McDonald's Corporation v Steel & Morris[1997] EWHC 366 (QB), known as "the McLibel case", was an English lawsuit for libel filed by McDonald's Corporation against environmental activists Helen Steel and David Morris over a factsheet critical of the company. Each of two hearings in English courts found some of the leaflet's contested claims to be libellous and others to be true.
Stephen Lawrence was an 18-year-old black British citizen from Plumstead, southeast London, who was murdered in a racially motivated attack while waiting for a bus on Well Hall Road, Eltham, on the evening of 22 April 1993. The case became a cause célèbre: its fallout included changes of attitudes on racism and the police, and to the law and police practice. It also led to the partial revocation of the rule against double jeopardy. Two of the perpetrators were convicted of murder on 3 January 2012.
Helen Steel is an environmental and social justice activist who is known for her involvement in the McLibel case, an English lawsuit for libel filed by McDonald's Corporation that lasted for 10 years and was eventually taken to the European Court of Human Rights, where Steel and fellow campaigner David Morris won their case against the UK Government on the grounds that they had been denied a fair trial. She is a key figure in the 'Spycops' scandal and subsequent Undercover Policing Inquiry.
Colin Roach was a 21-year-old black British man who died as a result of a fatal gunshot wound having entered a police-station reception. A subsequent inquest ruled his death was suicide - him having placed the barrel of a shotgun in to his mouth before squeezing the trigger - inside the entrance of Stoke Newington police station, in the London Borough of Hackney, on 12 January 1983. Amid allegations of a police cover-up, the case became a cause célèbre for civil rights campaigners and black community groups in the United Kingdom. The death was made famous by the late civil rights protester and singer Sinéad O'Connor's song "Black Boys on Mopeds".
The Economic League was an organisation in the United Kingdom dedicated to opposing what it saw as subversion and action against free enterprise. As part of its activities, it maintained a list of alleged left-wing troublemakers for decades, which corporate members would use to vet job applicants and often deny jobs on the basis of the list. In the late 1980s, press investigations revealed the poor quality of the League's data. After a 1990 parliamentary inquiry and further press reporting, the League closed down in 1993. However, key League personnel continued similar vetting activities by organisations including The Consulting Association.
London Greenpeace was an anarchist environmentalist activist collective that existed between 1972 and 2001. They were based in London, and came to international prominence when two of their activists refused to capitulate to McDonald's in the landmark libel case known as "McLibel". It was not affiliated with Greenpeace International nor with their British branch.
Covert policing in the United Kingdom is employed to enable an officer of the British police to gather intelligence from and about suspects without alerting them that they are under observation.
The National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) was run by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), a private company connected to United Kingdom police intelligence, and was set up in 1999 to track green activists and public demonstrations. It has been found that much of the Unit's work was against "activists working on social justice, anti-racist, and environmental campaigns" and legitimate dissent, rather than extremist groups, with more than 1,000 political groups having been subjected to surveillance by covert officers. The work of the group has been accused as having hobbled Climate-related protest in the late 2000s in the United Kingdom and more widely.
The Consulting Association (TCA) was a controversial UK business, based in Droitwich, which, from 1993 to 2009, maintained a database of British construction workers and became implicated in a "blacklisting" scandal, which is ongoing. Revelations about the database resulted in the business being shut down, the Employment Relations Act 1999 (Blacklists) Regulations 2010, a Parliamentary enquiry, High Court actions leading to compensation payouts valued at between £50m and £250m in total, and a series of cases being brought to the European Court of Human Rights.
Employees of the now-defunct newspaper News of the World engaged in phone hacking, police bribery, and exercising improper influence in the pursuit of stories.
Sir Christopher John Pitchford was a senior British judge, who was a Lord Justice of Appeal in England and Wales from 2010 until he retired because of ill-health in 2017.
Mark Kennedy, undercover name Mark Stone, is a former London Metropolitan Police officer who, whilst attached to the police service's National Public Order Intelligence Unit, (NPOIU) infiltrated many protest groups between 2003 and 2010 before he was unmasked by political activists as an undercover policeman on 21 October 2010 and his identity was confirmed by the media three days later. During his time under cover he manipulated and deceived several women into having sexual relationships with him with the knowledge of his superiors. An Investigatory Powers Tribunal found his actions to be an "abuse of the highest order" and had "grossly debased, degraded and humiliated" one of his victims.
The News Corporation scandal involves phone, voicemail, and computer hacking that were allegedly committed over a number of years. The scandal began in the United Kingdom, where the News International phone hacking scandal has to date resulted in the closure of the News of the World newspaper and the resignation of a number of senior members of the Metropolitan Police force.
Robert Lambert is a British academic and former undercover police officer. He served in the controversial Special Demonstration Squad and posed as a left-wing animal rights activist from 1983 to 1988, fathering a child with an activist, who was unaware of his true identity, during his deployment. Both the woman and her child needed psychiatric treatment as a result, and both were awarded damages against the Police.
The Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) was an undercover unit of Greater London's Metropolitan Police Service, set up in 1968 with the approval of the Wilson government, to infiltrate British protest groups. It was part of the Special Branch, and worked closely with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). It operated from 1968 to 2008.
Mark Ellison KC is a British barrister and member of QEB Hollis Whiteman chambers.
Undercover: The True Story of Britain's Secret Police is a 2012 book by The Guardian journalists Rob Evans and Paul Lewis.
Around the end of 2010 and during 2011, it was disclosed in UK media that a number of undercover police officers had, as part of their 'false persona', entered into intimate relationships with members of targeted groups and in some cases proposed marriage or fathered children with protesters who were unaware their partner was a police officer in a role as part of their official duties. Various legal actions followed, including eight women who took action against the Metropolitan Police and the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), stating they were deceived into long-term intimate relationships by five officers, including Mark Kennedy, the first officer to be identified as such, who was publicly identified on 21 October 2010 as infiltrating social and environmental justice campaigns, and Mark Kennedy himself who claimed in turn that he had been incompetently handled by his superiors and denied psychological counselling. According to The Guardian, Kennedy sued the police for ruining his life and failing to "protect" him from falling in love with one of the environmental activists whose movement he infiltrated.
The Monitoring Group (TMG) is an anti-racist charity in the UK. It was established in Southall in the early 1980s, and originally known as the Southall Monitoring Group. Its director is Suresh Grover.
Lakhvinder "Ricky" Reel, a 20-year-old British man, died in October 1997 in London, United Kingdom. He was last seen alive in the early morning of 15 October and on 21 October his body was recovered from the River Thames near Down Hall Road, in the town centre of Kingston upon Thames.
