDonald’s, saying some of its stores were “bombed” by animal liberation groups (he means arson attacks) and that’s why “enquiry agents” were placed within the group. Two spies go into the witness box and are cross examined. One claims the leading members of the group were Dave, Helen and me. I then appear played by the actor Perry Fenwick and say I was organiser of the campaign, not Dave and Helen. Finally another LG activist gives evidence. In context: McLibel began when five activists received writs in September 1990. Three, including me, gave in believing we had no hope of fighting the case. Dave and Helen could not get legal aid but fought on as the McLibel Two and the trial began in June 1994. Giving evidence towards the end of the trial in 1996, I said I was mainly responsible for the campaign from 1987-1990, that Dave and Helen weren’t involved and I had never seen them hand out the factsheet. Libel could only be proven if Dave and Helen published or distributed the factsheet. My portrayal by Fenwick came as a shock: there is a slight physical resemblance but despite my London accent, all those who know me will agree I don’t speak like this: “Cor blimey guv’nor, them’s a luv’ly bunch of coconuts, gawd bless you sir!” I also never wore a suit and tie. It was a warm day and I turned up in a t-shirt and jeans. I was in the witness box for about one and a half days. At 313 days McLibel had become the longest trial in English legal history by the time it finished in December 1996. Transcripts ran to 20,000 pages and there were about 40,000 pages of documentary evidence. What happened next: On 19 June 1997 – a month after “McLibel” was broadcast - Justice Bell delivered a damning judgement: he said the company endangered the health of their workers and customers by misleading advertising, that they exploited children, that they were culpably responsible for animal cruelty, and they were against trades unions and paid their workers low wages Dave and Helen later appealed to the European Court of Human Rights over their denial of legal aid. In a landmark victory in 2005 the Court ruled that the original case had breached Article 6 (right to a fair trial) and Article 10 (right to freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights and ordered the UK government to pay them £57,000 in compensation. McDonald’s would rather forget the whole affair and said: “The world has moved on…and so has McDonald’s.” It has since been revealed that one of the main authors of the factsheet was Special Branch spy Bob Lambert who infiltrated London Greenpeace in the eighties. Another police spy, John Dines, was a leading figure when the writs were served in 1990. At this point there were four corporate spies in the group as well. After appearing on “McLibel”, Perry Fenwick, landed the plumb role of Billy Mitchell on EastEnders in 1998. He has been on the show ever since. Whether this was due to his portrayal of me as a “cockney barrow boy” is unknown.
Posted on: Sun, 18 May 2014 16:33:40 +0000
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