Dirty Business (2026) s01e02 Episode Script
Ecocide
1
This programme contains very
strong language from the start,
distressing scenes
and scenes of suicide
They're allowed to dump
untreated sewage.
But that that can't be right.
There's something weird about this.
I think that's poo.
Of course it's not poo!
And wash it off, scrub it.
Heather's brain has lost the ability
to control her vital organs.
I think it's time we consider
turning off her ventilators.
We've got to get this to
the Environment Agency.
They're the sewage police.
We want to strip out as much
unnecessary regulation as possible.
They make Del Boy look like
a fucking amateur.
When the everyday flows are missing,
they're not treating the sewage.
And if they're not treating
the sewage,
there's nowhere for it to go.
Except into the river.
Regulate yourselves
and then just let us know
if you've committed any crimes.
They've dumped sewage
a thousand times.
These aren't accidents.
It's a policy.
This is starting to look like
organised crime.
Fuck!
It's only now that it's
coming to light.
Thank goodness for the people's
regulator.
Peter Hammond, thank you.
Thank goodness for Ash.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Thank goodness for the public,
who are standing up
and showing you what's really
going on around here
Hi. Amy Christophers,
Citizens Against South West Water.
When Peter decoded
these these spreadsheets,
we realised that the company
had been dumping sewage
into our river for years.
Me and the machines,
we are now investigating hundreds,
hundreds of these sewage works using
the data from each one of them.
You know that I've got to go down
to Whitstable this weekend.
What, Saturday?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
They've got these two people who've
been working at the agency.
Says that the Southern Water
solicitors
have been threatening them.
You know about Charles and Camilla?
Charles and Camilla
were coming down for the
Whitstable Oyster Festival, right?
But when they tested them,
they were so full of shit
they had to give them oysters
imported from France.
All over the local news.
Whitstable's oysters under
threat from sewage leaks.
Sewage spills threaten to wipe out
Whitstable oyster farmers.
People were very fucked off.
Look at the amount of effluent.
So, Southern Water, you're not
releasing sewage into the sea?
And by then, the Environment Agency
had no choice,
they had to launch an investigation.
Made a mistake putting us in charge.
We're the ones in the trenches.
We take things seriously.
There are still a few of us left.
But we had no clue what we were
letting ourselves in for, did we?
You all right? No.
What've you done?
Put my back out this morning.
INTERCOM RINGS Hello?
Hello, it's John Bull
from the Environment Agency.
We've got an appointment.
Tell them Tell them I'm waving.
Tell them I'm waving.
HE CHUCKLES
Bigger! Go on. Go on.
Right Jump up and down.
All right, that's it, I'm not
Honestly, I can't stand up for too
long today. Sit down, mate.
We know you're in there.
We are not leaving.
We have an appointment.
It's now
Cheese, mayo, spring onion.
Almost looks like one word there.
Press one to speak to no-one.
Press two
To speak to no-one.
To speak to no-one.
Press three
HE GROANS to give up all hope.
Same bollocks every works we went.
Chichester, Millbrook,
Slowhill, Thornham.
And so many times
just refusing us entry.
Sometimes they just snatched the
logbooks right out of our hands.
Or just tell us to fuck off.
When you get chicken
from a supermarket,
it's got that plastic covering on,
right? Yeah.
Lift that off,
leave it for a few minutes
because it automatically smells
of fish and people get scared
thinking they're going to get food
poisoning and that's when they
throw it away. But if you leave it
for a bit,
let the air come out, right,
it just smells of chicken.
Then you can cook it.
HE MUMBLES WITH MOUTH FULL
Oh. Hello.
Hiya. Miss Humphries?
Yeah. Yeah, well, we've got -
we've made an appointment.
Oh, sorry. Was that you guys?
Yes! Yeah. Yeah, we've been here
for hours, we've been buzzing.
Oh We had a 9.15.
Oh, 9.15
Yes, 9 As opposed to?
Uh 3.15? Yeah. Yeah Right.
Can we just get in there, please?
Can you buzz us in?
He's got a bad back.
All right. Come on.
Oh, my God.
What? Is your buzzer broken? No.
You worked here long? Uh
I wouldn't say long.
Yeah. There's two really nice stools
you can sit on.
So Ooh.
Poppi, can I just ask, these are the
engineers' logbooks, right?
Yeah. I think they go back,
like, ten years.
So how much do you read?
Um, we've got enough to be
getting on with.
All right. We'll give you a shout
if we need you. OK.
Is that all right? Yeah.
Thank you. Good.
Great. Do you want me to go?
BOTH: Erm
Storm tank full
Yeah, storm tank overflow.
They've had to triple reset.
It's an illegal dump. Brilliant.
You've got nothing there, right?
What, in the status report?
Yeah. But on these status reports,
this is 12 as well.
Mr Bull, David Marwood,
Southern Water.
Oh, good to meet you. Nice to meet
you. Alex, nice to meet you.
I am going to have to ask you to
hand back these logbooks, please.
Um, they are proprietary material.
Sorry, I don't I
These books Mm-hm.
They are the property
of Southern Water.
The engineer logbooks, yeah.
You have gained access
to them unlawfully.
Uh, no. I'm asking you
to hand them back.
Unlawfully? These are the property
of Southern Water.
You gaining access to them is
illegal. If you just hand it over.
No-one wants to I'm sorry.
Sorry, what was your name again?
What we're doing
What was your name again, sir?
Mr Marwood, we are conducting
an investigation
under section 108 of
the Environmental Act.
We are well within our rights.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Poppi, put those down,
we haven't finished with them.
Mr Marwood, you're obstructing our
investigation
under section 108 of
the Environmental Act.
John
What you're doing is unlawful.
Please leave.
Let's just go. Let's just go.
Give them here.
We'll be back, Mr Marwood.
Sandwiches.
Criminal offence.
You know it took us seven years.
Seven years.
We nicked some in the end.
Southern Water has been
sentenced to pay a record
£90 million fine after
pleading guilty
They plead guilty to 6,971 crimes,
composited into 51 counts.
First day. Each dump is punishable
by five years in prison,
but instead, the judge just
fined them.
90 million.
The cost of doing business.
They dumped 7,400 Olympic
swimming pools of raw shite.
With the knowledge of the board.
They were making so much money,
these fines weren't touching
the sides.
But this time, they were committed
to a culture change,
which is where Toby Willison
came in.
Who's Toby Willison?
HE SCOFFS
Oh, you don't know about
Toby Willison?
So Toby was number two in the
Environment Agency under Sir James,
but then Southern poached him a year
before they were sentenced.
They told the judge that he was
going to run a clean-up operation
within the company.
He saw that as a mitigating factor,
reducing the fine from 120 million
to 90 million.
So you hire the second most
senior person at the regulator
who is actually prosecuting you
And you get a £30 million discount
on your fine.
But that Isn't I mean,
that's corruption, isn't it?
Well, we can see how it might have
the appearance of corruption,
but it wasn't.
You see, there's a revolving door.
People leave the agency and go
and work for the companies
they're regulating all the time.
It's just the way the
industry works.
When the agency brought the case
against Southern,
was this Toby Willison in charge?
Well, we know he was acting chief
executive at some point.
Was he deciding who you guys
were going to prosecute?
We didn't prosecute
any water company execs.
We never have.
You and I can probably remember
as kids swimming in the sea,
and being surrounded by
floating faecal
Faecal material.
I've certainly
I've experienced that now.
Not Not as kids.
If you look at the quality of
our bathing waters now,
it is unrecognisable from
20, 25 years ago.
And that is a direct result of
the massive amount of
investment the water companies have
put into the networks.
Remarkable. Well, I don't believe
any of that.
Well, James Murray joins us now
You're not going to believe this
one. Toby Willison
Yeah, what about him?
You know the lobby group
funded by the water companies? Yeah.
Willison has been on their board
since 2019.
You mean after he went to
Southern Water?
No, no, no, no, no. He's been
on the board of British Water
while he was working for the agency.
That means that the number two at
the Environment Agency
had a side hustle working
for the water companies.
Well, water quality is now better
than at any time
since the Industrial Revolution,
thanks to tougher regulations
by the Environment Agency.
So this is Toby Willison's boss,
is it? Yeah.
He's at the very, very top.
Liz Truss was the environment
minister and she made him
Head of the Environment Agency.
I don't know why she chose him.
She seems to think the Environment
Agency's part of the deep state.
That's because the Environment
Agency will not
What? ..hesitate to go after
water companies who cause
serious pollution.
But he's at the very top, isn't it?
He's the one we need to get to.
He's our man.
The agency said that she could have
contracted E coli from dog poo.
The little girl who died? Mm.
I've been looking for another case
where dog faeces has triggered
an E coli
And you can't find one? ..outbreak.
No, no
PHONE RINGS There aren't any.
Hi, is that Julie?
Hi, this is Chris Hines.
Yes, I work for an organisation
called Surfers Against Sewage.
Listen, Julie, I'm down at the
beach at Dawlish Warren.
I think we really need to speak.
No, I've always been a surfer.
I moved to Cornwall when I was 19,
lived in a caravan,
just so I could surf every day.
But everyone was getting sick
all the time.
There was this one day when I came
up under this huge wave,
I found a sanitary towel stuck
to the back of my head
and a turd lodged between my
chest and the board.
I thought, "This has got to stop."
So we founded Surfers Against Sewage
in my caravan,
and it was not long after that we
all went to Parliament
in our wet suits.
We were trying to get the message
out about clean water,
and we didn't do a good enough job.
I picked Dawlish
because it had a blue flag.
Of course you did, because the blue
flag is the gold standard
for water quality.
It's meant to mean
that the water's clean.
The council, they've set up
an investigation team.
If it finds that sewage
killed Heather,
it's going to be a calamity
for business here.
My guess is they're going to be
looking for any explanation,
so long as it's not sewage.
Thanks all for being here at this
start-up meeting
for the Outbreak Investigation team.
Sorry, I wonder if we should be
calling it an outbreak.
It feels like the kind of term
that could alarm people.
I think cluster might be
better messaging.
Of course, the quality
of the bathing water
at Dawlish is consistently high.
That's a really good point.
I mean, that will be
reflected in the report.
We know there have been
some complaints
about sewage on the beaches.
Er, thanks, Sarah, that's right.
We were contacted by members of
the public about this,
and we did send inspectors out.
In the event, there'd been just
a single spill on July 24th,
a full four days before the
Preens visited the beach,
so it's very unlikely that the
spill could have had an impact.
And we know that although the Preens
went to the beach
on several occasions,
Heather never swam in the water.
So with sewage looking unlikely
as a culprit,
we're focusing on fast food
and dog faeces.
Mr and Mrs Preen?
We were so sorry to hear
about Heather.
Yeah, it must be such
a difficult time.
But we just need to ask you
a few questions.
Could I ask you about
the fast food your family's
been eating since you got to
Dawlish?
So you want to know
what we had to eat?
Any takeaways? Burgers?
No, we ate in the chalet most
nights. Chicken shops, chippies?
Any fast food at all?
No, we didn't have any burgers.
We didn't have any fast food.
To be honest, we were on
a bit of a budget, so
When you went to the beach,
how much dog poo did you see?
We didn't see any dog droppings.
We saw human sewage. Sorry, why do
you want to know about dog poo?
Because if Heather had stepped in
something, she'd have told us.
We have to look into every
possible source.
So if you don't know what
caused the infection,
then you need to shut down
the beach, don't you? Yeah.
Because the children could get this
and my daughter's dead,
so you need to shut it down.
That's not going to happen.
After the investigation,
there's going to be an inquest.
I can get you a lawyer.
There was an unplanned,
negligible spill on the 24th,
four days before the Preens
visited the beach.
The Dawlish coast is a
high dispersal area.
The winds and currents are
sufficiently strong
that any sewage would have
been dispersed long before
the Preens visited the beach.
E coli O157 is not routinely found
in sewage and it's rare in water.
The sea breaks down the bacteria,
so there's no record of an E coli
O157 infection from sea bathing
in the UK.
What kind of health risk would
sewage on a footpath present?
It's not for the Environment Agency
to comment on a health risk.
You don't have a view about
whether sewage is a health risk?
It's not within the remit
or the expertise
of the Environment Agency to comment
on a public health risk.
We walked along
the coastal path every day.
There was a discharge
coming out from the pipe
and it had made a puddle, you see.
How big was the puddle?
I don't know, three feet maybe.
And it was spilling out
onto the beach.
It smelt like faeces.
And I could see there
was little bits
of pink toilet paper in it.
So you walked around it?
No, we jumped over it.
Except, um
Heather didn't manage
to clear it, and, um
She landed in the puddle that was
coming from the pipe?
Yeah.
You couldn't stop her?
I
I didn't stop her.
We didn't know.
You say you saw the
the puddle every day? Yeah.
You're aware that the Environment
Agency has been unable
to confirm any subsequent spills?
That there was only one confirmed
report of a spill
during your holiday.
Why do you think you were the
only one who saw the puddle?
I don't know.
But I saw it.
Is it possible that you've confused
things in your memory?
No. I saw it.
We all saw it, didn't we?
There was a puddle and
a little stream of poo.
In the days running up
to the Preens' visit,
the Environment Agency received
at least 14 complaints
about sewage on the beach.
In the week before Heather Preen
fell ill,
I treated two children
with febrile gastroenteritis.
The children had been swimming
at the town beach
and then found themselves
immersed in raw sewage.
I reported it
but heard nothing more.
In the days after the Preens' visit,
Dawlish was inundated with faeces.
Big influxes of sewage debris
were turning up on the beach.
Our cleaners logged the number
of sanitary towels.
South West Water pays contractors
to clean up the sewage by hand.
Resort staff were cleaning away
sewage as a matter of urgency.
At least six other children
were infected with the E coli virus
after being at the beach that day.
Sophie Smith was seven-months-old.
Back home in Walsall,
she was diagnosed with an
E coli O157 infection.
11-year-old Jane Duncan
was hospitalised
with an E coli O157 infection.
She bled through her anus 50 times
in the first few days
and asked her parents
if she was going to die.
Ashley, Ruby and Dylan Hamlyn,
along with their mum Claire,
were all infected.
Claire drove her son Dylan
to hospital
after they both began bleeding
from their backsides.
Doctors wouldn't admit Claire
at first,
so she cleared up her own blood
and vomit from the toilets.
Later, Dylan's sisters Ashley
and Ruby were also admitted.
There's no cure for E coli.
They keep you on a drip
and hope for the best.
Dylan's screaming was so
frightening,
his dad thought everyone
was going to die.
E coli 0157 is a pathogen
that thrives in sewage.
It can survive in water
for up to 91 days.
Swimming in water infected
with E coli has been identified
as the cause of multiple outbreaks.
We tested the waters around Dawlish.
Of the 45 samples taken,
only two came back positive
for E coli O157.
The infected families were all
on a part of the beach
where dogs were allowed.
They could all have crisscrossed
the site of an infected dog faeces.
None of us were on the same part
of the beach.
We never saw any dog poo.
This map doesn't make any sense.
The families weren't on the same
part of the beach.
No-one saw any dog faeces,
and there's no good evidence
of transmission from dogs anywhere.
South West water and the Environment
Agency present this
improbable theory whilst choosing
to ignore repeated
substantial sewage pollution.
The agency did carry out tests
on the sea water.
But the testing took place on
the 27th of August
a full month after the infected
families had visited the beach.
Cunts.
Fucking cunts, Jule. I know.
They twisted everything.
I know they did.
I've let Heather down, haven't I?
You've not let her down.
You think I can ask Henry
if I can do it again?
No. What are you on about?
You've done it.
You stuck up for her.
We saw You stuck up
for this family.
We saw them sanitary towels, Jule.
We saw the toilet roll. We
Didn't we?
And we let our babies go back out.
Not here, not here. We did, though.
At first, they said it was something
we had to eat,
but it wasn't, so
Then they came up with dog poo.
But how could all of our kids
walk through the same bit
of poo without remembering?
I would know if my child
had touched poo.
The one thing all our kids
did do was go into the water.
We saw the toilet roll.
We saw the sanitary towels.
You can't tell us we didn't see it
because we did. We saw it.
I know now we should have
turned away from that beach.
I know that.
Heather's dad knows that.
We will live with that.
We chose Dawlish because of the
blue flag, and we trusted it.
The gold standard of water quality.
We didn't know it was a lie.
No-one should have died the way
my Heather died.
She was poisoned
and the anti-sickness tablets
they gave her meant her little body
couldn't get rid of it.
She was liquidised from the inside.
We went on holiday,
a family of four,
and we've come back
a family of three.
And we don't want any money,
don't worry.
SHE SCOFFS
We don't want your money, so
We just
We want something to change.
We don't want another
family to go to the beach
and come back with one less child.
And you're still dumping sewage.
And you
You're the Environment Agency.
You're supposed to look after us,
and you are sat here
in this court and you're swapping
notes with South West Water. Why?
And it took you It took them
one month to go looking
for the E coli that killed
my daughter.
Why would you do that?
What is this?
I I would not wish
what has happened
to us on my worst enemy.
I wouldn't wish it on your kids.
So, please
close the beach. Please.
Before this happens
to somebody else.
Please.
Following an inquisition taken
for our sovereign lady, the Queen,
touching on the death
of Heather Amy Preen.
The cause of death
was E coli poisoning.
The deceased probably contracted
E coli whilst visiting
the beach at Dawlish Warren
on the 24th of July,
along with other children
who survived.
I recommend that consideration
be given to a notice
warning the public
of sewage discharges.
And that an ultraviolet
treatment should be added
to the sewage works at Dawlish.
Consideration should be given
to greater enforcement
of the dogs on the beach ban.
June 2019,
Sir James Bevan, Environment Agency.
"Dear Sir James, I wrote to you
to raise concerns about
"a serious integrity issue
involving the agency.
"I did not receive any
acknowledgement."
Yes, Sir James Bevan.
This is Ash Smith,
Windrush Against Sewage Pollution.
We sent an email.
We sent a lot of emails.
Ash. What?
Ash? Yes, I'll hold.
What? I'm on the bloody phone.
They want us to come in. Who?
Fucking hell!
Belly of the beast.
Very nice to meet you.
Hello there, Lucy Hart.
Please do sit down.
Sir James is on the on
the premises, I take it?
Um, he's No, he's not.
I think he's at a meeting.
He's been called out
to an external
I was hoping he might be even
present in the meeting.
Not this kind of meeting, no,
he's He's
I just wanted to start with a few
questions about integrity.
Because I see that the agency's
former director of operations
joined the board of British Water
while he was working for the agency,
which means that your COO
was moonlighting
for the water companies
while he was regulating them.
So what do we Oh, dear.
What do we call that?
Well, I think moonlighting's a
pretty strong word.
Um Definition.
What I would say is that,
um, Toby Willison no longer works
for the agency.
That's the first point,
and when he decided
But how is that a fact,
when he was here, though?
The fact that he's not here
doesn't I'm coming on to that.
His declarations,
with all due respect,
his declarations of interest
were noted at the time. Right.
And any risks at all,
and we do take these things
very seriously,
were appropriately managed.
Yes, but then Mr Willison was hired
by a water company
as it stood trial on 51 counts
of sewage dumping.
How is that not a case
of conflict of interest?
Ah, well, very clear rules,
which was what I was going to say,
very clear, clear rules
around conflict of interest
were put in place as soon as
Mr Willison decided to take up
his new job.
So he stepped out of any
relevant discussions.
We did everything we could to
Well, the judge ruled that all
criminal activity
in that case was masterminded
from the top of the company.
So was Mr Willison involved
in the decision
not to prosecute
Southern executives?
Well, see We I mean,
we can't comment on that.
No, we can't comment.
Yeah, we don't talk about
internal meetings. Mm.
Well, how many water company
executives
has the agency prosecuted?
Well, criminal prosecution
is quite a high bar.
That's it? If we had evidence that
the offence was serious enough,
we wouldn't hesitate to prosecute,
but there is no substantiated
evidence.
We've just given you evidence,
we've told you.
But it's not substantiated.
A board-sanctioned plan
for seven years
of continuous dumping
was not enough evidence?
Thanks so much. I've got to dash.
We'll be in touch. Thank you.
Thank you so much. Thanks so much.
I hope that goes well.
I'm going to get another one.
You're going to have another
Flake 99?
Eileen thinks I've got an
obsessive streak. Huh.
Well, she's not wrong, is she?
What the hell was that?
Well, did you think they'd
be more grateful
for our disclosures
about revolving doors?
They really think that
that was all right.
Working for both of them
at the same time.
And I think you're taking it
personally. I am.
You know, I mean, for me,
it's an occupational hazard.
I feel like I've been beaten up.
That's how I feel,
and I've never been beaten up.
We're getting somewhere.
We're making a difference.
We're clearly up against
something bigger.
Right, see, now she's not going
to be back from football
till about seven, so
All right. Just tell her to
put that in the micro.
You look nice.
What is it?
Um
You know, um
Tony's got that flat down
the Arundel Road
he's not using?
Well, um, he said I can stop there
for a bit if I want.
You know, just
Just while I do the Tesco job, like.
Yeah. Uh
Good idea.
It might be better, mightn't it?
Yeah
Yeah.
I'm going to be late, so Yeah.
All right?
All right. Yeah.
See ya. See ya.
TV PLAYS
DOORBELL RINGS
You all right, bab?
You all right, Dad?
I've got your pizza in there
if you want it.
I'm not hungry.
I've got a project,
so I might just
All right, yeah, we'll have it
later, shall we? Yeah.
Um, if we get hungry.
All right.
Do you want anything, bab?
TV PLAYS
DOORBELL RINGS
You all right, bab?
My God, look at you.
What's going on, Mum?
Watch the video. Yeah.
It's really not as bad as you think
it is.
No, it's not. OK. Mm
There it is. Is there sound on this?
Uh, no. No.
So there it is, as you can see.
Mm. Oh, no. Yeah.
Yeah Yeah.
Oh We actually think it's, um,
agricultural run-off
Right. Yeah.
Actually. What, from farms?
Mm-hm.
It's almost certainly farm run-off.
Mm.
Almost certainly. Yeah.
We believe. Yeah.
Um, and we do have a
We do have a responsibility
to report that
to the Environment Agency.
Pollution Spills
So we'd say Blimey.
Um, this is due to the farm. Mm-hm.
The farms.
And that is what has led to
this Overspill.
Overspill. Mm-hm.
That's really nice.
I love that as well. That was very
good. Agricultural
So, though there have been
storm-activated overspill,
the discolouration of the water is
because of agricultural run-off.
Exactly. Yeah.
We are sorry about this,
and we will do everything
in our power
to improve the situation. Mm.
But some of it is not our fault.
Yeah.
Well, I think if we can just own it.
It is not our fault. Yeah.
Exactly. I think we just
We just own it.
It's farmers' fault. Yeah,
absolutely. I can use the hands,
and I think that helps the audience
to feel like I'm one of them.
Yeah. You very much do fit
in as well with one of the
You know, you're You're almost
one of them in many ways.
Yes. Yes
I thought high-vis,
a pair of those wraparound
goggles that kind of skiers wear.
You've got those Lizzie, yeah.
And a hard hat.
I hear your frustration,
I really do.
Smashed it.
I thought it was amazing.
So you know we've been getting
a lot of these
sickness reports coming
in from the southwest?
Well, they've asked us if we wanted
to go to a meeting down there.
It's kind of a national thing.
There's going to be water company
bosses there.
And, I mean, I think we should go,
shouldn't we?
We've done a huge amount of research
at the UK Council of Water
on levels of public trust
in the water industry.
And what we've found generally
is that levels of public trust
are actually pretty high.
No, no Well, you might laugh,
but, but
Guy, I actually I do get it.
There's been a lot of pain.
There's been a lot of frustration.
Yeah. We have the only bathing
status river in this country.
We have 2,000 people there
in the summer with their kids,
with fishing nets,
sitting amongst turds.
We're all passionate about
the environment.
We're passionate about water
quality.
It's the driving force
behind what we do.
No! Can you answer why, then,
my son's been so ill from 2022
after a day on the beach and then
contracted hepatitis A?
That is the week before
we went on our holiday.
That's the week after, in hospital.
That's a week later when he's
starting to get jaundice
and he's starting to get bilirubin.
And that - that's from something
called cholestasis,
which affects your gall bladder.
He itched like crazy.
These scars are still around.
He can't stand without them hurting.
Through school, I missed about,
probably three or four months.
And even when I was at school,
I was that tired
I was just dropping to sleep.
I couldn't remember
half the stuff I learnt,
and it took a long time to sort of
build back up
a sort of friendship group.
Um
and it also led to like a lot
of bullying, people saying,
"Oh, you went in the wa
all this dirty water,
"with human poo in it
and stuff like that."
I used to do a lot of farming,
helping my dad.
It just wipes you out.
You've got no energy.
You can't do anything.
You just you just had to stop.
Every feedback that you give us is,
you know, really, really
important to us.
I didn't know at the time,
but Surfers Against Sewage
explained that there was
342 hours of raw sewage
that was released into the beach
that I was swimming on.
This particular strep bacteria
entered my bloodstream
and started growing
on my heart valve,
so I had to have a
heart replacement.
I was in hospital for six weeks.
I ended up having
open-heart surgery.
The health and wellbeing
of our customers
is at the forefront of what we do,
and hearing stories like this
is incredibly important to us.
I was ignored!
We can reflect on them.
My story wasn't even replied to.
Lessons will be learnt.
We can reflect on them
going forwards.
You've had your say.
Now listen to someone who's
worked in the water industry
for 40 years of his life
Prior to privatisation,
if the infrastructure needed
upgrading, it got it.
If it needed bits of plant
to be replaced, it got it.
It was run like a
military operation.
Macquarie's come along.
God help us.
Asset-stripped it,
sold land, sold pumping stations,
built blocks of flats onto it
and decimated our infrastructure.
This falls back to the government
to renationalise this industry ASAP.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Get rid of the people
who have asset-stripped it,
stripped it of millions of pounds.
All your profits, all your bonuses.
Keir Starmer,
Steve Reed, the invisible man -
do your job and renationalise
the water industry.
Well
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Mistakes are made,
but I would say this -
and I'd happily go on the record -
I would drink water out of any tap
in the United Kingdom.
Sorry, would you come to Brixham
and have a glass of our water?
Um Last year in May,
we had an outbreak of
cryptosporidium,
as Susan Davy knows.
It's obviously a privilege
and a huge responsibility
to run a water company.
And it's one that I take
very, very seriously.
I was poisoned by cryptosporidium
in the water.
I was ill for such
a very long time,
six months or more.
My body was attacking itself.
My immune system was
attacking itself.
My injuries are life-changing.
What we are committed to
is improving step by step.
And things do go wrong.
Things go wrong. I put my hands up.
Could you please explain to us
why you got a 58% pay rise?
I don't actually set my pay.
I don't, actually. It's not down
to me how much I'm paid.
The amount you're talking about
will actually be a
cost of living increase.
Yeah, yeah.
LAUGHTER
You earn 860 grand a year.
We don't have a choice in
our water provider.
I come from Henley.
We're in the Thames region.
I know Ash and Peter well.
How have we arrived in a situation
where a privatised water industry
is scamming the public,
is taking off enormous profits
and dividends for shareholders,
paying huge bonuses to executives,
and our children are getting
vomiting and diarrhoea
from doing what should
come naturally?
We do not trust you.
APPLAUSE
Not one water company executive
has ever been prosecuted
and served prison time,
quite honestly, which they should.
APPLAUSE
There you go.
I'll put your tea there.
PHONE VIBRATES
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
SHE SIGHS
Yeah, hello?
Pete, Pete. Listen to me.
Mickey. Yeah.
I haven't got much time, all right?
River Ray, outside Swindon.
A sewage mains exploded.
It's a crime scene, mate.
You've got to get down there
right now before they clear it up.
And, Pete, listen. Thank you.
You're a 21-carat geezer.
Yeah. So are you, Mickey.
The river's gone, Ash. I mean
That's And it's not coming back.
How many do you reckon?
What, killed? Mm.
ASH SIGHS Hundreds, thousands.
Thousands of babies, definitely.
What? Ash, I'm scared that
we're running out of time.
What do you mean by that?
That we're running out of time
to make a difference.
What are you talking about?
Look at this.
Look at this we've got. This is
This is the best stuff so far.
But nothing's going to happen,
is it, Ash?
What do you mean?
Thames Water, they're going
to make a statement saying that
the environment is their
number one priority.
And the agency, they're just going
to launch an investigation
that we'll never hear about again.
And they're Well, they're acting
as though we don't exist.
So what are you saying?
I I don't know how long
we've got.
We're not going to make
a difference.
There's no time left
to make a difference.
What are you talking about?
Look at this we just shot.
But it doesn't matter.
This is not the time to pack it in!
But it doesn't matter
what we show them.
It doesn't matter.
I mean, we could show them
dead bodies floating down the river,
they still wouldn't do anything
about it, would they?
Right. We just go back,
you go and watch some bloody jazz.
When you think you're beaten,
you don't give in.
We're going to the right channels,
we're doing the right thing
and nothing's coming back,
and nothing's come back for years.
So what do you want to do?
It's exhausting.
We get nothing back.
I'm not stopping.
I can't.
PHONE VIBRATES
Hello? Yeah. No
Yeah, we're on our way back.
May 2020.
Subject - Environment Agency
complicit in lawbreaking.
"Dear Sir James,
over the past two years,
"Professor Peter Hammond and I
have been documenting
"chronic offending by Thames Water.
"Thames have been using our river
"as a cheap way to carry
raw sewage out to sea
"and making vast profits doing so.
"The Environment Agency
has been turning a blind eye
"and misrepresenting facts
to the public."
Peter!
Peter.
It's the middle of the night.
WHISPERING: What are you doing?
I was worried. I couldn't sleep.
Worried about what?
About all the things that
All the things that live
in the river.
You didn't put your hands in it,
did you?
No.
OK.
There's nothing you can do now.
I know.
I know.
OK.
So shall we go back to bed?
Yeah. Yeah?
We have the best quality water
since the Industrial Revolution.
The water's turned brown.
From today, we are ending
on-site inspections
for Cats 3 and 4.
What exactly do you want us to do?
Reuben!
We need another whistle-blower.
The regulation isn't real.
The government want us to
look like a regulator,
but they won't let us do our job.
You have a duty not to disclose
confidential information
to anyone not authorised
to receive it!
This programme contains very
strong language from the start,
distressing scenes
and scenes of suicide
They're allowed to dump
untreated sewage.
But that that can't be right.
There's something weird about this.
I think that's poo.
Of course it's not poo!
And wash it off, scrub it.
Heather's brain has lost the ability
to control her vital organs.
I think it's time we consider
turning off her ventilators.
We've got to get this to
the Environment Agency.
They're the sewage police.
We want to strip out as much
unnecessary regulation as possible.
They make Del Boy look like
a fucking amateur.
When the everyday flows are missing,
they're not treating the sewage.
And if they're not treating
the sewage,
there's nowhere for it to go.
Except into the river.
Regulate yourselves
and then just let us know
if you've committed any crimes.
They've dumped sewage
a thousand times.
These aren't accidents.
It's a policy.
This is starting to look like
organised crime.
Fuck!
It's only now that it's
coming to light.
Thank goodness for the people's
regulator.
Peter Hammond, thank you.
Thank goodness for Ash.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Thank goodness for the public,
who are standing up
and showing you what's really
going on around here
Hi. Amy Christophers,
Citizens Against South West Water.
When Peter decoded
these these spreadsheets,
we realised that the company
had been dumping sewage
into our river for years.
Me and the machines,
we are now investigating hundreds,
hundreds of these sewage works using
the data from each one of them.
You know that I've got to go down
to Whitstable this weekend.
What, Saturday?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
They've got these two people who've
been working at the agency.
Says that the Southern Water
solicitors
have been threatening them.
You know about Charles and Camilla?
Charles and Camilla
were coming down for the
Whitstable Oyster Festival, right?
But when they tested them,
they were so full of shit
they had to give them oysters
imported from France.
All over the local news.
Whitstable's oysters under
threat from sewage leaks.
Sewage spills threaten to wipe out
Whitstable oyster farmers.
People were very fucked off.
Look at the amount of effluent.
So, Southern Water, you're not
releasing sewage into the sea?
And by then, the Environment Agency
had no choice,
they had to launch an investigation.
Made a mistake putting us in charge.
We're the ones in the trenches.
We take things seriously.
There are still a few of us left.
But we had no clue what we were
letting ourselves in for, did we?
You all right? No.
What've you done?
Put my back out this morning.
INTERCOM RINGS Hello?
Hello, it's John Bull
from the Environment Agency.
We've got an appointment.
Tell them Tell them I'm waving.
Tell them I'm waving.
HE CHUCKLES
Bigger! Go on. Go on.
Right Jump up and down.
All right, that's it, I'm not
Honestly, I can't stand up for too
long today. Sit down, mate.
We know you're in there.
We are not leaving.
We have an appointment.
It's now
Cheese, mayo, spring onion.
Almost looks like one word there.
Press one to speak to no-one.
Press two
To speak to no-one.
To speak to no-one.
Press three
HE GROANS to give up all hope.
Same bollocks every works we went.
Chichester, Millbrook,
Slowhill, Thornham.
And so many times
just refusing us entry.
Sometimes they just snatched the
logbooks right out of our hands.
Or just tell us to fuck off.
When you get chicken
from a supermarket,
it's got that plastic covering on,
right? Yeah.
Lift that off,
leave it for a few minutes
because it automatically smells
of fish and people get scared
thinking they're going to get food
poisoning and that's when they
throw it away. But if you leave it
for a bit,
let the air come out, right,
it just smells of chicken.
Then you can cook it.
HE MUMBLES WITH MOUTH FULL
Oh. Hello.
Hiya. Miss Humphries?
Yeah. Yeah, well, we've got -
we've made an appointment.
Oh, sorry. Was that you guys?
Yes! Yeah. Yeah, we've been here
for hours, we've been buzzing.
Oh We had a 9.15.
Oh, 9.15
Yes, 9 As opposed to?
Uh 3.15? Yeah. Yeah Right.
Can we just get in there, please?
Can you buzz us in?
He's got a bad back.
All right. Come on.
Oh, my God.
What? Is your buzzer broken? No.
You worked here long? Uh
I wouldn't say long.
Yeah. There's two really nice stools
you can sit on.
So Ooh.
Poppi, can I just ask, these are the
engineers' logbooks, right?
Yeah. I think they go back,
like, ten years.
So how much do you read?
Um, we've got enough to be
getting on with.
All right. We'll give you a shout
if we need you. OK.
Is that all right? Yeah.
Thank you. Good.
Great. Do you want me to go?
BOTH: Erm
Storm tank full
Yeah, storm tank overflow.
They've had to triple reset.
It's an illegal dump. Brilliant.
You've got nothing there, right?
What, in the status report?
Yeah. But on these status reports,
this is 12 as well.
Mr Bull, David Marwood,
Southern Water.
Oh, good to meet you. Nice to meet
you. Alex, nice to meet you.
I am going to have to ask you to
hand back these logbooks, please.
Um, they are proprietary material.
Sorry, I don't I
These books Mm-hm.
They are the property
of Southern Water.
The engineer logbooks, yeah.
You have gained access
to them unlawfully.
Uh, no. I'm asking you
to hand them back.
Unlawfully? These are the property
of Southern Water.
You gaining access to them is
illegal. If you just hand it over.
No-one wants to I'm sorry.
Sorry, what was your name again?
What we're doing
What was your name again, sir?
Mr Marwood, we are conducting
an investigation
under section 108 of
the Environmental Act.
We are well within our rights.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Poppi, put those down,
we haven't finished with them.
Mr Marwood, you're obstructing our
investigation
under section 108 of
the Environmental Act.
John
What you're doing is unlawful.
Please leave.
Let's just go. Let's just go.
Give them here.
We'll be back, Mr Marwood.
Sandwiches.
Criminal offence.
You know it took us seven years.
Seven years.
We nicked some in the end.
Southern Water has been
sentenced to pay a record
£90 million fine after
pleading guilty
They plead guilty to 6,971 crimes,
composited into 51 counts.
First day. Each dump is punishable
by five years in prison,
but instead, the judge just
fined them.
90 million.
The cost of doing business.
They dumped 7,400 Olympic
swimming pools of raw shite.
With the knowledge of the board.
They were making so much money,
these fines weren't touching
the sides.
But this time, they were committed
to a culture change,
which is where Toby Willison
came in.
Who's Toby Willison?
HE SCOFFS
Oh, you don't know about
Toby Willison?
So Toby was number two in the
Environment Agency under Sir James,
but then Southern poached him a year
before they were sentenced.
They told the judge that he was
going to run a clean-up operation
within the company.
He saw that as a mitigating factor,
reducing the fine from 120 million
to 90 million.
So you hire the second most
senior person at the regulator
who is actually prosecuting you
And you get a £30 million discount
on your fine.
But that Isn't I mean,
that's corruption, isn't it?
Well, we can see how it might have
the appearance of corruption,
but it wasn't.
You see, there's a revolving door.
People leave the agency and go
and work for the companies
they're regulating all the time.
It's just the way the
industry works.
When the agency brought the case
against Southern,
was this Toby Willison in charge?
Well, we know he was acting chief
executive at some point.
Was he deciding who you guys
were going to prosecute?
We didn't prosecute
any water company execs.
We never have.
You and I can probably remember
as kids swimming in the sea,
and being surrounded by
floating faecal
Faecal material.
I've certainly
I've experienced that now.
Not Not as kids.
If you look at the quality of
our bathing waters now,
it is unrecognisable from
20, 25 years ago.
And that is a direct result of
the massive amount of
investment the water companies have
put into the networks.
Remarkable. Well, I don't believe
any of that.
Well, James Murray joins us now
You're not going to believe this
one. Toby Willison
Yeah, what about him?
You know the lobby group
funded by the water companies? Yeah.
Willison has been on their board
since 2019.
You mean after he went to
Southern Water?
No, no, no, no, no. He's been
on the board of British Water
while he was working for the agency.
That means that the number two at
the Environment Agency
had a side hustle working
for the water companies.
Well, water quality is now better
than at any time
since the Industrial Revolution,
thanks to tougher regulations
by the Environment Agency.
So this is Toby Willison's boss,
is it? Yeah.
He's at the very, very top.
Liz Truss was the environment
minister and she made him
Head of the Environment Agency.
I don't know why she chose him.
She seems to think the Environment
Agency's part of the deep state.
That's because the Environment
Agency will not
What? ..hesitate to go after
water companies who cause
serious pollution.
But he's at the very top, isn't it?
He's the one we need to get to.
He's our man.
The agency said that she could have
contracted E coli from dog poo.
The little girl who died? Mm.
I've been looking for another case
where dog faeces has triggered
an E coli
And you can't find one? ..outbreak.
No, no
PHONE RINGS There aren't any.
Hi, is that Julie?
Hi, this is Chris Hines.
Yes, I work for an organisation
called Surfers Against Sewage.
Listen, Julie, I'm down at the
beach at Dawlish Warren.
I think we really need to speak.
No, I've always been a surfer.
I moved to Cornwall when I was 19,
lived in a caravan,
just so I could surf every day.
But everyone was getting sick
all the time.
There was this one day when I came
up under this huge wave,
I found a sanitary towel stuck
to the back of my head
and a turd lodged between my
chest and the board.
I thought, "This has got to stop."
So we founded Surfers Against Sewage
in my caravan,
and it was not long after that we
all went to Parliament
in our wet suits.
We were trying to get the message
out about clean water,
and we didn't do a good enough job.
I picked Dawlish
because it had a blue flag.
Of course you did, because the blue
flag is the gold standard
for water quality.
It's meant to mean
that the water's clean.
The council, they've set up
an investigation team.
If it finds that sewage
killed Heather,
it's going to be a calamity
for business here.
My guess is they're going to be
looking for any explanation,
so long as it's not sewage.
Thanks all for being here at this
start-up meeting
for the Outbreak Investigation team.
Sorry, I wonder if we should be
calling it an outbreak.
It feels like the kind of term
that could alarm people.
I think cluster might be
better messaging.
Of course, the quality
of the bathing water
at Dawlish is consistently high.
That's a really good point.
I mean, that will be
reflected in the report.
We know there have been
some complaints
about sewage on the beaches.
Er, thanks, Sarah, that's right.
We were contacted by members of
the public about this,
and we did send inspectors out.
In the event, there'd been just
a single spill on July 24th,
a full four days before the
Preens visited the beach,
so it's very unlikely that the
spill could have had an impact.
And we know that although the Preens
went to the beach
on several occasions,
Heather never swam in the water.
So with sewage looking unlikely
as a culprit,
we're focusing on fast food
and dog faeces.
Mr and Mrs Preen?
We were so sorry to hear
about Heather.
Yeah, it must be such
a difficult time.
But we just need to ask you
a few questions.
Could I ask you about
the fast food your family's
been eating since you got to
Dawlish?
So you want to know
what we had to eat?
Any takeaways? Burgers?
No, we ate in the chalet most
nights. Chicken shops, chippies?
Any fast food at all?
No, we didn't have any burgers.
We didn't have any fast food.
To be honest, we were on
a bit of a budget, so
When you went to the beach,
how much dog poo did you see?
We didn't see any dog droppings.
We saw human sewage. Sorry, why do
you want to know about dog poo?
Because if Heather had stepped in
something, she'd have told us.
We have to look into every
possible source.
So if you don't know what
caused the infection,
then you need to shut down
the beach, don't you? Yeah.
Because the children could get this
and my daughter's dead,
so you need to shut it down.
That's not going to happen.
After the investigation,
there's going to be an inquest.
I can get you a lawyer.
There was an unplanned,
negligible spill on the 24th,
four days before the Preens
visited the beach.
The Dawlish coast is a
high dispersal area.
The winds and currents are
sufficiently strong
that any sewage would have
been dispersed long before
the Preens visited the beach.
E coli O157 is not routinely found
in sewage and it's rare in water.
The sea breaks down the bacteria,
so there's no record of an E coli
O157 infection from sea bathing
in the UK.
What kind of health risk would
sewage on a footpath present?
It's not for the Environment Agency
to comment on a health risk.
You don't have a view about
whether sewage is a health risk?
It's not within the remit
or the expertise
of the Environment Agency to comment
on a public health risk.
We walked along
the coastal path every day.
There was a discharge
coming out from the pipe
and it had made a puddle, you see.
How big was the puddle?
I don't know, three feet maybe.
And it was spilling out
onto the beach.
It smelt like faeces.
And I could see there
was little bits
of pink toilet paper in it.
So you walked around it?
No, we jumped over it.
Except, um
Heather didn't manage
to clear it, and, um
She landed in the puddle that was
coming from the pipe?
Yeah.
You couldn't stop her?
I
I didn't stop her.
We didn't know.
You say you saw the
the puddle every day? Yeah.
You're aware that the Environment
Agency has been unable
to confirm any subsequent spills?
That there was only one confirmed
report of a spill
during your holiday.
Why do you think you were the
only one who saw the puddle?
I don't know.
But I saw it.
Is it possible that you've confused
things in your memory?
No. I saw it.
We all saw it, didn't we?
There was a puddle and
a little stream of poo.
In the days running up
to the Preens' visit,
the Environment Agency received
at least 14 complaints
about sewage on the beach.
In the week before Heather Preen
fell ill,
I treated two children
with febrile gastroenteritis.
The children had been swimming
at the town beach
and then found themselves
immersed in raw sewage.
I reported it
but heard nothing more.
In the days after the Preens' visit,
Dawlish was inundated with faeces.
Big influxes of sewage debris
were turning up on the beach.
Our cleaners logged the number
of sanitary towels.
South West Water pays contractors
to clean up the sewage by hand.
Resort staff were cleaning away
sewage as a matter of urgency.
At least six other children
were infected with the E coli virus
after being at the beach that day.
Sophie Smith was seven-months-old.
Back home in Walsall,
she was diagnosed with an
E coli O157 infection.
11-year-old Jane Duncan
was hospitalised
with an E coli O157 infection.
She bled through her anus 50 times
in the first few days
and asked her parents
if she was going to die.
Ashley, Ruby and Dylan Hamlyn,
along with their mum Claire,
were all infected.
Claire drove her son Dylan
to hospital
after they both began bleeding
from their backsides.
Doctors wouldn't admit Claire
at first,
so she cleared up her own blood
and vomit from the toilets.
Later, Dylan's sisters Ashley
and Ruby were also admitted.
There's no cure for E coli.
They keep you on a drip
and hope for the best.
Dylan's screaming was so
frightening,
his dad thought everyone
was going to die.
E coli 0157 is a pathogen
that thrives in sewage.
It can survive in water
for up to 91 days.
Swimming in water infected
with E coli has been identified
as the cause of multiple outbreaks.
We tested the waters around Dawlish.
Of the 45 samples taken,
only two came back positive
for E coli O157.
The infected families were all
on a part of the beach
where dogs were allowed.
They could all have crisscrossed
the site of an infected dog faeces.
None of us were on the same part
of the beach.
We never saw any dog poo.
This map doesn't make any sense.
The families weren't on the same
part of the beach.
No-one saw any dog faeces,
and there's no good evidence
of transmission from dogs anywhere.
South West water and the Environment
Agency present this
improbable theory whilst choosing
to ignore repeated
substantial sewage pollution.
The agency did carry out tests
on the sea water.
But the testing took place on
the 27th of August
a full month after the infected
families had visited the beach.
Cunts.
Fucking cunts, Jule. I know.
They twisted everything.
I know they did.
I've let Heather down, haven't I?
You've not let her down.
You think I can ask Henry
if I can do it again?
No. What are you on about?
You've done it.
You stuck up for her.
We saw You stuck up
for this family.
We saw them sanitary towels, Jule.
We saw the toilet roll. We
Didn't we?
And we let our babies go back out.
Not here, not here. We did, though.
At first, they said it was something
we had to eat,
but it wasn't, so
Then they came up with dog poo.
But how could all of our kids
walk through the same bit
of poo without remembering?
I would know if my child
had touched poo.
The one thing all our kids
did do was go into the water.
We saw the toilet roll.
We saw the sanitary towels.
You can't tell us we didn't see it
because we did. We saw it.
I know now we should have
turned away from that beach.
I know that.
Heather's dad knows that.
We will live with that.
We chose Dawlish because of the
blue flag, and we trusted it.
The gold standard of water quality.
We didn't know it was a lie.
No-one should have died the way
my Heather died.
She was poisoned
and the anti-sickness tablets
they gave her meant her little body
couldn't get rid of it.
She was liquidised from the inside.
We went on holiday,
a family of four,
and we've come back
a family of three.
And we don't want any money,
don't worry.
SHE SCOFFS
We don't want your money, so
We just
We want something to change.
We don't want another
family to go to the beach
and come back with one less child.
And you're still dumping sewage.
And you
You're the Environment Agency.
You're supposed to look after us,
and you are sat here
in this court and you're swapping
notes with South West Water. Why?
And it took you It took them
one month to go looking
for the E coli that killed
my daughter.
Why would you do that?
What is this?
I I would not wish
what has happened
to us on my worst enemy.
I wouldn't wish it on your kids.
So, please
close the beach. Please.
Before this happens
to somebody else.
Please.
Following an inquisition taken
for our sovereign lady, the Queen,
touching on the death
of Heather Amy Preen.
The cause of death
was E coli poisoning.
The deceased probably contracted
E coli whilst visiting
the beach at Dawlish Warren
on the 24th of July,
along with other children
who survived.
I recommend that consideration
be given to a notice
warning the public
of sewage discharges.
And that an ultraviolet
treatment should be added
to the sewage works at Dawlish.
Consideration should be given
to greater enforcement
of the dogs on the beach ban.
June 2019,
Sir James Bevan, Environment Agency.
"Dear Sir James, I wrote to you
to raise concerns about
"a serious integrity issue
involving the agency.
"I did not receive any
acknowledgement."
Yes, Sir James Bevan.
This is Ash Smith,
Windrush Against Sewage Pollution.
We sent an email.
We sent a lot of emails.
Ash. What?
Ash? Yes, I'll hold.
What? I'm on the bloody phone.
They want us to come in. Who?
Fucking hell!
Belly of the beast.
Very nice to meet you.
Hello there, Lucy Hart.
Please do sit down.
Sir James is on the on
the premises, I take it?
Um, he's No, he's not.
I think he's at a meeting.
He's been called out
to an external
I was hoping he might be even
present in the meeting.
Not this kind of meeting, no,
he's He's
I just wanted to start with a few
questions about integrity.
Because I see that the agency's
former director of operations
joined the board of British Water
while he was working for the agency,
which means that your COO
was moonlighting
for the water companies
while he was regulating them.
So what do we Oh, dear.
What do we call that?
Well, I think moonlighting's a
pretty strong word.
Um Definition.
What I would say is that,
um, Toby Willison no longer works
for the agency.
That's the first point,
and when he decided
But how is that a fact,
when he was here, though?
The fact that he's not here
doesn't I'm coming on to that.
His declarations,
with all due respect,
his declarations of interest
were noted at the time. Right.
And any risks at all,
and we do take these things
very seriously,
were appropriately managed.
Yes, but then Mr Willison was hired
by a water company
as it stood trial on 51 counts
of sewage dumping.
How is that not a case
of conflict of interest?
Ah, well, very clear rules,
which was what I was going to say,
very clear, clear rules
around conflict of interest
were put in place as soon as
Mr Willison decided to take up
his new job.
So he stepped out of any
relevant discussions.
We did everything we could to
Well, the judge ruled that all
criminal activity
in that case was masterminded
from the top of the company.
So was Mr Willison involved
in the decision
not to prosecute
Southern executives?
Well, see We I mean,
we can't comment on that.
No, we can't comment.
Yeah, we don't talk about
internal meetings. Mm.
Well, how many water company
executives
has the agency prosecuted?
Well, criminal prosecution
is quite a high bar.
That's it? If we had evidence that
the offence was serious enough,
we wouldn't hesitate to prosecute,
but there is no substantiated
evidence.
We've just given you evidence,
we've told you.
But it's not substantiated.
A board-sanctioned plan
for seven years
of continuous dumping
was not enough evidence?
Thanks so much. I've got to dash.
We'll be in touch. Thank you.
Thank you so much. Thanks so much.
I hope that goes well.
I'm going to get another one.
You're going to have another
Flake 99?
Eileen thinks I've got an
obsessive streak. Huh.
Well, she's not wrong, is she?
What the hell was that?
Well, did you think they'd
be more grateful
for our disclosures
about revolving doors?
They really think that
that was all right.
Working for both of them
at the same time.
And I think you're taking it
personally. I am.
You know, I mean, for me,
it's an occupational hazard.
I feel like I've been beaten up.
That's how I feel,
and I've never been beaten up.
We're getting somewhere.
We're making a difference.
We're clearly up against
something bigger.
Right, see, now she's not going
to be back from football
till about seven, so
All right. Just tell her to
put that in the micro.
You look nice.
What is it?
Um
You know, um
Tony's got that flat down
the Arundel Road
he's not using?
Well, um, he said I can stop there
for a bit if I want.
You know, just
Just while I do the Tesco job, like.
Yeah. Uh
Good idea.
It might be better, mightn't it?
Yeah
Yeah.
I'm going to be late, so Yeah.
All right?
All right. Yeah.
See ya. See ya.
TV PLAYS
DOORBELL RINGS
You all right, bab?
You all right, Dad?
I've got your pizza in there
if you want it.
I'm not hungry.
I've got a project,
so I might just
All right, yeah, we'll have it
later, shall we? Yeah.
Um, if we get hungry.
All right.
Do you want anything, bab?
TV PLAYS
DOORBELL RINGS
You all right, bab?
My God, look at you.
What's going on, Mum?
Watch the video. Yeah.
It's really not as bad as you think
it is.
No, it's not. OK. Mm
There it is. Is there sound on this?
Uh, no. No.
So there it is, as you can see.
Mm. Oh, no. Yeah.
Yeah Yeah.
Oh We actually think it's, um,
agricultural run-off
Right. Yeah.
Actually. What, from farms?
Mm-hm.
It's almost certainly farm run-off.
Mm.
Almost certainly. Yeah.
We believe. Yeah.
Um, and we do have a
We do have a responsibility
to report that
to the Environment Agency.
Pollution Spills
So we'd say Blimey.
Um, this is due to the farm. Mm-hm.
The farms.
And that is what has led to
this Overspill.
Overspill. Mm-hm.
That's really nice.
I love that as well. That was very
good. Agricultural
So, though there have been
storm-activated overspill,
the discolouration of the water is
because of agricultural run-off.
Exactly. Yeah.
We are sorry about this,
and we will do everything
in our power
to improve the situation. Mm.
But some of it is not our fault.
Yeah.
Well, I think if we can just own it.
It is not our fault. Yeah.
Exactly. I think we just
We just own it.
It's farmers' fault. Yeah,
absolutely. I can use the hands,
and I think that helps the audience
to feel like I'm one of them.
Yeah. You very much do fit
in as well with one of the
You know, you're You're almost
one of them in many ways.
Yes. Yes
I thought high-vis,
a pair of those wraparound
goggles that kind of skiers wear.
You've got those Lizzie, yeah.
And a hard hat.
I hear your frustration,
I really do.
Smashed it.
I thought it was amazing.
So you know we've been getting
a lot of these
sickness reports coming
in from the southwest?
Well, they've asked us if we wanted
to go to a meeting down there.
It's kind of a national thing.
There's going to be water company
bosses there.
And, I mean, I think we should go,
shouldn't we?
We've done a huge amount of research
at the UK Council of Water
on levels of public trust
in the water industry.
And what we've found generally
is that levels of public trust
are actually pretty high.
No, no Well, you might laugh,
but, but
Guy, I actually I do get it.
There's been a lot of pain.
There's been a lot of frustration.
Yeah. We have the only bathing
status river in this country.
We have 2,000 people there
in the summer with their kids,
with fishing nets,
sitting amongst turds.
We're all passionate about
the environment.
We're passionate about water
quality.
It's the driving force
behind what we do.
No! Can you answer why, then,
my son's been so ill from 2022
after a day on the beach and then
contracted hepatitis A?
That is the week before
we went on our holiday.
That's the week after, in hospital.
That's a week later when he's
starting to get jaundice
and he's starting to get bilirubin.
And that - that's from something
called cholestasis,
which affects your gall bladder.
He itched like crazy.
These scars are still around.
He can't stand without them hurting.
Through school, I missed about,
probably three or four months.
And even when I was at school,
I was that tired
I was just dropping to sleep.
I couldn't remember
half the stuff I learnt,
and it took a long time to sort of
build back up
a sort of friendship group.
Um
and it also led to like a lot
of bullying, people saying,
"Oh, you went in the wa
all this dirty water,
"with human poo in it
and stuff like that."
I used to do a lot of farming,
helping my dad.
It just wipes you out.
You've got no energy.
You can't do anything.
You just you just had to stop.
Every feedback that you give us is,
you know, really, really
important to us.
I didn't know at the time,
but Surfers Against Sewage
explained that there was
342 hours of raw sewage
that was released into the beach
that I was swimming on.
This particular strep bacteria
entered my bloodstream
and started growing
on my heart valve,
so I had to have a
heart replacement.
I was in hospital for six weeks.
I ended up having
open-heart surgery.
The health and wellbeing
of our customers
is at the forefront of what we do,
and hearing stories like this
is incredibly important to us.
I was ignored!
We can reflect on them.
My story wasn't even replied to.
Lessons will be learnt.
We can reflect on them
going forwards.
You've had your say.
Now listen to someone who's
worked in the water industry
for 40 years of his life
Prior to privatisation,
if the infrastructure needed
upgrading, it got it.
If it needed bits of plant
to be replaced, it got it.
It was run like a
military operation.
Macquarie's come along.
God help us.
Asset-stripped it,
sold land, sold pumping stations,
built blocks of flats onto it
and decimated our infrastructure.
This falls back to the government
to renationalise this industry ASAP.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Get rid of the people
who have asset-stripped it,
stripped it of millions of pounds.
All your profits, all your bonuses.
Keir Starmer,
Steve Reed, the invisible man -
do your job and renationalise
the water industry.
Well
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Mistakes are made,
but I would say this -
and I'd happily go on the record -
I would drink water out of any tap
in the United Kingdom.
Sorry, would you come to Brixham
and have a glass of our water?
Um Last year in May,
we had an outbreak of
cryptosporidium,
as Susan Davy knows.
It's obviously a privilege
and a huge responsibility
to run a water company.
And it's one that I take
very, very seriously.
I was poisoned by cryptosporidium
in the water.
I was ill for such
a very long time,
six months or more.
My body was attacking itself.
My immune system was
attacking itself.
My injuries are life-changing.
What we are committed to
is improving step by step.
And things do go wrong.
Things go wrong. I put my hands up.
Could you please explain to us
why you got a 58% pay rise?
I don't actually set my pay.
I don't, actually. It's not down
to me how much I'm paid.
The amount you're talking about
will actually be a
cost of living increase.
Yeah, yeah.
LAUGHTER
You earn 860 grand a year.
We don't have a choice in
our water provider.
I come from Henley.
We're in the Thames region.
I know Ash and Peter well.
How have we arrived in a situation
where a privatised water industry
is scamming the public,
is taking off enormous profits
and dividends for shareholders,
paying huge bonuses to executives,
and our children are getting
vomiting and diarrhoea
from doing what should
come naturally?
We do not trust you.
APPLAUSE
Not one water company executive
has ever been prosecuted
and served prison time,
quite honestly, which they should.
APPLAUSE
There you go.
I'll put your tea there.
PHONE VIBRATES
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
SHE SIGHS
Yeah, hello?
Pete, Pete. Listen to me.
Mickey. Yeah.
I haven't got much time, all right?
River Ray, outside Swindon.
A sewage mains exploded.
It's a crime scene, mate.
You've got to get down there
right now before they clear it up.
And, Pete, listen. Thank you.
You're a 21-carat geezer.
Yeah. So are you, Mickey.
The river's gone, Ash. I mean
That's And it's not coming back.
How many do you reckon?
What, killed? Mm.
ASH SIGHS Hundreds, thousands.
Thousands of babies, definitely.
What? Ash, I'm scared that
we're running out of time.
What do you mean by that?
That we're running out of time
to make a difference.
What are you talking about?
Look at this.
Look at this we've got. This is
This is the best stuff so far.
But nothing's going to happen,
is it, Ash?
What do you mean?
Thames Water, they're going
to make a statement saying that
the environment is their
number one priority.
And the agency, they're just going
to launch an investigation
that we'll never hear about again.
And they're Well, they're acting
as though we don't exist.
So what are you saying?
I I don't know how long
we've got.
We're not going to make
a difference.
There's no time left
to make a difference.
What are you talking about?
Look at this we just shot.
But it doesn't matter.
This is not the time to pack it in!
But it doesn't matter
what we show them.
It doesn't matter.
I mean, we could show them
dead bodies floating down the river,
they still wouldn't do anything
about it, would they?
Right. We just go back,
you go and watch some bloody jazz.
When you think you're beaten,
you don't give in.
We're going to the right channels,
we're doing the right thing
and nothing's coming back,
and nothing's come back for years.
So what do you want to do?
It's exhausting.
We get nothing back.
I'm not stopping.
I can't.
PHONE VIBRATES
Hello? Yeah. No
Yeah, we're on our way back.
May 2020.
Subject - Environment Agency
complicit in lawbreaking.
"Dear Sir James,
over the past two years,
"Professor Peter Hammond and I
have been documenting
"chronic offending by Thames Water.
"Thames have been using our river
"as a cheap way to carry
raw sewage out to sea
"and making vast profits doing so.
"The Environment Agency
has been turning a blind eye
"and misrepresenting facts
to the public."
Peter!
Peter.
It's the middle of the night.
WHISPERING: What are you doing?
I was worried. I couldn't sleep.
Worried about what?
About all the things that
All the things that live
in the river.
You didn't put your hands in it,
did you?
No.
OK.
There's nothing you can do now.
I know.
I know.
OK.
So shall we go back to bed?
Yeah. Yeah?
We have the best quality water
since the Industrial Revolution.
The water's turned brown.
From today, we are ending
on-site inspections
for Cats 3 and 4.
What exactly do you want us to do?
Reuben!
We need another whistle-blower.
The regulation isn't real.
The government want us to
look like a regulator,
but they won't let us do our job.
You have a duty not to disclose
confidential information
to anyone not authorised
to receive it!