Undercover officers accessed confidential details of free legal advice PM gave to activists facing McDonald’s libel lawsuit, inquiry hears
Sir Keir Starmer was spied on by police while he worked on a libel case against McDonald’s in the 1990s, a public inquiry heard.
An undercover Met Police officer said he accessed confidential details about the legal advice Sir Keir was giving to two environmentalist campaigners in the case against the fast food giant, the Undercover Policing Inquiry was told.
Helen Steel and Dave Morris were sued by McDonald’s over a leaflet they had distributed that criticised the company’s practices in what became known as the McLibel case.
Sir Keir gave the pair free legal advice and the trial turned out to be the longest civil hearing in English history.
The case was cited in his 2020 leadership bid, with his campaign launch video describing how “for 10 years he defended Helen Steel and David Morris when they were sued for libel by McDonald’s”.
The covert monitoring of Ms Steel and Mr Morris is now being scrutinised by the Undercover Policing Inquiry, which is examining how police deployed around 139 undercover officers to spy on more than 1,000 political groups between 1968 and at least 2010.
John Dines, a member of the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), a covert Scotland Yard unit, was an undercover officer that infiltrated anarchist and environmental groups between 1987 and 1991.
Mr Dines formed a two-year intimate relationship with Ms Steel as part of the operation.
Giving evidence to the inquiry on Tuesday, Mr Morris quoted Mr Dines as saying: “It is accurate to say that I was by the side of Helen Steel and Dave Morris in 1991 and relaying the legal advice back to my bosses in the SDS.”
Mr Morris added: “Dines was getting details of our confidential legal advice and strategy following the private legal meetings Helen and I held with lawyer Keir Starmer.”
He said this was a breach of the legal rule allowing lawyers and their clients to debate tactics confidentially.
Mr Morris cited evidence that the police secretly passed information about the campaigners to McDonald’s, which he said gave the company an advantage in the legal fight.
The McLibel case exposed damaging stories about the business and the quality of food being sold. It was also seen as a heavy-handed way of stifling criticism.
In 1997, a high court judge ordered Ms Steel and Mr Morris to pay £40,000 in damages for libelling McDonald’s, although they never paid.
