🔗 Share this article

A concerned parent and Fraser's father received life-altering information in 2018 when their young son Fraser was confirmed to have a unusual variant of blood cancer.

24 months of gruelling treatment followed, comprising drug treatments, targeted radiation, and immune system treatments before a stem cell transplant. Fraser, at three years old, made a extraordinary turnaround from the procedure, with physicians confirming the disease in recovery.

It was at this point that Gaffney, in her mid-thirties, began looking for causes. She could not stop thinking about remarks made by hospital staff at the time of her son’s diagnosis. “We're tormented wondering how our son got his illness,” a consultant had informed her.

“We can't sleep wondering how our son got his illness,” a consultant had told her.

Background Information

The negligent management of millions of tonnes of toxic materials after the shutdown of a major industrial facility in the town in 1979 had “always been a known thing,” said Alison. A court ruling associated the council’s negligent clean-up of the site to a series of developmental issues in local children during the previous decades.

Over time, the concerned mother started to associate the case to her own. “[Fraser’s cancer] is not inherited,” she explained. “What could cause this? … It must be down to the community. So many children [with] illness.

“Every resident knows someone who’s got a child [with] illness. This isn't typical.”

Collective Efforts

Alison and Andy started to connect with more parents in Corby with parallel situations – featuring some of Gaffney’s former classmates at Brooke Weston Academy – and the group began gathering detailed records on those involved. They now head a movement supporting about 130 families with cases of pediatric illness going back to 1988.

The collective has been pressuring the town council to investigate any relationships between instances of youth disease in Corby and the shutdown of the facility. In the coming weeks, medical experts are set to publish their study of whether the town has had a disproportionate number of instances of childhood cancer for its inhabitants of seventy thousand.

“All we want is to attempt to safeguard coming generations so they do not have to endure the suffering that we’ve been through,” said Gaffney.

Previous Cases

The decision in the court proceeding accepted that, between the 1980s and 1990s, enormous amounts of toxic substances from the steel plant were relocated “almost invariably” from the one area to Deene Quarry in the opposite end – with “large quantities” of contaminated substances moved and dumped on community streets and “substantial quantities” of airborne particles produced by the remediation.

However, it also cited findings from the environmental authorities in 1997 that found accumulations of hazardous waste that had been left at this location were later taken away in “significant amounts”.

Growing Suspicions

The campaign leader suspects waste was not merely deposited at the Deene Quarry site but in additional areas of the town. Lately, she approved a “significant progress” after municipal government said it would examine land that could be polluted and research where toxic waste was disposed of.

Gaffney said government representatives acknowledged in the discussion that they lacked information where the areas of contaminated waste could be. “They said: ‘We're uncertain where these locations are. Documentation is missing, we possess no information.’”

Community Support

The government declaration was also supported by another parent, a pastoral lead at a local school, whose nine-year-old daughter, the child, was confirmed to have leukaemia in the summer.

“I had to shave my young child's hair because her hair was coming out from the treatments she had to take to destroy her cancer. So actually it’s in our interest, it’s in her daughter's welfare [for the council] to disclose that knowledge,” she said.

“There are so many people in the community that have been diagnosed with youth disease and I just feel it’s cannot be dismissed – it demands examination. This can’t be normal.”

Individual Accounts

A community member, 31, who is employed in business and now resides elsewhere, said parents deserved “absolute honesty and clarity” from the council.

The woman's young sibling, her sister, died on 24 June 2017 after being diagnosed with a uncommon malignancy at the age of nine. The girl, who raised awareness for health organizations, was “one of the most lovable, entertaining and kindest” people, Lyons recalled.

Her family member recalls the consequence of the cessation of the manufacturing site on the area, she said. “She recalled you were unable to place your fingers in front of your face because [of] the particulate matter.”

“These issues have continued since I’ve probably been about early childhood. It's too long and it is negligence toward the local residents.”

Historical Connections

Another family member, a community member, was one of several families involved in the 2009 claim against the previous administration after her infant was diagnosed with clubfoot. Her partner, her partner, was among the vehicle operators participating in transporting materials from the manufacturing facility. Their situation was portrayed in a media production, and showed the mother cleaning the dust from her spouse's clothing.

The campaign leader said the campaign group has been contacted by individuals with information who were participating in the dumping of substances in the area.