The real-life Corby poisoning case that inspired the Netflix’s series, Toxic Town, investigated the gross negligence that led to 18 women having deformed babies. For the longest time, these women had no clue that they were the victims of an unpardonable act of dereliction of duty by their town council. Recently the OTT giant, Netflix, announced that a limited drama series based on the Corby poisoning incident, and so we thought it would be the best time to find out what actually happened in Corby, how the mothers came to know about the negligence of Corby Borough Council, and how they won a legal battle against the authorities.
How Did The Mothers Come To Know About Poisoning?
The real-life case was built upon the testimonies of three mothers: Lisa Atkinson, Susan McIntyre, and Sarah Pearson, who told the reporters how they figured out that their newborn babies had deformed limbs because of the negligence of the Corby Council. At the time the mothers gave birth, they believed that they were just unfortunate that their babies were born with deformities, but then they were approached by the late journalist Graham Hind from the Sunday Times, who told them that it was not a mere coincidence that all of their babies had been born this way.
Graham, together with his colleague Stephen Bevan (founder of Media Foresight), found out that the toxic waste dump from a giant British steel corporation had a role to play in the cluster of rare birth defects. Graham approached the mothers and told them there were more women like them who had no clue that they had been wronged by the Corby Council. Now, the matter would have ended then and there, had Des Collins, a senior partner at Collins Solicitors, not come across that article penned by Graham Hind in the Sunday Times. Des got interested in the case and decided to provide the mothers with his valuable legal insights about how to proceed with the case and hold the perpetrators accountable. Des became the team leader, and he decided to find incriminating evidence to prove that the Corby District Council was negligent in disposing of the toxic waste, thereby exposing the residents to poisonous dust. Des Collins knew that he would have to bring in a range of experts to establish a link between the toxic waste and the birth defects. It was not an easy task to do so, but he was up for the challenge.
How Did Des Find Out About The Toxic Ponds?
Chris Mallender, who was appointed as the chief executive of the Corby Council in 2003, denied all the allegations and called them baseless. He spoke to the media and told them that the council had taken every possible safety measure to ensure that no harm came to the residents. By then Des Collins had found about 14 mothers who had given birth to babies with limb reduction defects, and he knew with certainty that Chris Mallender was just trying to cover up the acts of the council. The first breakthrough that Des Collins made was when he was contacted by a man named Sam Hagen, who’d worked for Corby Council for over 30 years. Sam Hagen, back in the day, had procured certain documents that were sent to him from a technical officer, Mark Bosence, who was employed by the council for the land reclamation project. Through those documents, Des and his team got to know about the settlement lagoons or the toxic ponds that had been created to dispose of the liquid waste from the steelworks. Des then looped in another expert named Roger Braithwaite to find out if the contractors and the Corby Council had been negligent in the entire process of toxic waste management.
Roger Braithwaite was a contaminated land specialist, and he found a letter from then-head of environmental health in which the latter had listed down chemicals that one could expect to be in that toxic waste. The environment officer had explicitly stated that the authorities needed to make sure that the lorries that were carrying the waste material were properly covered because he believed that the waste could contain certain chemicals that were poisonous in nature. From organohalogen compounds, and organophosphorus compounds to mercury, heavy metals like cadmium, lead, and arsenic, cyanides, and carcinogenic mutagenic substances, the environmental officers listed down all the chemicals in his reports. There were also hints of titanium, barium and beryllium in the report.
But the authorities didn’t take that advice seriously and ignored all the safety measures that the experts had suggested. Lorries weren’t covered, and toxins continued to leak out of the back of these dump trucks. All the areas in the area were covered in this silt, which eventually turned into orangey-red dust. There were times when there was so much toxic dust scattered in the area that it felt like the people were living in the Sahara desert. The toxic soup of dust, as Roger refers to it, lingered in the environment for several years, and that meant that the mothers were exposed to it for a prolonged period of time. The first level of the investigation was completed, and now Des Collins needed to prove that the toxic dust could lead to deformed fetuses.
What Were David Penman And Tony Cox’s Findings?
Des Collins needed to establish that the chemicals in the toxic waste could cause birth deformities, and he knew that was an excruciatingly difficult thing to prove. David Penman, a gynecologist, was brought on board, and he started his research to find evidence that could strengthen the claims made by Des Collins. Penman found out that cadmium, one of the chemicals in the toxic waste, could lead to limb reduction in newborns. He got to know that the chemicals found in the dust particles released from the waste dump sites could enter into the bloodstreams of the mothers and affect the fetus. Now, the problem that Des encountered was that not every victim, i.e., the mothers who had given birth to babies with deformed limbs, lived in the vicinity of the dump sites. Des needed to prove that the dust could travel that far and affect the victims living in those areas. It came as a huge relief when an expert, Prof. Tony Cox, found evidence that substantiated Des Collins’ claims. Tony took every aspect into consideration, and he calculated the approximate distance the dust could travel. The findings proved that, scientifically, it was possible, beyond a reasonable doubt, that all the mothers had been exposed to the toxic dust and thereby gave birth to babies with deformed limbs. Des Collins was all set to file a case against the Corby Council, who throughout the duration of the investigation had maintained that they weren’t at fault and that they had taken every safety measure during the land redevelopment project they had carried out after the steel plant was shut down.
Why Were There Discrepancies In The Reports?
Another roadblock that Des encountered was that the report that both parties presented pertaining to how far dust particles could travel had conflicting numbers. Since the time Des Collins had decided to investigate the matter, the Corby council had presented many reports that were factually wrong. I don’t know if they presented a false narrative on purpose or if they just made certain calculation mistakes unintentionally, but the point was that their reports were incorrect. The first time we got to know about this was when Prof. Louise Parker, an epidemiologist, nullified the report of the health authority and found out that the way they had calculated the rate of birth defects was wrong. Probably the Corby Council had expected that nobody would do in-depth research on the matter. But when Louise compared the data, she found out that during the land reclamation works from 1987 to 1999 the number of birth defects in and around Corby had almost tripled.
The team of experts also found out that the defense council had made use of an incorrect formula to calculate the distance that the dust particles could travel. There was a report published by a German scientist, Kamm K and the Corby Council had used his equation to calculate the distance. There was nothing wrong in using the formula of the German scientist, but the point was that the Corby council had missed a part of a mathematical equation, and that was why their formula had returned incorrect results. It was a major turning point in the Corby toxic case that helped the claimants to prove in court that it was indeed the toxic dust that caused the damage.
How Did The Mothers Win The Case Against The Corby Council?
The high court hearing began on 16 February 2009, and Des Collins looped in David Wilby QC, a barrister, to argue before the honorable court. Justice Akenhead did an inspection of the haulage routes through which the lorries carried the waste products. By then, 18 mothers had come together to fight the case against the Corby Council.
The children of these 18 families were born with reduced limbs, and Des Collins presented a detailed report in the court describing the kind of deformities they suffered from. The names of the victims and the kind of deformity they suffered from are as follows: Kynan Faulkner (no thumb on either hand), Dawn Mallin (underdeveloped left hand), Simone Atkinson (missing fingers and joints on both hands), Sarah Jane Croft (missing three middle fingers and weakness in left arm), Anthony McGrath (Club foot, short hands and palms), George Angus Taylor (No free movement of the smaller right finger), Lewis Water-field (deformed thumbs and missing muscle), Jordan Scott (webbed fingers), Dylan South (club right foot), Curtis Thorpe (right hand not fully formed), Shelby Ann Taylor (missing internal organs and passed away after 3 days), Connor Ford (no fingers in left hand), Daniel Sharford (No fingers in left hand), Kerry Leigh (webbed fingers and Poland syndrome), Jake Murphy (club foot, proximal femoral focal deficiency), Samuel Mahon (club foot), Ben Vissian (two fingers missing from the left hand, bones missing in the right-hand finger), India Harrison (left arm shorter and thinner, missing muscles), and Ashleigh Jane Custance (fingers swollen and huge).
In April 2009, the court ruled in favor of the mothers, and it found that the Corby Council’s negligence during the regeneration work of the steel site had led to deformities in the newborns. The hard-nosed Corby Council had to bow down in front of the prosecution, and they had to admit their fault. In April 2010, a settlement was reached between Corby Borough Council and the mothers, where the council agreed to pay compensation to 18 children (as per the BBC report). The council was hit with a legal bill of 14.6 million pounds. Though nothing could really compensate the grieving parties for their loss, it felt good to find out that the kids, who went through so much trauma, were all doing good for themselves, and the victory in the court gave them a much-needed closure and relief.
