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The terrifying true story behind Netflix’s new drama Toxic Town – streaming now

BBG News

Despite the ominous title “Toxic Town” potentially suggesting a dystopian Mad Max-like landscape in your mind, this Netflix series is rooted in real-life events.

Indeed, it’s a tale often referred to as one of the most significant environmental controversies in the United Kingdom. This saga involved a band of mothers who took their local government in Corby to court.

As a gamer, I’d rephrase it like this: “In my fictional world, everyone in our gaming community had families with limb differences, and we all suspected that those deformities were the result of the council’s mishandling of toxic waste cleanup at the abandoned steelworks.

2009 saw this fight gain nationwide attention following the mothers’ successful court victory, marking it as the pioneering case to establish a correlation between environmental contamination and limb abnormalities in children – a connection that had never before been proven legally.

Toxic Town’s true story, and what happened to the mothers and their children

Similar to numerous towns in Britain during past times, Corby located in Northamptonshire was primarily inhabited by blue-collar workers who found employment at the local steel mill. However, when the mill ceased production in 1980, approximately 11,000 residents were left unemployed.

Not only was this unfortunate situation distressing, but it also left behind vast quantities of hazardous waste from the steel mills in holding ponds – essentially, these areas held pools of harmful substances such as arsenic, cadmium, and calcium that were widespread across the local environment.

In an effort to rescue Corby, the council successfully persuaded the government to finance a major cleanup project that started in the late ’80s and continued until the mid-’90s. Local residents were hired to transport trucks filled with hazardous chemicals from these contaminated ponds to disposal sites on the outskirts of Corby, unintentionally leading to another set of issues.

Although they had been instructed to conceal the trucks passing through Corby on a regular basis, the clean-up crew failed to follow this advice.

Consequently, for eight long years, toxic waste seeped out during the project, contaminating nearby roads. Even more troubling, when the waste dried, it transformed into dust that spread throughout the town, posing a health risk as residents unknowingly inhaled it.

In the town, there were expectant mothers and, subsequently, births of infants who presented diverse health problems. Some of these newborns had limb discrepancies, affecting their arms and legs.

19 infants were born displaying these unique characteristics during the timeframe from 1989 to 1998, a period marked by an inadequately managed clean-up process.

From 1989 to 1998, a total of 19 babies were born with these distinctive traits, a time that saw an unsuccessful cleanup effort.

It’s no surprise that it exceeded the country’s typical level, and a few council employees had their suspicions that there was an unusual situation at hand.

Who was Sam Hagen, who Toxic Town is in memory of?

Sam Hagen, the individual featured in the closing title of “Toxic Town,” disclosed this information by discussing it with a documentary team from BBC Horizon in the year 2020.

In his statement, Hagen, a late former local councillor, mentioned that it was the council officer who exposed the situation and informed him about the practice, which involved the violation of safety regulations. (Year of death: 2022)

They handled it carelessly, rushing through it to earn more money quickly. Realizing there was no internal solution, he chose to inform someone else about the issue.

Because he understood that being identified as a whistleblower would result in him losing his position, he confided in me instead.

Susan McIntyre, a mother whose son was born with a significant hand abnormality, hadn’t realized that other nearby families were dealing with similar issues until a journalist came to her home. This is somewhat reminiscent of what happens in the show, but Toxic Town glosses over the specific details.

Susan was approached by Graham Hind, a journalist from the Sunday Times, along with his colleague Stephen Bevan. Their joint investigation, which was later published by the newspaper in April 1999, was conducted by them.

Following these events, Susan and several other impacted mothers received contact from attorney Des Collins.

He volunteered to act as their attorney in a legal dispute with the council, aiming to uphold fairness. However, it should be noted that there wasn’t any clear proof at that time suggesting the council was intentionally negligent.

Collins assembled a group of specialists – such as a professional in land restoration, a scholar on atmospheric contamination, and a developmental expert – to investigate the matter and determine if the mothers possessed a valid claim with enough evidence to be successful in a court of law.

In 2004, after all his efforts to get information from the council about land reclamation failed, Collins surprisingly obtained a bundle of leaked papers instead.

On a particular day, as he entered the office, he found a brown envelope containing a lever arch file filled with numerous documents on his desk. This was mentioned in the 2020 Horizon documentary.

It’s unusual to find classified papers casually appearing – it feels more like a plot from a John Grisham book. You think, you know, ‘He creates such stories, they’re entertaining to read, but they don’t occur in the real world.’ However, this time, it did indeed happen.

Collins and his group delved deeper into the matter, expressing in the Horizon documentary that Hagen could potentially be linked, either directly or indirectly, to the release of the documents.

In 2009, when their civil lawsuit reached court, the Corby mothers emerged victorious. An historic decision made by the High Court determined that the council was at fault for negligence, public disturbance, and violating a legal obligation.

Following the court ruling, as detailed by The Guardian, the council upheld their stance that “no connection existed between the past reclamation works in Corby and the birth defects of these children.” Approximately a few weeks later, they decided to challenge this verdict by filing an appeal.

In April 2010, the council opted not to proceed with their plan to challenge the decision and instead privately resolved disputes with the affected families through a settlement outside of court.

The newspaper, “The Guardian,” maintains that it is not responsible for the issue at hand, but its CEO acknowledged that mistakes were made in the cleanup of the old British Steel site in the past and extends its heartfelt condolences to the affected children and their families.

To this very day, no one has been charged with any criminal offenses, as the series finale of Toxic Town makes clear.

According to a concerning last update from the Environmental Agency, it was disclosed in a 2021 study that there are at least 21,000 past waste disposal sites scattered throughout England and Wales.

As many as 1,287 sites hold potentially harmful waste. Remarkably, about 167 of these locations are situated beneath residential buildings, businesses like stores and restaurants, and even schools – at least 4 of them being under educational institutions.

Which characters in Toxic Town aren’t real?

Towards the conclusion of the play, it becomes apparent that the characters portrayed by actors Ben Batt as Pat Miller, and Simon Harrison as Bill Martin, are simply fictitious figures.

The closing credit note indicates that the character portrayed by Brendan Coyle as Roy Thomas was modeled after several men, but unfortunately, none of them witnessed the completion of their plans for Corby.

In the show “Toxic Town”, three primary characters representing mothers – Susan, Tracey, and Maggie – are loosely based on real individuals. The series concludes by showing a photograph featuring these real women alongside their respective on-screen counterparts.

Before the debut of Toxic Town, it was reported by the Northamptonshire Telegraph that some local families expressed disappointment because they were not part of the project. This implies that not considering all the affected families in the project was a thoughtless decision.

Additionally, the piece took issue with the choice of titling the series “Toxic Town,” arguing that it may not be entirely just.

Indeed, the document acknowledges that “drama sheds light on such real-life occurrences for global awareness,” which implies that it is beneficial for everyone to learn about these events, as this knowledge may help avoid similar incidents from recurring in the future.

Toxic Town is now available to stream on Netflix.

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2025-02-28 01:50

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