Toxic Town true story: What is the real-life scandal behind the Netflix drama?

"It’s set in a real town, and it’s about some women and families who discovered that their children were born with limb differences," Jodie Whittaker, who plays real-life mother Susan McIntyre, said of Toxic Town in a video by Netflix.

She continued: "What united them was that the town they were living in was poisoning them. This will bring attention to something that is incredibly shocking, incredibly heartbreaking and completely avoidable."

So, what exactly was poisonous in Corby and did the mothers win the lawsuit? Read on for everything you need to know about the true story behind the new Netflix show.

Toxic Town true story: What happened in Corby?

Although you may think the series is an example of sinister fiction, Toxic Town is based on the real-life Corby toxic waste case.

Writer Jack Thorne recently said of the story: "The more you look into it, the more complicated it all becomes.

"I’ve done legal dramas before, but this one… being taken through the actual truth of it and seeing the journey that they had to go on in order to prove this, I found very surprising and shocking."

The scandal was first exposed by The Sunday Times in April 1999, detailing the families' multi-million-pound compensation claim.

The initial report also laid out the allegations: that the limb abnormalities that some children were born with were due to the toxic substances released when the Corby steelworks were being redeveloped.

The specific toxins of concern included arsenic, lead, chromium and cadmium, the latter of which has been linked in medical studies to limb abnormalities in animals.

For a decade, families had been campaigning for the recognition of the fact that the clean-up of the old steelworks was to blame for the limb defects.

At the time of its boom, Corby's steelworks employed more than 10,000 people and covered a staggering 700 acres of land, but when it closed in 1980, it had a major impact on the local people and economy.

Due to the rising rates of unemployment, there was a pressing need to replace the old industry, but in order to achieve that, the old site had to be cleaned.

The steelworks, which were among the largest in Europe at the time, underwent an extensive cleaning operation that produced a lot of work and dirt in the process.

Over the course of 15 years, the site was reclaimed in stages, with buildings being demolished, waste being removed and, in the process, waste and toxic sludge being produced.

The dust was noticeable to most who lived in the town and could travel for miles, potentially affecting people who had travelled through Corby.

In 2009, a local woman, Mandy Wright, told the BBC: "I remember if you went down to the Sunday market to do your shop you'd come back and your shoes would be covered in a fine orange dust."

However, the council contractors who were employed to clean up the steelworks weren't experienced in handling toxic waste, with solicitor Des Collins saying at the time: "There can be little doubt that this job was handled appallingly badly even by the standards of the '80s and '90s.

"Time and again it has been shown that the council officers responsible for this work simply didn't have a clue what they were doing. They had no expertise in dealing with toxic waste."

The case itself made not just British but worldwide legal history, as it was the first of its kind to establish a link between airborne toxins and damage to unborn children. It was a challenge to prove the link between the two, and culminated in a trial after an 11-year battle.

Corby Borough Council denied claims that there was a link between the clean-up of the steelworks and the deformities which affected hands and feet of some children.

Was the Corby case won?

Yes, in a High Court ruling, the council was found negligent in its management of toxic waste at the former steelworks site in the town during the '80s and '90s.

Justice Akenhead said there was a "statistically significant" cluster of birth defects between 1989 and 1999.

Although Corby Borough Council initially said that it would appeal the decision, it ultimately reached an out-of-court settlement with the young people affected. A total of 19 families received compensation, with the exact amount of money remaining undisclosed.

Corby council's chief executive, Chris Mallender, said at the time: "The council recognises that it made mistakes in its clean-up of the former British Steel site years ago and extends its deepest sympathy to the children and their families.

"Although I accept that money cannot properly compensate these young people for their disabilities and for all that they have suffered to date and their problems in the future, the council sincerely hopes that this apology coupled with [the] agreement will mean they can now put their legal battle behind them and proceed with their lives with a greater degree of financial certainty."

After the announcement of the settlement, Collins said: "My clients live with the daily reminder of the sub-standard clean-up of the former British Steel plant. The agreement recognises the many years of emotional and physical suffering the 19 families have endured and will endure. It marks the end of an arduous 11-year legal challenge and removes the prospect of further litigation.

"Importantly, it also provides a financial award which will help towards healthcare costs and loss of earnings. I pay tribute to the immense determination and spirit the Corby children and their families have shown to secure [this] outcome."

Who are the real-life people behind the characters in Toxic Town?

The main mothers – Susan, Maggie and Tracey – in Toxic Town are all based on real people, as well as solicitor Des Collins and former council worker Sam Hagen.

For instance, Jodie Whittaker plays Susan McIntyre in the series, who is based on the real-life woman of the same name. As depicted in the series, Susan's son Connor was born without fingers on his left hand just a few months after she learnt of another local woman who had given birth to a child with a limb deformity.

Susan – who was born in Scotland but moved to Corby aged three – went on to become one of the most vocal in the campaign for justice, striving to get answers for her son's struggles.

As detailed to The Times, Connor was badly bullied about his hand at school and went on to have multiple corrective surgeries as a child, with one including having two of his toes grafted onto his hand. Unfortunately, the results were disappointing and Connor never achieved a pincer grip with his hand at the end of the surgery.

Speaking about meeting Susan whilst filming Toxic Town, Whittaker told Radio Times magazine: "The mums did come on set one day. It was really emotional and nerve-racking, because I knew how fiery Susan was. If she didn’t like the way I was doing it, she’d say so.

"I was very needy and asked her, 'Do I sound like you?' Because that accent mixing Corby and Glasgow is challenging! She just said, 'Yeah,' and gave me a big cuddle. After that, the narcissistic actress got her head out of her arse. This was not about me!"

Susan was approached by a journalist for The Sunday Times who wanted to tell the story of some of the Corby children who had been born with deformities. Knowing how big a case they had on their hands and how many women were coming forward, Susan found Des Collins to represent them all.

As outlined in Toxic Town, Susan selected Des because of his past connection to Corby, having worked at the steelworks for one summer as a youngster.

Susan, like many of the mothers, simply wanted the council to apologise for its wrongdoing and admit to it, but when they couldn't get that, that's when the plans for the claim started to come together.

Speaking about her experience piecing together the puzzle, Susan recently told Netflix: "I was in hospital with lots of other mothers having babies, and some of them had babies that had problems with their limbs.

"And I’d say, ‘Oh, you’ll be all right,’ and I’d comfort them, and then four months later, the same thing happened to me. I had a baby with the exact same thing. And I did think that was strange.”

Claudia Jessie stars as Maggie Mahon in Toxic Town, who is based on a real-life person. Her husband worked driving one of the lorries and, as shown in Toxic Town, she would have to beat all of the dust off of his clothes.

Mahon's son Sam was born with a club foot, and growing up in Corby, she was always aware of the dust that would collect in the town, but like everyone else, didn't realise how harmful it actually was.

Tracey, who is played by Aimee Lou Wood in the series, is also based on a real woman who lost her baby, Shelby Anne, at just four days old. Tracey lived in Kettering – a town just outside of Corby – but worked in Corby and recalled that the dust in the town was akin to a "sandstorm".

As shown in the series, Tracey notices that Shelby Anne had a deformed ear but had started haemorrhaging after giving birth and was immediately rushed to surgery.

After awaking from her surgery, Tracey realised that Shelby Anne was finding it difficult to feed, but was told by attending midwives not to worry.

The following day, Tracey and her husband walked in on staff reviving Shelby Anne. She was sent to John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, where doctors found that Shelby Anne's lungs had not formed properly and she was born with only two chambers for her heart, rather than four.

"So we decided, as her parents, that we would take her off the machine and see what happened. We decided that if she managed to breathe on her own, we’d let her go into the operation. She only lasted 10 minutes," Tracey told The Times.

Why was Tracey Taylor excluded from the Corby case?

As shown in Toxic Town, though, Tracey's case was not part of the one that Des Collins put forward due to the fact that Shelby Anne's condition was different to the cluster of cases that involved limb deformities.

Speaking about her exclusion from the case, Thorne told Netflix: “Lots of people would have just included the mothers that won the case, but [Candy]’s clever enough to know that breadth of the story was really important here. Tracey was interesting because of her exclusion from the case, which felt so important in telling these stories of justice.”

He continued: “What’s amazing about Tracey’s story is that she wasn't going through the same thing as the other mums,” said Aimee Lou Wood, who plays Taylor. “They all had to go through the horrible, gruelling court process too, of course, but the other mums still had their children with them, and Tracey didn’t have that.”

Who was Sam Hagen?

While the three main mothers in the series are based on real people, so too is Sam Hagen, who is honoured with a note at the end of the series. Hagen passed away in 2022 but worked as a Corby council worker and deputy leader of the council.

It was in the early 1990s that Hagen had raised concerns about the shortcuts that were being taken in the redevelopment of the former steel works, but he said was ultimately ignored. As shown in Toxic Town, Hagen handed solicitor Des Collins an envelope containing a mass of information that he had obtained from a technical officer.

Up until the point that Hagen had provided Collins with the council material, Collins claimed that he hadn't had any information from the authority regarding the clean-up of the former steelworks land. Having that information proved crucial to understanding more about the case.

Toxic Town is streaming now on Netflix. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.

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