one year on and Britain still can't watch the McLibel documentary

Underdogs, spies, a single father, a gardener, topical issues, historical significance, bullying multinationals, twentieth century icons and a man in a red wig - the McLibel Trial had all the elements of a ratings-winning, prime-time TV documentary. Michael Mansfield called it "the trial of the century". Marcel Berlins couldn't think of a case where the "cards have been so spectacularly stacked against one party".

In early 1995 eight TV production companies and I descended on Helen Steel and Dave Morris, the defendants, then went on to deluge the TV channels with proposals. Three months later the BBC didn't "feel sufficiently enthusiastic" about the story, ITV said there wasn't enough action and Channel 4 decided to go with a three-hour dramatic reconstruction of the courtroom.

I thought the commissioning editors were wrong and that the most compelling part of the story was the people who would give up six years of their lives fighting to say what they believed to be true. I knew a bloke with a Beta camera and an AVID edit suite, so I left my job and set out to make a balanced, accurate and extremely hard-hitting documentary about the trial and the issues it raises.

Two days later I owned a television production company, One-Off Productions (or 'Oops, I've been sued and gone bankrupt' for short). Luckily I don't have any money or assets, so they were safe. My shifting pool of about twenty volunteer technicians usually produced a crew far more experienced than me, but there were a couple of occasions when I ended up doing both sound & camera myself. The most memorable of these followed McDonald's decision to sponsor a summer funday at Dave Morris' son's playgroup. (This is true.) I had to handle digital camera, secret camera, 2 radio mics and 12 McDonald's security staff on my own while pretending to be the mother of some mysteriously absent young children. A severe bout of food poisoning helped. (Not from eating Big Macs. Obviously).

As the case ambled its way towards becoming the longest in history, funding became more and more of a problem. We made a surprising amount selling our footage to news stations around the world (most requested shot: Helen and Dave preparing their cross-examination on the tube) and begged the rest from McLibel fans. My haggling abilities came on enormously and I used up a lifetime's worth of favours.

Helen and Dave had persuaded an extraordinary list of more than 70 scientists, researchers and former McD's employees to give evidence on their behalf, from the Secretary of the International Union of Food Workers to some of the world's leading cancer experts. We interviewed many of them. Then, by an absurd coincidence, my sister got drunk with a fellow student on her nutrition course who decided to admit - for the first time - that she had been employed as a spy by McDonald's many years earlier. 'Not McLibel?' says sister. Spy later gives evidence for defendants and appears in our film. We put her in the box marked 'exclusives', along with a secret meeting between the two sides and an interview with a former Ronald McDonald.

Talking to people on the other side was not so easy. When we wrote to McDonald's expert witnesses asking for interviews we received replies not from them, but from the Corporation's press office. Mike Love, Head of Press for McD's UK (and before that agent for one Margaret Thatcher) promised an interview after the verdict. (Yes, I have it on tape.) After the verdict he said he'd never promised anything of the sort. It seemed to us that the only way to include McDonald's side of the story was to dramatise their witnesses' evidence. But we didn't know how to do drama. (Or documentary, but we were learning fast.) Ken Loach was undoubtedly the person to ask to direct the drama. He said yes. We fell off our chairs.

20,000 pages of court transcripts and several hours on the phone to Ken later, we had chosen which parts of the proceedings to dramatise. It would have been a 14-hour mega-film if I'd had my way and not sacrificed any of the classic moments. (Helen Steel: "So are you saying then that as long as there is room in the dumps, there is no problem with dumping lots of McDonald's waste in the ground?". Ed Oakley, McDonald's executive: "... I can see it to be a benefit, otherwise you will end up with lots of vast, empty gravel pits all over the country.") My fantasies of building a set of the courtroom were toned down and we spent an envious day with 10 actors, one Judge's costume, two tables, several large books and some long black drapes. For reasons I never quite grasped, the actors were the first and only people to get paid for working on the film. Unlike the caterers. Ken: "Do you have anything without salad?".

Meanwhile, Channel 4 had decided to go ahead with their courtroom drama. I spoke to the producer, Dennis Woolf, and agreed to send him a rough cut of our film because he seemed like a nice man. Anyone who knew anything about film-making told me this was a terrible mistake, helping the opposition. But then Dennis spoke to his friend who happened to be the editor of BBC's 'Heart of the Matter' who happened to have a spare episode in her next series which happened to coincide with the upcoming verdict. One table-thumping afternoon with Dave Morris later and she scheduled our film for BBC1, 10.30pm, June 30th 1997.

"Can we have a contract?" I asked naively as we scurried between Manchester and London, cutting our film down to HOTM's 40-minute timeslot. "We'll sort that out next week. Let's concentrate on the editing." They could only afford to pay us £15K - which wouldn't even cover our debts - but they had 3.5 million viewers. Then, 10 days before transmission, the 'L' word came up. To cut a tedious story short, the legal and editorial departments of the BBC demanded so many cuts that HOTM were no longer interested in the film. And no, they wouldn't pay us for the last two weeks work. Then they called back. We've decided to do our own 15-minute programme about McLibel. Can we buy all your best footage at a very cheap rate?

The day of the verdict finally came and my story was swamped with newcomers. ITN and the BBC had cottoned on to the classic tube shots and the massed photographers were staking out ladder-space from dawn. I felt agreeably smug turning down the requests for a feed from the defendants' radio mics as they came out of court to face their cheering supporters. Helen: "This is weird. This is really weird." Dave: "What do we do. Do we stay here all day?". Crowd: "woooooooooh, yeah." Cars: "honk, honk, honk."

So the verdict was in, McLibel was the hottest story of the week (well, second actually. William Hague's promotion came in at number one) and we were left with a 40-minute hacked version of the film and no transmission. There was a brief flurry of interest from Channel 5 and World in Action, but no-one was prepared to take on McDonald's. It had all been a waste of time. I lay in bed sulking and my granny phoned to say she'd waited up for Heart of the Matter but couldn't see anything about McDonald's.

Coming back from the Sheffield Documentary Festival a couple of months later, I bumped into Alan Hayling (commissioning editor for docs at Channel 4) on the train. Despite falling asleep mid-conversation, he said he was interested and took a tape. So far so normal, but then he phones up a few days later saying he wants to broadcast it on Channel 4. Just check with the lawyers first. "McDonald's would almost certainly sue Channel 4 and would almost certainly win".

It might be tempting to dismiss us at this point. Overenthusiastic amateurs. Forgot to consider legal issues. But a top media lawyer had been advising us, for free, throughout production; scrutinising rough cuts and suggesting changes to ensure 100% accuracy. In his opinion, the film is fair comment and carries little risk of libel litigation.

And so we come to the crux of the matter. Is the film libellous or are the media censoring themselves?

Over the last 15 years McDonald's have threatened legal action against more than 90 organisations in the UK, including the BBC, Channel 4, the Guardian, The Sun, the Scottish TUC, the New Leaf Tea Shop, student newspapers and a children's theatre group. Even Prince Philip received a stiff letter. All of them backed down and many formally apologised in court.

Well, if I was the BBC I wouldn't broadcast my film either. I wouldn't want to risk damages, court costs, injunctions and months in court. I wouldn't want to take on an organisation that had sued me in the past. I wouldn't want to fight a case where the burden of proof is entirely on me and I have to prove every allegation from primary sources. Despite my obligation as Britain's public service broadcaster, I wouldn't want to risk everything on one story. I would take notice of the long list of organisations who've apologised in the past. I might feel uneasy at ignoring such a high-profile case, but I would reassure myself that everyone else was too.

Which is why it is the libel laws that are the problem, rather than the broadcasters. In 1993 the law was altered so that governmental bodies such as local councils are no longer able to sue for libel. This was brought in to protect people's right to criticise public bodies which affect their everyday lives. Multinationals are fast becoming more powerful than governments - and even less accountable - so shouldn't the same apply? With advertising budgets in the billions, It is not as though they need to turn to the law to ensure their point of view is heard.

There are signs that parliament is getting the message. Two Early Day Motions entitled 'McDonald's and Censorship' were sponsored by Jeremy Corbyn MP in 1994. "This House opposes the routine use of libel writs as a form of censorship, particularly by US multinationals taking advantage of the United Kingdom's more repressive libel laws." We are languishing far behind America, which has a constitutional right to freedom of speech. Indeed, CBS broadcast a mini-documentary about McLibel across the States, which used footage from our film and castigated McDonald's. Next year, Helen and Dave will be in the European Court of Human Rights arguing that it is time for our libel laws to be overturned.

So I think that the many commentators who said that McDonald's were stupid to sue Helen and Dave were wrong. The Corporation was simply following a plan that has worked many times before. They had no way of knowing they were about to hit an immovable obstacle: Helen Steel cannot apologise for "something which didn't deserve an apology." In a sense, McDonald's only error was to pick on two of the most stubborn and committed people in the world.

McDonald's sensibly decided not to pursue their £60,000 damages or £10 million costs and abandoned their plans for an injunction preventing Helen and Dave distributing Anti-McDonald's material. The defendants were ready to defy any injunction - a serious offence which could land them in jail - and sending folk heroes to prison for handing out leaflets would not look good in McDonald's PR packs. (The case had already been called "the most disastrous PR exercise ever mounted by a multinational".) It was also clear by this stage that their original aim of preventing the public from hearing the criticisms had spectacularly failed. The case had received worldwide publicity, more than two and a half million leaflets had been given out and the 'McSpotlight' internet site had been accessed over 42 million times. The libel laws have been thoroughly circumvented.

As the defendants prepare to go back to the High Court next month (for the first preliminary hearing of their appeal), it looks as though our film will never be seen by a British TV audience. Mainstream stations in many other countries (notably Australia, Canada and France) are currently interested, though it's difficult to sell overseas without a distributor. (Ours pulled out at the same time as Channel 4; they have too many other films to risk everything on one). Instead it is being distributed the new way: as "streaming video" on the internet, on home video, on cable TV in the States, at international film festivals, local screenings and by travelling solar-powered cinema.

The most frustrating thing about the whole affair? McDonald's and I both know that the last thing they want is to get McLibel into the news again. The trial was the worst thing that ever happened to them. Suing our film would raise all the same issues again. There's really no point at all. Definitely not. Oh, go on then.

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