10-year battle for the toxic truth
TOXIC TOWN: THE CORBY POISONINGS
BBC2, 9pm THIS film tells the shocking story of the worst child poisoning case since thalidomide, which left a group of mothers desperate for the truth.
It was in the 90s when strange things began to happen in the small town of Corby, Northamptonshire.
Children were being born with severe hand and feet deformities.
The parents were told by doctors at the time that this was just one of those things. But as more cases came to light and as a journalist started asking questions, the mothers demanded to know what had happened to their children.
The fear was that a toxic chemical wasteland created by a massive steelworks had caused air pollution that in turn led to birth defects.
But it would take teams of experts and a landmark legal battle to prove it.
The Corby toxic waste case had worldwide legal and medical ramifications.
But at the heart of this story are the interviews with some of the mothers who took on this astonishing 10-year fight for justice.
Lisa Atkinson, whose daughter Simone was born with deformed hands with missing fingers, says: “At first we never got any answers, just that sometimes mother nature doesn’t get it right.”
“It was all very traumatic,” adds Sarah Pearson, whose son Lewis was also born with severe hand deformities.
Containing interviews with experts involved in the case, as well as the Corby mothers and now grown-up children, this is a fascinating account of a harrowing crusade to expose the truth.