FAMILIES of children born with deformities blamed on toxic waste have discovered a report suggesting that the authorities hoped to “bury” evidence of how a clean-up operation was bungled.

At least two dozen children whose mothers lived in or frequently visited homes close to a toxic dump in Corby, Northamptonshire, were born with missing or webbed fingers.

Children in the area suffered from the genetic mutation at a rate up to 15 times the national average and parents blame contamination during the toxic waste clean-up.

Some of the children are so badly affected that they are developing further complications as they get older, including heart defects, eye problems and skin conditions.

The clean-up of heavy metals and other poisonous chemicals on the former British Steel site in east Corby was bedevilled with problems from the start in the 1980s.

Even before it began the Environment Agency voiced doubts about the council’s ability to undertake the work, and, once under way, there were serious concerns about the way it was carried out.

The council’s own auditor wrote a damning report in 1996 complaining of incompetence, negligence and ignorance and said there was a “cavalier approach” to the supervision of the operation.

Lawyers representing the families have now been leaked a document suggesting that senior officials discussed concealing managerial blunders rather than admit them.

The memorandum from the principal auditor in April 1997 was written after a meeting with officials, including the chief executive, over complaints about safety standards by a consultant engineer. The auditor asks: “If it is kept ‘under wraps’ how can the matter be actioned?” Work on the site involved cleaning up several pits contaminated with toxic substances dumped by British Steel and sealing all the poisonous waste in one large pit.

Such work should have been carried out under strict rules to ensure the safety of staff and the public.

Many of the open lorries transporting the toxic sludge, however, travelled on the public highway instead of remaining within the site.

Toxic waste is said to have spilt from the lorries on to roads and, the families claim, led to the contamination of pregnant women.

Further contamination is thought to have been caused by fly-tippers who got on to the site through broken fences and then trailed toxic sludge back on to the roads.

Des Collins, a solicitor for the families, said that despite stonewalling by the local authority he was close to issuing a writ for compensation against Corby Borough Council. He said: “We believe that the council had a duty of care to the people around the site and were negligent in carrying out the works. We believe the negligence began at a low level within the council and went higher up in the hierachy as time went on.

“We have documents that we believe will not only show that there was incompetence and negligence but that there may have been a conspiracy to conceal what went on.” The Council accepts that a “short stretch” of the public highway was used by lorries but disputes the causes of the mutations.

Michelle Grove, the head of legal management, said: “The council has not received any evidence which links the land reclamation programme with the congenital upper limb deformities. As such (it) can not accept the contaminants which were present are responsible for the deformities.”

She said that the authority was aware only of eight children suffering the deformity.

She was unable to comment on the suggestion there was an attempt to conceal the issue because she had not seen the document.

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