24 April - 1 May 1996
Each week McSpotlight will be updated on how the world's press has covered McLibel, McDonald's and multinationals in general.
John Vetterlein, treasurer for Southampton Animal Concern, battled for two years against the police after his arrest outside a McDonald's fast food restaurant.
Mr Vetterlein was one of a group carrying placards and leafletting the public on February 26, 1994, to highlight alleged animal suffering and environmental abuse caused by the company.
The protest had been there an hour when Mr Vetterlein was dragged away by two police officers who said his behaviour was likely to cause a breach of the peace. He was held in custody for 20 minutes before being released without charge.
Mr Vetterlein claimed he was assaulted, unlawfully arrested and falsely imprisoned. Now, he has received a 1,500 pound pay-out plus 3,000 pounds in costs.
His solicitor said "It has vindicated Mr Vetterlein's right to undertake a peaceful protest. All he asked for in the beginning was an apology and an assurance that he would be allowed to protest peacefully, but it is unfortunate that such a lot of public money has been spent on establishing this."
Footage of the McSpotlight launch with Helen Steel and Dave Morris was shown, and the various parts of the site were scrolled down the screen and explained. Moreover, the site URL was clearly visible.
"The McLibel Trial could be doing as much to draw attention in the UK to the questionable business practices of multinational fast-food companies as the OJ Simpson case did to spotlight spousal abuse and race relations in the US."
Dr Shiva was astonished - in India such suppression is called censorship. But the BBC's legal advice may have been sound. In 1991, a stage play about working conditions in the fast-food industry, which also named no names, closed after McDonald's threatened to sue if it ever appeared again. Shrewd people don't mess with big companies.
Britain has the most repressive libel laws on Earth. American companies come here to silence their critics - they know they have a better chance of suing a magazine in Britain than in the US even if it sells only a tiny number of copies over here. In America, public figures seeking damages must show that the published information was maliciously fabricated. Here, by contrast, the burden of proof is carried by the defendant.
Available only to the rich, our libel laws are a devastatingly-effective means of silencing the cries of the excluded. Publishers and broadcasters know that the odds are stacked against them in a libel trial. Much of the information a defendant needs resides in the hands of the plaintiff, who can decide whether or not to release it. What the publisher might believe are matters of opinion - such as a claim that the company exploits its workers - are often investigated by the courts as if they were matters of fact. Even if the published material is shown to be substantially correct, one minor factual error means the defendant loses the case, carries the costs and may be exposed to monstrous damages.
So publishers nearly always choose to sort out the matter before it gets to court. As potential plaintiffs become more enterprising, pursuing editors with threatening letters and injunctions long before their material sees the light of day, media lawyers are becoming ever more cautious and journalists ever more robust in their attempts to bring large corporations or powerful individuals to account.
Our libel laws are crushing serious investigative journalism in Britain. They encourage our few surviving investigative strands to pursue petty con artists while leaving the Robert Maxwells to loot their pension funds in peace.
Yet it would not be difficult to reform these laws. By introducing legal aid for defendants and shifting the burden of proof on to the plaintiff, libel law would be brought into line with the rest of our legislation.
In 1993, the Law Lords ruled that local authorities cannot sue for damages to reputation, as this could stifle free speech. It's hard to see why this principle should not extend to other agencies with the power to alter our lives, such as police forces and fast-food chains.
He described a US slaughterhouse which supplied beef to McDonald's: "The only consideration was the price and the fatness of the animal." The court has also heard that the 40 checks McDonald's claim to make on their beef supplies have never included BSE.
McSpotlight's enquiries have not so far revealed the identities of the two mysterious additions to the McLibel Two.
