Some five years later, five members of London Greenpeace were issued with writs by McDonald’s, demanding both a retraction and an apology. Morris and Steel (who joined the group in 1987) also learned that new members of their group whom they had befriended were actually spies planted by the corporation to gather facts for the legal action.

During the 1980s, McDonald’s had threatened to sue at least fifty British publications and organisations, including Channel 4, the Sunday Times and The Guardian. All had given the requisite retractions and apologies. In Britain (and Australia), defendants in libel suits have no recourse to legal aid. When an individual is sued by a corporation, they must pay for their own defence. The burden of proof also rests entirely with the defendant—in this case, McDonald’s need not prove the statements to be damaging or false; rather, the defendants must prove them to be true.

Three of the five eventually backed down and apologised, rather than take on the burden of defending the writs. Helen and Dave would do no such thing. They would defend themselves in court.

“When we said we weren’t going to apologise, I think they still thought they would be able to wipe the floor with us,” recalls Helen Steel. “The advice we got at the time was that libel laws are stacked in favour of the rich and powerful and we would never be able to comply with all the pre-trial procedures, just because they’re so complex, but we hung on in there.”

McDonald’s sent forth an army of lawyers through the golden arches, towards these two pests, forecasting three to four weeks of litigation at most. The trial that would come to be known as McLibel began on June 28, 1994, and ran over 313 full days, finally grinding to an exhausted halt in June 1997 as proud new holder of the record for the longest-running trial in English legal history.

In the British legal system, only primary evidence from factual or expert witnesses can be considered as proof. Secondary evidence such as a newspaper report or a technical or scientific publication is considered to be hearsay, and must be sworn to by an expert. There is no defence of “reasonable belief” which would have allowed Steel and Morris to rely on published fact or common knowledge to defend their claims—-only testimony in person or by sworn affidavit could be considered as admissible. The two defendants, one an unwaged single parent, the other working part time in a bar, would have to use their own money and the contributions of well-wishers to pay all the legal costs and bring in expert witnesses. The burden of proof on Morris and Steel was so great that the case became a virtual public tribunal examining McDonald’s corporate practise.

“We had to prove to the judge, as litigants in person, that a high-fat, high-salt diet was linked to heart disease and cancer,” recalls a bemused Morris. “The World Health Organisation had just produced a book which was a complete analysis of all scientific opinion on the links between nutrition and chronic disease, and we couldn’t rely on it. Sixty days of the case were spent conducting an expert tribunal to convince the judge that the World Health Organisation knew what it was talking about!

“In America, in a libel case, if a matter is in the public domain, you can rely on that for evidence,” he continues. “We had fifteen different reports and newspaper cuttings about McDonald’s employees being sacked or being employed when they were under 14. In Philadelphia, we had 450 breaches of employment law in one store! But in Britain, we had to actually bring McDonald’s workers to court to try to prove to the judge’s satisfaction that there were low wages and poor conditions.”

The trial had given rise to an international support campaign, and the McSpotlight website-a revolutionary use of the then-fledgling world wide web to collect thousands of documents on the organisation. The site, which still runs to this day, became a blueprint for almost every major activist site that has followed. And the campaign and global attention only grew.

In the end, after an appeal, the court found partly for McDonald’s, but conceded that several of the pamphlet’s points were true, specifically the claims of low wages, deceptive promotion of McDonald’s food as ‘nutritious’, exploitation of children in advertising and responsibility for cruelty and animals. Despite this, Morris and Steel were ordered to pay #40,000 damages (an amount the company has never attempted to collect), but the real damage had been self-inflicted, and the McLibel Two, as the world’s media had come to know them, were far from done.

“It mushroomed,” says Morris. “Leaflets that were being given out in thousands when we were sued were being given out in millions by the end of the case, all over the world. It was one of the rivers running into the sea that would become the global anti-capitalist movement. It was a global campaign looking fundamentally at what corporations and governments are doing in the world, and calling for real alternatives.”

Buoyed by the international movement, Morris and Steel, described by one commentator as force-reared lawyers, were ready for another day in court, and this time they were on the attack. Their target was the British libel system itself. Their destination was the European Court of Human Rights, and the argument was that their right to a fair trial and freedom of expression had been breached.

“This was because of the complex, unfair and oppressive nature of UK libel law,” explains Steel. “There was an imbalance of resources between us and McDonald’s-they were estimated to have spent ten million pounds on the trial, we managed to raise about 35,000 pounds; there was no legal aid…and we were denied a jury trial.

“UK libel laws had failed to protect the public’s right to freedom of speech. We argued that multinationals shouldn’t be able to sue for libel, as they’ve got such power and influence in society and yet no accountability whatsoever. It’s vital that the public have the right to make criticisms of them.”

In February, in the build-up to McDonald’s jubilee, the European Court found in favour of Morris and Steel and declared that their right to a fair trial, and freedom of speech, had been breached. But Morris and Steel are not entirely celebratory, despite their immense final victory. Things, they claim, were a little bit fudged. The Court ruled 100 per cent in their favour, but the lack of specificity in the verdict means it does not directly address their statements on the right of multinationals to sue, or for reasonable belief to be a defence. As a result, the long term effects of the victory are unclear. But Morris feels that the fight has been worthwhile:

“The battle for freedom of speech had already been won long before we even got to the European Court,” he explains, “The mass defiance campaign had spread round the whole world, and effectively turned the tables on McDonald’s in the public mind and in the court of public opinion.”

Steel agrees that the victory of their epic legal struggle was not necessarily in a judgement, but in the movements it had stirred amongst grass roots throughout the planet:

“McDonald’s realised that they were on a hiding to nothing, and to try and get us jailed or anybody else jailed for distributing leaflets would be pointless. Now other companies have been warned not to do a McLibel and not to end up in a similar trial with all their dirty washing being exposed to the world.”

When Helen and Dave first fell under McDonald’s gaze, anti-corporate protest was a niche populated mainly by anarchists, like them, and those on the far reaches of the political spectrum. “What’s wrong with McDonald’s?” was not a question on the tips of many tongues in the hyper-consumptive surrounds of the 1980s, so much as “why are my fries lukewarm and soggy?” But the last 20 years have seen fundamental changes.

Books such as Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation have turned the table on the practises of the fast food industry, in the same way Upton Sinclair did a century before in the slaughterhouses. Morgan Spurlock’s film Super Size Me gained notoriety worldwide, forcing McDonald’s Australia to erect posters in its stores rebutting the film’s shocking evidence of what a diet of pure McDonald’s might do to a healthy body. McDonald’s had fallen so low in public opinion it was actually closing restaurants.

Before the trial began, McDonald’s could never have realised they were kicking the nest of a quietly growing anti-globalisation movement. The McLibel trial saw an evolution in global activism through newly democratised means of communication, and a fundamental change in corporate PR practise from which many litigious corporations may never entirely recover.

“We’re just the tip of a very large iceberg,” says Morris, whose only experience with McDonald’s food was a couple of excessively sugary milkshakes in the early 1970s. “We couldn’t have fought the case without so many people helping out in so many different ways, coming forward as witnesses, doing research, sending in money, even helping me with babysitting.

“All around the world, people were stepping up the protests to show that if one group is attacked, people will spring up to spread those ideas everywhere.”

The story of the case has been dramatised on British television (with Julia Sawalha playing Helen), and turned into a cult documentary by Franny Armstrong that has screened around the world. It has also been told in a book, McLibel, by The Guardian’s Environment editor John Vidal. Morris and Steel’s lives will be defined for many by this one epic battle, and the effects of the case will continue to reverberate well into the future. However, for the still unwaged Morris, secretary of the Federation of Residents’ Associations in the London borough of Haringey, it is time to get back to what really matters.

“I never chose to get into a battle with McDonald’s,” he explains. “They were the ones that decided to try to silence their critics. It was a battle that we had no choice but to fight. For me it was a sidetrack-my main activity has always been in my local community in a whole range of different campaigns and issues.

“It’s about being involved with organisations, struggles and issues that everybody can play an equal part in,” he says. “The McDonald’s case was a very unusual once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

That opportunity came with a demand for a dedication nobody could have expected when the writs were first served, but the community of support around Helen and Dave supported them through the long dark years in court, as they had to put the lives they had planned on hold.

“It was very dominating and exhausting and stressful,” says Morris. “We, and the people supporting us, had to focus almost exclusively on it. We had to work really hard for a number of years to ensure that we could rise to the occasion. McDonald’s effectively had declared war on their critics, and we just felt an obligation to respond all out.

“The stakes were very high. It was a mountain to climb, but people climb mountains.”

Morris and Steel had been friends, but never a couple, for many years before the case. If you’re about to launch into a 20 year battle with another person, Morris advises, it’s a good idea to make sure you’re not going to destroy each other in the process:

“It helped that we had known each other and worked together on different issues prior to McDonald’s,” he says. “We lived in the same area of North London, and at one time we had shared a house with other people as well.

“We had also worked on allotments [market gardens] together, so we knew each other pretty well. It was a lot of strain on us-two is certainly easier than one but you have to make sure you get on and have a good working relationship.”

Being an unwaged single father, Morris found particular demands in trying to balance the case with caring for his son. But family, friends and neighbours rallied around.

“People responded magnificently,” he says. “They were picking up my son from school and bringing him home. We had people offering to take him away on holiday when they were going away with their kids for a week, so that I could focus on the case. All of us involved knew that something really special was happening. We just had to keep going somehow.”

Helen and Dave, two activists from the other side of nowhere, Greater London, refused to bow to a multinational for the better part of 20 years. They would not accept a reality where those with money could crush the poor and the angry with little more than a letter, and they stood their ground.

Now, they return, both unwaged, to a quieter life campaigning on traffic calming and the preservation of local parks. The gloves may be off, finally, but a global movement has picked them up, and won’t be putting them down any time soon.