The Corby mothers who fought for justice after their children were born with limb defects caused by toxic waste have been described as “real life Erin Brokoviches” by the stars of a new Netflix drama about their battle.
Doctor Who favourite Jodie Whittaker is joined by Sex Education’s Aimee Lou Wood and Bridgeton’s Claudia Jessie in the series, about a group of mums who launched a class action against negligent Corby Borough Council – and won.
Their landmark legal battle, in which they set out to prove that the clean-up of the Northamptonshire town’s former steelworks was behind a huge spate of babies being born with limb differences, started in 1999 and took ten years. But in the end they received a £14.6million payout and became the first people ever to prove a link between airborne toxins and damage to unborn babies.
Mum-of-two Jodie said she was “completely gripped” by the story and jumped at the chance to play Susan McIntryre, a woman whose son Connor was born with a malformed left hand in 1997. “Women fighting for justice for their children is an incredibly inspirational story,” the actress said. “I wanted to pay tribute to the fact that this was a group of women that had to fight so hard for justice, and they didn’t give up despite how long this took and how heartbreaking the fight was.”
The court victory also saw the mothers receive an apology from the council who, in their desperation to stop the town from sinking after 11,000 steel workers had lost their jobs, had cut corners when it came to health and safety measures. As the clean-up took place, lorries transporting the toxic chemicals containing zinc, arsenic, boron and nickel went uncovered, so the town was regularly layered in thick, red dust. Unbeknownst to anyone at the time, that dust was poisonous.
“To me, it shines a light on something that happened in a community and a place and a time that I think will shock people who have no knowledge of it, which is probably most people,” Jodie said. “Even though this is set as a period piece, it couldn’t be more relevant in this day and age. It’s vital for our environment to be respected and to be treated with care, rather than destroyed for financial gain.”
She said she had loved meeting Susan, a bit of a rebel whose marriage to factory worker Peter broke down eight months after Connor was born, and the other mothers. “I found it really emotional. Obviously we knew what they’d gone through because we’d read it and we were portraying it, but to see them together and seeing where they’re at now, knowing it was worth that fight, was incredible.
“You see these women’s emotional journey and the toll it takes on them. In their pursuit of the truth, there’s a lot of rage and sometimes lines are crossed and rules aren’t followed and there’s a lot of humour in that. Susan just does not play by the rules, which is wonderful.”
During the trial, the court heard that Corby, with a population of around 60,000, would normally expect to see one baby born with a limb defect every three or four years. It was when 19 babies were born with a problem of this nature during the decade from 1989, and the mothers started to hear about each other’s experiences, that they realised something was terribly wrong.
Claudia, best known as Eloise Bridgerton, plays another mother, Maggie Mahon, who joins the cause after reading about it in the newspaper and realising that her son Sam’s club foot could be linked to her husband, Derek, working at the reclamation site. During her pregnancy she was beating dust from Derek’s clothes every evening when he got home.
What happened in Corby is now recognised as being the biggest case of foetal poisoning since the Thalidomide scandal of the 1960s – and one of the UK’s worst ever environmental disasters.
Aimee Lou, soon to star in the new season of Sky’s The White Lotus, said she was shocked she’d never heard about the Corby poisonings. “I couldn’t believe I didn’t know the story. I had no clue. I thought maybe I just didn’t know because I was little when it happened, but my Mum hadn’t heard of it either. And then I slowly realised that not many people did know about it.”
Her character Tracey Taylor suffered the tragic death of her daughter, Shelby, at just four days old. Tracey worked in an office on an industrial estate next to the steelworks and regularly brushed the toxic dust off her car – and her desk.
When Shelby was born she had a malformed left ear and serious problems with her organs, which meant she didn’t survive. In a sad twist, solicitor Des Collins, who took on the case, decides to leave Tracey out of the claimants in order to focus specifically on the children who were born with limb defects.
Aimee Lou says she finds that heart-breaking. “The other mums love Tracey so much because what she does is a sacrifice. She has to go through a really traumatic court case, talking about the baby she lost. And she’s the one who worked at the factory so she has really key evidence about the dust and what it was like to work there. So Des needs all of her information, and needs her to talk about everything she’s been witness to, and she does it. She goes through all of that, pouring her heart out, knowing it isn’t even for her and Shelby, it’s for the other mums and children.”
Aimee Lou says her character was driven by a desire for people to know about the dangers of toxic waste said. “Tracey wants people to know the effects it can have. She wants people to be empowered enough to ask questions about what is going on. For her and the other mums, they didn’t have the information to understand what was happening. When they were cleaning that dust off their cars, they really didn’t have a clue it was toxic. How could they? They didn’t realise it was poisoning them.
“It reminds me of the film Erin Brokovich. This is so strange but Tracey told me she couldn’t think of a name for Shelby until she watched Steel Magnolias, and she named Shelby after Julia Roberts’s character. Then, obviously, Julia went on to play Erin Brockovich, and Toxic Town is the UK version of that film.
“I remember watching Erin Brockovich when I was younger and thinking, ‘Wow, she was so underestimated, and she was not listened to and she fought for it, and she kept going’. I thought she was the coolest. Now I’ve met three real-life Erin Brockovichs.”
– Toxic Town streams on Netflix from February 27
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