🔗 Share this article

A local mother and Fraser's father were given heartbreaking diagnosis in 2018 when their toddler their child was diagnosed with a rare type of leukaemia.

24 months of intensive medical care ensued, involving drug treatments, radiotherapy, and immune system treatments before a stem cell transplant. The young boy, by age three, made a extraordinary turnaround from the operation, with doctors announcing the illness in regression.

As Fraser improved that Alison, in her mid-thirties, began investigating explanations. She constantly recalled comments made by medical professionals at the time of her Fraser's condition. “We lose sleep wondering how our son got his disease,” a specialist had informed her.

“We're constantly wondering wondering how our son got his illness,” a doctor had informed her.

Past Events

The negligent management of vast quantities of contaminated waste after the closure of a major industrial facility in this community in 1979 had “long been recognized,” said Alison. A legal proceeding associated the council’s negligent clean-up of the site to a series of developmental issues in community youth during the previous decades.

Gradually, Gaffney started to link the situation to her own. “[His illness] is not inherited,” she said. “What's the explanation? … It must be down to the community. So many children [with] illness.

“Every resident is acquainted with a person who’s got a minor [with] illness. That's unusual.”

Community Action

The parents started to contact more parents in Corby with similar stories – including some of the mother's past schoolmates at Brooke Weston Academy – and the organization began compiling comprehensive documentation on those affected. They now spearhead a campaign supporting about many parents with instances of childhood cancer going back to 1988.

The organization has been pressuring the town council to investigate any relationships between instances of youth disease in the town and the shutdown of the industrial site. Soon, medical experts are preparing to share their study of whether the town has had a unusually high rate of occurrences of youth disease for its inhabitants of seventy thousand.

“All we want is to try and protect subsequent residents so they won't experience the suffering that we’ve been through,” said Gaffney.

Previous Cases

The judgment in the court proceeding acknowledged that, between 1983 and 1997, enormous amounts of toxic substances from the manufacturing site were moved “almost invariably” from the one area to Deene Quarry in the northern section – with “large quantities” of toxic waste transported and deposited on public roads and “considerable amounts” of airborne particles generated by the remediation.

Nonetheless, it also mentioned findings from the Environment Agency in 1997 that found accumulations of contaminated material that had been abandoned at the site were later extracted in “large quantities”.

Growing Suspicions

Alison maintains waste was not exclusively placed at the main disposal area but in different locations of the community. Lately, she welcomed a “important advancement” after local authorities said it would analyze land that could be polluted and investigate where toxic waste was disposed of.

The mother said local officials admitted in the meeting that they lacked information where the locations of hazardous substances could be. “They explained: ‘We don’t know where these areas are. There are no records, we have nothing on it.’”

Local Backing

The council’s announcement was also embraced by another parent, a pastoral lead at a local school, whose young child, the child, was confirmed to have leukaemia in recent months.

“I needed to cut my young child's scalp because her hair was shedding from the drugs she had to take to kill her disease. So actually it’s in everyone's benefit, it’s in her daughter's welfare [for the council] to disclose that data,” she said.

“There are so many residents in the community that have been found to have pediatric illness and I believe it’s cannot be dismissed – it needs looking at. This isn't typical.”

Family Experiences

Another resident, in her early thirties, who has a professional career and now has moved away, said families earned “absolute honesty and openness” from the local authority.

Lyons’s 11-year-old sister, her sister, passed away on 24 June 2017 after being found to have a rare bone cancer at the age of nine. Eve, who collected money for medical research, was “one of the most lovable, entertaining and caring” people, Lyons recalled.

Her parent recalls the effect of the shutdown of the steel plant on the community, Lyons stated. “She said you were unable to place your palm in before you because [of] the particulate matter.”

“This situation has persisted since I was approximately about three years old. It’s an excessive amount of time and it is carelessness toward the people of Corby.”

Past Associations

Lyons’s cousin, a local resident, was one of several families connected to the court proceeding against the then Corby council after her newborn was diagnosed with a congenital issue. Her partner, Derek, was a member of the truck operators participating in handling substances from the steelworks. Their experience was shown in a television program, and demonstrated Maggie removing the particles from her partner's pants.

Gaffney said the collective has been contacted by whistleblowers who were involved in the placement of waste in the area.