All language subtitles for Morris Brothers - Attacking the Devil ~ Harold Evans and the Last Nazi War Crime (English with English Subs)

(low rumbling)

If you were to ask people today

what is the worst man-made
disaster in peace time,

they'd probably say something
like, "Oh, the Titanic."

(indistinct chatter)

1912-- 1,512 lives.

Or they might say,
"Oh, Chernobyl."

And maybe a few hundred lives
have gone to that.

But they might say, if they're
being a bit more knowledgeable,

"When then Union Carbide plant
blew up at Bhopal."

And-and the number of people
dead or injured

by that may be as high
as 10,000.

But thalidomide outstrips
all of those,

ten times over and more.

The thalidomide disaster
probably destroyed

more than 100,000 babies,

injured a million adults.

And yet it doesn't feature

in-in the list
that springs to people's mind.

(indistinct chatter)

(indistinct chatter)

Shall we sit down together
and have a look...

HAROLD EVANS: The dilemma
for The Sunday Times

and thalidomide is this.

We had the information that
the compensation was inadequate.

We had more than a suspicion

that the manufacturer
of the drug had been negligent.

But the law of contempt

meant that neither of these
approaches to the story

of thalidomide
could be published.

♪ ♪

By the 1960s,
society was much more complex.

Corporations had grown
more powerful,

more invasive in-in--

for good and bad--
in people's lives.

But nobody knew how complex.

MPs didn't know.
They hadn't got a clue.

Parliament as engine
of investigation inquiry

was useless-- nothing
to compare with Congress.

So it was like somebody
being in a prison cell.

The British press was like this.

Anybody who reached out
their arms...

would hit the walls.

The walls of libel,

contempt of court,

Official Secrets Act,
confidence.

When we tried
to expose the plight

of thalidomide children
who were born

without their arms and legs...

They'd lain
without compensation,

being born as trunks
for ten years!

Why wasn't there a huge

national scandal about it?

Why?

Because the law of contempt
said you were not allowed

to comment on a case
before the courts.

That was the situation.

How could anybody
stand for that?

♪ ♪

(typewriters clicking)

ALAN RUSBRIDGER: You-you look
back on that-that Sunday Times,

uh, and you admire
the courage of a man.

He-he took on big
vested interests,

uh, in the face of very
difficult legal circumstances.

And he blasted open some of the,

some of the, um,
legal challenges

to journalism, uh,

in ways from which
we've all benefited.

(birds chirping)

My real interest
in journalism begins,

actually, when I was 12.

The war was on.

My father was
driving steam trains.

Occasionally, once every
two years, we got a chance

to go on a family vacation.

(kids screaming playfully)

And we went to Rhyll.

We were walking
along the beach,

and there were a group of people
lying down in the distance.

And my dad stopped,

which really exasperated me,

on knees,
and started talking to them.

And they were
survivors of Dunkirk.

MALE REPORTER:
Out from the hell

that is Dunkirk,
back from the steel thrust

of the German war machine
comes the B.E.F.

EVANS:
I didn't realize

till later,
when I went into journalism,

that he was doing
what a good reporter did.

He asked questions.

"What was it like?

"Wh-What happened?

Wh-What was your equipment?"

And so on.

And they gave him
such a story of desperation.

They felt they'd been let down
by the Royal Air Force,

by the French, about the
Maginot Line being a nonsense.

And when we got back
to the boarding house--

we didn't stay in hotels,
we stayed in boarding houses--

there was a Daily Mirror
front page up there.

"Bloody Marvellous!"

"Bloody Marvellous,"
it said about the evacuation.

And then I thought,
"But my dad's telling

"a completely different story.

Who's telling the truth?"

Think of 9/11.

And what happened in the ex--
in the rush to be patriotic,

the British people
and the American people

actually went along
with an atrocity--

the invasion of Iraq.

So what is the duty
of a newspaper

in those circumstances?

Is it to keep up
people's morale?

Or is to do the much
more difficult job,

still very difficult,
of going against the grain

of popular opinion
and looking for the truth?

NARRATOR: His most high profile
and emotionally draining

campaign also had its origins
in the Second World War.

I am the officer
commanding the regiment

of Royal Artillery
guarding this camp.

The officers and men

regard this job as a duty

that has to be performed, and
none of us are likely to forget

what the German people
have done here.

NARRATOR:
The German company

Chemie Grunenthal had been a
soap and perfume manufacturer.

But in 1946, it diversified
to exploit a voracious

postwar demand
for antibiotics and sedatives.

Authorities were concerned

that the unsanitary conditions
in which people were living

were likely
to lead to epidemics,

and sedatives and sleeping
tablets were much in demand

by a people whose nerves
were shattered.

By the mid-'50s,
Germany was a calmer place.

Chemie Grunenthal
faced stiff competition

from other
pharmaceutical companies.

And the demand
for their sedatives

and antibiotics had fallen
to normal levels.

They needed a best-seller.

And they thought
they'd found it

in thalidomide,
an addictive euphoric.

At the time, barbiturates

were much more
prevalent than today,

and people were inadvertently
overdosing in alarming numbers.

An appealing selling point
was that it was believed

to be impossible
to overdose on the drug.

JOHNSON:
The particular focus

on supplying thalidomide
to pregnant women

came about because,
at that time,

the prevailing medical belief

was that morning sickness
was psychosomatic.

And I've had this from the drug
company salesmen themselves.

They-they thought that if,

if a pregnant woman
was being sick,

because she was just
overexcited about have--

being pregnant,

you'd sedate her,
and she'd calm down

and she'd stop being sick.

(film projector rattling)

NARRATOR:
Christmas Day, 1956.

In Stahlberg, Germany,
a young nervous

expectant father,
who worked as a chemist

for Chemie Grunenthal,
was waiting for news

from the delivery room.

But the news he received
was not what he'd hoped.

His child was born
with no ears.

His wife had been given samples

of the Chemie Grunenthal's
wonder drug

to help combat
her morning sickness.

That Christmas Day
saw the delivery of

the world's first
thalidomide baby.

(machine chugging)

The fact that one of the very
few women given the drug

had had a deformed baby
was not picked up on.

And Chemie Grunenthal
went ahead

and marketed their product
across the world.

A handful of countries,
including the U.S.,

refused it a license,
but most accepted

the manufacturer's
test data on face value,

and allowed the drug
to be prescribed.

In 1958, it was licensed
for use in the U.K.

under the trade name Distaval.

The active drug substance
in both Distaval

and Contergan was thalidomide.

SADIE GALVIN: Well, I didn't
even know I'd taken it.

I felt unwell for a week.

And, um, Wednesday afternoon,
closed the shop,

decided to go round the corner,
just a few yards

round the corner to see my GP.

And she said, "I've got a new
drug that's out, a miracle."

She said the word "miracle,"

miracle drug.

"It's fantastic.
You'll be okay."

So I took
the little bit of paper,

not realizing I had accepted
my death warrant that day.

PEARL DANDILY:
From the minute I got caught,

I had that sickness.

The chemist told me, like...

I said, "Do you know
about these tablets?"

And he just said, "Oh, they're
for helping you to sleep

and-and sickness."

So I took 'em.

Which they did, they was good,
don't get me wrong.

They were smashing when I...
when I took 'em, you know.

I felt real good.

Vicky and I got married.

She was 21. I was 22.

After some months,
Vicky told me she was pregnant,

and we were
absolutely thrilled.

And she went along
to see her doctor,

who said that he thought
she was a bit anemic.

So, fine,

so he gave her a prescription

for iron tablets and one other.

And I'd been asking her,
"Can you feel the baby kick?"

And she used to say,
"Well, not kick, but press."

I started into labor at 7:10
on the Saturday morning.

And my husband always worked
on a Saturday morning.

And I just said to him, uh,

"You'd better get round
and bring the midwife."

And I'd just put
me legs on the bed,

and she come and she went,
"Oh, my God."

And the sleeves went up

and no coat off
and she just dived in.

"Dived in."

And she was born
at ten minutes to 8:00!

And, uh, and my husband come in

and he just said, "I'm sorry,
love," and he was crying.

My mum was a-a midwife,
you know.

She'd seen all sorts of things
through her nursing career,

and, uh, she said, you know,

to the nurses, you know, "Well,
where's my, you know, son?"

And they said,
"Well, we've just, uh, you know,

we've taken him away."

Uh, and one of the nurses said,
"And you won't see him."

And there was the, uh, cradle

with, uh, Louise lying in there

that can only be described
as a, as a torso

with sort of little flowers

where the arms and legs
should be.

And, uh, after a few hours,
I-I got myself together

and I went back to the hospital

to find, uh, Vicky, you know,

in a terrible state
and a priest in the room.

He said, "Well, I'm explaining
to Vicky that it's God's will."

I said, "You don't know what
the hell you're talking about.

Not God's will at all.
It's drugs. It's pills. Out!"

And I threw him out.

There was a very low
level of expectation

when we were all born.

Um, we were all written off,
and, uh, my mother was told

that I would probably only live
for about six weeks.

And, in fact, when I was born,

apparently, um,
they thought I was stillborn,

and I was put in
some kind of a container

and put in...
put under me mother's bed.

And I don't know
whether I coughed

or someone knocked the box
or something--

there was some kind of movement,

and then they realized
I was, I was alive.

What has also become clear

is that a large number of babies
were actually born alive,

but they weren't
allowed to live.

The doctor came to me

and said that my son
was born handicapped.

In fact, his arms
and legs were short.

Doctors and midwives were
suffocating deformed babies

or they were, in the hospitals,
putting them out in the cold...

on the cold slab
in the cold room,

in the hope
that they'd die quietly.

He thought
it'd probably be best that...

I should go home
and forget I'd ever had him

and have another one
straightaway.

My mother and father, thank God,

had saved up enough
from the dogs,

and my mother opened
a small shop,

counting ra... during rationing.

So they'd accumulated
enough money,

and they got me
into a girls' college.

How did I pull that off?

I mean, the girls were learning
shorthand and typing.

They've got a shorthand
stiffing of 120 words a minute.

"Can I get a job?"

♪ ♪

EVANS:
In 1961,

I was offered the editorship
of The Northern Echo,

a great daily newspaper
in Darlington,

circulation of
more than 100,000,

and which had once
been edited by

one of the greatest
British journalists,

called W.T. Stead.

In fact, I sat at the desk,
and there was

a handwritten letter
he wrote to his proprietors

in eight... late eight...
19th century saying,

"Thank you.

"What a marvelous opportunity

for attacking the devil."

Not off this block, sorry.

There's a story coming on
with that one.

But, um, there we are.

NARRATOR: He saw campaigns
as the way ahead.

He had a sharp eye
for which issues to zero in on

and began to develop techniques
which would prove his hallmark.

EVANS:
I wrote a paragraph

like this in The Sunday Times

to say that Vancouver was
introducing a campaign...

no, introducing a program
for what's called a Pap smear,

to detect cervical cancer
in women

before it developed
into full cancer.

And I thought, "Well,
why don't we have one of those?"

NARRATOR: The method had been
known since the 1920s

and was in use
in many other countries.

Death rates began
to fall remarkably

after the American
Cancer Society

introduced Pap smears in 1957.

Every year, 2,500 women died
needlessly in the U.K.

So we began a campaign.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: He wrote editorials,
articles and pamphlets

and contacted every MP to try
and persuade the government

to have a screening program
in Britain.

The Minister of Health
at the time was Enoch Powell.

And so the local MP,
Jeremy Braid,

got up and asked a question.

Said, "Uh, Minister,
in the light of the articles

"in the Northern Echo,
will the minister agree to start

a program for the detection
of cervical cancer in women?"

Mr. Powell rose.

"No, sir."

Okay.

Week after week.

"No, sir. No, sir.
No, sir. No, sir."

Here was a brilliant man
without a heart.

NARRATOR: The drip, drip, drip
campaign continued,

week in and week out.

EVANS:
Until, finally,

the Minister of Health
was changed to Anthony Barber,

and he said, "Yes, sir.
I'll set up a pilot program."

NARRATOR: The Northern Echo's
cervical cancer campaign

showed how a newspaper
could persuade

those in power
to change their minds.

To this day,
tens of thousands of women

owe their lives
to the power of the press.

And Harry found
that there was no shortage

of wrongs to be righted.

♪ ♪

MOTHER: He wasn't a boy
of violent nature.

He loved his wife and baby.

REPORTER: What did he tell you
at the time though,

when you went
to see him in prison?

MOTHER: He said,
"Go and see Christie, Mum.

He's the only man can help me."

He said, "I never touched 'em."
He said, "Christie done it."

PARKINSON:
At the time,

the trial of Timothy Evans

excited very little
public interest.

But three years after
Evans had-had been hung,

his trial took on a new
and disturbing importance.

In March, 1953,

the bodies of three strangled
women were discovered here,

in this alcove
in Christie's kitchen.

HAROLD EVANS:
They quickly executed Christie

without really uncovering
the true story,

which was that Christie
was a serial killer.

He'd killed many women.

He just happened to be
in the same house with Evans.

NARRATOR:
Questions were now being asked

about the Evans verdict.

Harry's involvement began
when he was contacted

by a local businessman
in the Northeast.

EVANS: Herbert Wolf
sent me an article.

And I'm reading this article,
and I'm so...

shocked.

I went to see the Home Secretary
who signed the death warrant,

and I said,
"You signed the death warrant."

He said, "I-I did,
and I regret it.

We hanged the wrong man."

I said, "We've got to get it...
justice done."

He said,
"You will never get it done

against the forces
of Whitehall."

So I got hold of Herbert Wolf,

and the two of us decided
to work together.

And we...
I published one editorial,

then another editorial,
then another editorial.

I commissioned articles

on previous hangings
that had gone wrong,

the history
of the death penalty,

the life of Timothy Evans,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

NARRATOR: The Echo campaign
lasted 12 months.

Every edition of the paper
was decorated

with the Man on
Our Conscience logo.

Relentlessly,
this drip, drip, drip went on

until even the staff began
to wonder

if it was going to succeed.

EVANS: A newspaper campaign has
to be prolonged, very often.

Because the forces

of rigidity are strong,

particularly in bureaucracies.

And, secondly, it takes time
for the penny to drop.

There's a famous American editor
who said,

"The moment a newspaper man
tires of his campaign

"is the moment

the public is
just beginning to notice it."

NARRATOR: Meanwhile,
there was a growing consensus

in the country that the time

to abolish the death penalty
had come.

EVANS:
And, finally,

the Home Secretary
was now a new man

called Roy Jenkins,

great reforming Home Secretary,

and he announced
that we'd have a public enquiry

into the hanging.

It was a model verdict,

but, nonetheless,
it enabled Roy Jenkins

to get up
in the House of Commons

and, uh, announce a pardon.

So we won. And at the same time,
the death penalty was abolished.

Now, I can't claim that
we abolished the death penalty.

Many campaigners
had been on that,

uh, particularly
Sydney Silverman.

But I think we can say
that Herbert Wolf

and Ludovic Kennedy
and Michael Eddowes

and, to some extent, myself
helped to speed up the process.

NARRATOR: By 1962,
the full horror of thalidomide

was obvious,
and the drug banned worldwide.

(news theme playing)

MALE REPORTER: The problem
of tighter controls to prevent

the distribution of dangerous
drugs such as thalidomide

is a matter of concern
to the president

at his news conference.

He outlines the steps

the government plans to take.

KENNEDY:
The Food and Drug Administration

have had nearly 200 people
working on this.

Every doctor, every hospital,
every nurse have been notified.

Every woman
in this country, I think,

must be aware
that it's most important

that they check their
medicine cabinet and that

they do not take this drug,
that they turn it in.

NARRATOR: But unlike the
American health authorities,

the British Minister of Health,
Enoch Powell,

said no to a public inquiry,

no to setting up
a drugs testing center,

no to issuing a warning against
anyone using leftover pills,

because he thought it

a scare-mongering
publicity stunt,

and no to giving
a statement afterwards.

"No need to bring the press
into this," he said.

EVANS:
Mr. Enoch Powell

had been asked if he would
set up a public inquiry

to discover
how was it possible

for a National Health Service
doctor

to prescribe a pill
which is going to have

these devastating effects.

Mr. Enoch Powell said,
"No, sir."

The thalidomide parents
went to see him,

and had the same answer.

And the civil servants
gave them the same answer.

Everybody gave the same answer--

i.e. you're on your own.

NARRATOR: Powell's
unwillingness to help them

left the families
with only one remedy:

To sue the manufacturers
for negligence.

But the families
had pitted themselves

against a formidable opponent.

Worth the equivalent today
of four billion pounds,

Distillers Group produced
a raft of famous brands,

including such household names
as Johnnie Walker Whisky

and Gordon's Gin.

Its chairman,
Alexander MacDonald,

had gained a reputation
as a man of granite.

The families had to rely
on public funding.

But the government begrudged
spending taxpayers' money

on what it regarded
as a weak case.

Every single newspaper
said the same thing--

The Guardian, the Economist,
The Times, the Telegraph--

saying the same thing
as the drug company,

the Ministry of Health.

What they were saying was...

this drug was tested

according to
the standards of the time

when nobody thought a drug could
cross the placental barrier

and affect the fetus.

And the solicitors representing
the families had accepted this.

So if you imagine,
here you have the families

represented by a legal firm

who agrees with them that
there's no case for the parents.

You can't have
a case of negligence,

because there's been
no negligence,

because they did
the standard test at the time.

NARRATOR: With no idea
of the darker background

to thalidomide,
Harry ran a story

in The Northern Echo in order

to win sympathy
for the children.

EVANS:
I published these photographs

expecting to evoke sympathy
for the children.

And what I got instead of
sympathy was criticism.

Uh, uh, not a...
almost a denunciation.

"We do not want to see
pictures like this

"in our newspaper.

"Please do not show us
these scary things."

NARRATOR: Although most families
were scared off

by Distillers lawyers,
62 families did issue writs.

Once the writs
had been issued though,

it became illegal
for the press to print facts

or comment on a pending trial.

With thalidomide, this meant
that nothing could be published

that might influence a judge
until every case--

every single case--
had been settled by the courts.

GEOFFREY ROBERTSON:
Whenever

a-a rich company was...

had acted badly, they would sue.

They would issue what we called
"a gagging writ,"

which gagged all criticism
under the pretext

that it was sub judice,
that it was in court.

So no one could
comment critically

on any of the parties.

NARRATOR: Distillers response
to the 62 families

was to wait until
just over three years

to reach an out-of-court
settlement,

in which, although
not accepting liability,

they agreed to pay
some compensation.

Most of the other
victims' families

had no idea that a settlement
had been in the offing.

By design or happy coincidence,

once the case had been settled
and the press free to report,

the three years
statute of limitations

on personal damages
had expired.

The families of
the other parents were deemed

out of time
and wouldn't be able to sue.

One of the out-of-time parents
was David Mason.

MALE REPORTER: David Mason,
West End art dealer.

A man who built up
his business from scratch

when he was earning
three pounds a week.

Father of four,

and one of them one of
the first thalidomide children.

And a man who,
alone, pitted himself

against the multimillion
pound might

of the Distillers company.

MASON:
I can remember thinking,

even in those days--
w-was not a litigious society--

"I'm going after Distillers,

"and I'm gonna
make them accountable

"for all these deformities

that they've caused
with other children."

I hadn't been told
how many were involved,

but I knew that there were
other children involved,

were other victims.

And that was the start of it.

NARRATOR:
It would also be a new start

for Harry Evans.

The campaigns of this obscure
northern newspaper editor

and, in particular,
that of cervical cancer,

had caught the eye
of the then editor

of The Sunday Times,

Denis Hamilton, who was on
the lookout for his successor.

It had taken just 20 years

from his first days at
the Ashton Under-lyne Reporter

for the boy
who failed his 11-Plus

to be offered the editorship
of one of the most

highly-regarded newspapers
in the world.

Harry Evans' Sunday Times was
a-a kind of golden age,

not only because of
the editorship,

but also because of
the proprietorship.

So, he edited under
Lord Thomson, who was the last

of the sort of grandee
broadsheet press barons.

Basically, most of my time
on The Sunday Times

was on investigative journalism.

Well, it's a hell
of a difficult job.

PHILLIP KNIGHTLEY:
Working for him was fun.

I got up every day

with a sense of adventure,
going in to The Sunday Times,

of what we're going to do
this week.

And whatever it was,
it was going to be bright

and it was
going to cause people who,

as they opened
their Sunday Times

on Sunday morning
to say, "Wow."

NARRATOR:
The Sunday Times employed

its investigative journalists

as part of a team
known as Insight.

-Leave this page.
-ELAINE POTTER: Harry understood

the importance
of teams of journalists

whirring away
at really difficult

long-term projects.

News. That is opinion.

It-it would have been
very difficult to create,

I find it hard to imagine,
with any other editor,

though others have tried,
not totally successfully.

(typewriter clacking)

NARRATOR: In only
his second month as editor,

Evans set his
newly-formed Insight team

on an investigation
that took eight months

and was bitterly resisted.

In 1951, British intelligence

got alarmed
about how the Soviets

seemed to be one step ahead
on British cooperation

with the Americans
over nuclear weapons.

Two diplomats in Washington,

Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean,
fled to Moscow

before they
could be questioned.

Who tipped them off?

Might Kim Philby
be the third man?

Well, if there was a third man,
were you in fact the third man?

No, I was not.

KNIGHTLEY:
The Sunday Times

took up the case
because somebody had

told the editor, Harold Evans,

that, uh, Philby--
the Philby case--

was far more important
than anyone ever suspected.

I mean, he must go down in
history as the most remarkable,

uh, penetration agent in
the whole history of espionage.

He was well on the way
to becoming

head of British intelligence.

My chairman, Denis Hamilton,
rang me up and said,

"You'd better be in
the House of Commons tomorrow

"because the Foreign Secretary

is going to denounce you
as a traitor."

All I will say is
we've published nothing

which is not already known
to the Russians.

KNIGHTLEY:
The government was intent on us

not telling the story because
it was such a terrible mess.

It was run by, uh, incompetence

and, uh, o... the...

from the old boy network.

And I remember once, the...
the head of the service came,

when I was prime minister,
into my room,

rubbing his... he said,
"I've got that chap.

I've got him. I've been
after him for 18 months."

And I looked very gloomy,
and he said,

"Aren't you pleased,
Prime Minister?"

I said,
"I'm not at all pleased."

He said,
"We've been wonderful.

Our chaps knew he was
a wrong'un and we got him."

"Yes", I said, "But when
the keeper shoots a fox here,

he doesn't hang it up outside
the master of foxhounds' house."

"What are we going to have now?"
"We'll have an inquiry.

"You'll be told your service
is rotten from top to bottom.

"You should have
Lord Radcliffe as a commission.

"We have a debate
in the House of Commons,

and the government
will probably fall."

"Well, see."

Oh, you don't do those things.

You put them quietly away.

RALPH NADER: Harry Evans was,
uh, editor for The Sunday Times

in a country that had
an Official Secrets Act.

It was just the opposite, uh,

of our freedom
of information laws.

That is the, uh,
the, uh, presumption

was secrecy, uh, in,
uh, in the U.K.

In-Instead of the presumption
being openness,

and then the government had to
explain why some information

was kept secret.
So he was up against

a very hostile atmosphere,
which would have exposed him

and his reporters to,
literally, to prosecution.

(typewriters clacking)

EVANS: I had a very good staff
at The Northern Echo.

But nothing can compare
the staff of people

I had at The Sunday Times,
who were not only more numerous,

you know,
more experienced and...

So I said, "Let's keep an eye
on the thalidomide children."

(film projector rattling)

NARRATOR:
Although it had been reported

that an agreement by Distillers
and the 62 families

who'd sued in time
had been agreed,

the press were not allowed
to report anything

regarding
the financial settlement

whilst the two unequal sides
were in negotiations

about what that level
of compensation would be.

EVANS:
And it was finally agreed

by Distillers
that if the parents withdrew

the charge of negligence,

they would make
a settlement of 40%

of what a full settlement
would be.

So they'd go before a judge--

this story keeps
getting worse and worse--

so they'd go
before a judge to decide

what would be 100% settlement,

and knowing that they're only
going to get 40% of it.

Utterly and totally
miserably inadequate.

NARRATOR: He thought he had
no opportunity to help,

until The Sunday Times was
contacted by a whistle-blower,

who gave them 10,000
internal Distillers documents.

EVANS:
What the documents revealed was

a unscrupulous
marketing campaign

to market this drug.

What they did not reveal...

...was how the disaster
had occurred.

NARRATOR: They'd been
warned of its danger

five months before
it was eventually withdrawn.

Those five months
were the period in which

the majority
of victims were conceived.

These documents definitely
could not be published,

as they bore directly on a case
before the courts.

But a second set

that came The Sunday Times' way
had more potential.

EVANS: So we now have
The Sunday Times room packed

with filing cabinets

with documents in German
being translated.

NARRATOR:
The second set were internal

Chemie Grunenthal documents
related to a case being brought

against them
in the German courts,

in a size of trial
not seen since Nuremberg.

These documents catalogued
a get-rich-quick mentality

in which the safety of the drug

had been the main
selling point.

Contergan was given
to 370 test subjects,

of whom 160
were nursing mothers.

The report based
on these trials stated that

side effects were not observed
either with mothers or babies.

It cunningly implied that
the babies were in the womb

when the mothers took the drug.

This was not true.

EVANS: That raised
the first crisis for us.

Could we publish the story

of how the German company
marketed a drug

without proper testing?

Because did that bear
on the British case,

and if we published
the German story,

would it be contempt of court?

NARRATOR: The lawyers pored
over every word,

bearing in mind that a breach
of the contempt laws

might see Harry wind up
in jail.

EVANS: So we did get ready
to publish the German case,

and Godfrey Hodgson produced
a fantastic scary article

that I put on the front page of
the Review Section-- five pages

with a picture of
one of the German doctors

who'd been involved
with the Nazis.

And I sat back
in a defensive crouch...

...pretty sure
we were going to get

a contempt of court citation.

NARRATOR:
For the first time,

thalidomide was shown
to be a corporate disaster,

rather than an act of God.

But to Harry's frustration,

the families' lawyers remained
overawed by their opponents.

Mindful that
Distillers threatened

that they were quite prepared
for the case to go to court

because they were confident
of victory,

the families' lawyers
weren't emboldened

by The Sunday Times article,

but settled on a fraction
of what their clients needed.

And the judge-- a nice old man
without a single clue--

sets a level of compensation
which is ridiculously low.

NARRATOR:
Press reaction wasn't

what Harry had expected,
either.

EVANS:
The press headlined that

as though
the families had won the pools.

Lottery prizes,
as though they'd won millions.

NARRATOR:
Outraged by the inadequacy

of the amount of money offered
by Distillers,

he decided
to skirt around the law,

and avoiding the subject
of the company's negligence,

published comment
on the compensation.

But even that was risky.

I remember writing the headline,
"What price a pound of flesh?"

arguing that the levels
were not enough.

And the lawyer said,
"I think that's contempt."

Our own lawyer.

I said, "Well, so be it.
To hell with it." (chuckles)

So we took the chance
and published that article.

That was 1969.

The consequence
of that settlement

in 1969 was to suddenly alert

the huge number of other
families who hadn't realized

that their children were
thalidomide victims.

They just thought
they were unlucky,

and they didn't know there was
a prospect of a settlement.

By the end of
a couple of months,

369 families had joined the few
from the beginning,

so we now had
close to 500 families.

The 369 were too late to sue,

but the courts agreed

that even though they were
out of time, they could sue.

So one day, I got a letter
through the post,

uh, saying that there was
to be a meeting

of all the thalidomide,
uh, parents.

So we duly went to the meeting,

and when we got there,
of course, there were--

I don't know-- 600, 700 people,
something like that.

NARRATOR: The lawyers spelled
out the terms of the offer.

It was even less generous
than the award given

to the original 62
who'd settled.

And they put pressure
on the families to accept

by saying that if it wasn't
agreed to by all the parents,

no one would get anything.

MASON: He drew this thing out,
and, of course, there were

occasional rounds of applause
from the parents,

because, let's face it,

nobody thought they were ever
going to get anything.

And he said the mean figure

of what it amounts to
is three million pounds.

So I thought,
"Three million pounds?

For 400 victims?"

So I worked it out quickly,
and I-I came to the conclusion

that would mean with Louise,
8,000 pounds,

or putting it crudely,

2,000 pounds
per arm and per leg.

The outcome
of the meeting was mixed.

We had, on one hand...

NARRATOR:
Financially, David Mason was

in the fortunate position
that he could afford

to reject the offer,

but many of the parents were
in a desperate plight.

Distillers applied
enormous emotional pressure,

but Mason and a few others
remained firm.

...where I want
the small print to be...

EVANS:
There were five parents,

one of them famous--
David Mason, an art dealer--

and others who said,
"I'm not going to accept that.

"I'm not going to accept
this compensation

for my daughter Louise, which is
inadequate. Why should I?"

And Distillers answer was,

"You're sacrificing
everybody else's compensation."

MAN: You parents are happy
with the settlement

-that's been discussed?
-(murmurs of agreement)

We settle with the settlement.
We'll settle with that.

Uh, I received
threatening letters.

I received
threatening phone calls.

I was referred to
by certain other parents

as being unchristian.

Mr. Mason does claim, in fact,

that he represents most
of the thalidomide parents.

He does not claim, and it was
proved in there just now!

He might have claimed...
be the spokesman for a few,

but for the vast majority
of parents,

he doesn't represent them
at all.

NARRATOR:
Mason had been advised

that a figure
of 20 million pounds,

nearly seven times the amount
offered by Distillers,

was the minimum required

for the long-term care
of the children.

But many of the other parents
could not afford to hold out.

GALVIN:
It just went from bad to worse.

He had no wheelchair,
he had no helmet, he had ab...

and I'll say, nothing.

I took lettuce from
the peel bucket, and tomatoes,

and washed them
and brought them home,

and they lived on that
for the weekend.

DONNELLY: My parents were just
typical working class parents.

Me dad works on the tugs,
on the River Mersey,

and me mother was a housewife
bringing up six kids,

so they had no idea about
class actions or lawyers, or,

you know,
suing people in court.

It must have been
a massive struggle

for them really, you know.

They had the burden

of taking on
the court cases and everything,

and I just got on
with me childhood.

NARRATOR: Distillers identified
David Mason

as the ringleader
of the small group standing out

against a deal being struck,
and they increased the pressure

by threatening
to withdraw their offer.

Divide and rule seemed
to be the order of the day.

MASON:
And the next dreadful thing

that, uh, happened
was that, uh,

I received a writ
through the post.

Distillers took me
into the court

and tried
to take my daughter away from me

and have her made
a ward of court

on the grounds
that by refusing this offer,

I was acting
against her best interests.

Therefore, if they made her
a ward of court,

the official solicitor
would act for her.

The official solicitor
would sign off on Louise,

and everybody would get
their money.

NARRATOR: Mason lost custody
of his daughter,

but he appealed, and a date
was set for the court case.

Along with their own action,
Distillers financed

the legal teams of some of the
parents who wanted to settle.

The crux
of their argument being

that no successful claims
had been made

anywhere in the world,

and that Mason
was acting unreasonably.

Their method of defense
was to launch an attack.

Justice Hinchcliffe
removed Mason's...

removed the parental rights
of Mason and the others.

(chuckles):
His-his...

His children were now consigned
to the treasury solicitor.

It's like...

Bleak House is not in it.

NARRATOR:
Through a mutual friend,

David Mason was introduced
to the Daily Mail's editor,

David English, who,
moved by the story,

agreed to publish a series of
articles on Mason's struggle.

Hello. Yes. David Mason.

NARRATOR: But he warned
that if he proceeded,

the Distillers deal
may be withdrawn,

and the other parents
would be out for his blood.

MASON:
Out came the first edition

of the Daily Mail-- wham!--

where they ran, for four days,
double page spread,

spelling out exactly
what had gone on,

and all hell was let loose.

And the attorney general's
running around,

injunctions were being sought,

God knows what, and eventually
an injunction was obtained.

EVANS: Nobody would talk
to David Mason after that.

The Daily Mail

was told by the attorney general
it was liable

for a contempt prosecution,
and it dropped it.

NARRATOR:
As the appeal date loomed,

Mason was contacted
by an American lawyer

who had read one of
the Daily Mail articles.

Distillers had argued
that no one had ever won a case

for compensation against
the makers of thalidomide,

and therefore,
Mason was acting unreasonably,

like a barrack room lawyer,
in pursuing his claim.

But the American had won
just such a case in the U.S.

With only the weekend before
he was due back in court,

Mason flew to America,

where he was given copies
of the court papers.

He arrived back in the U.K.

on the morning
his appeal was to be heard,

and got the papers in front
of the judge, Lord Denning.

(tires squeal)

MASON:
Denning came in,

put his papers on the table,
bad-tempered way,

and sat down and said,
"Now, then."

He said,
"I'd like all the people

representing the other parents,"

he said,
"and Distillers to stand up."

He said, "Do you recall having
told me, having told this court,

"that no case had ever taken
place anywhere in the world

with a successful outcome?"

"Uh, yes."

He said, "Well,"
he said, "I have to tell you,

"I have the court record that...

"that Mr. Mason found
over the weekend.

What have you got to say
about that?" "We didn't..."

"You didn't? You didn't what?
You didn't know about it?

You didn't...
you didn't know about it?"

He said,
"Well, for a barrack room lawyer

and a man of perverse views,"
he said,

"Mr. Mason hasn't done bad,
has he?"

So there was sort of silence.

He said,
"I'm adjourning the court."

Bottom line: I won her back.

I won her back.

NARRATOR: Although David Mason
had won a person victory,

the press were still muzzled
on the wider issues

regarding the compensation.

In the end,
he refused to waste his time

giving interviews
that never appeared,

spiked by newspapers' lawyers
citing contempt of court.

The thalidomide children
receded back

into the vacuum of silence,

exactly where
Distillers wanted them.

Anthony,

I've got a letter
from the chairman of Distillers.

I'll read it to you.

"Thank you for your letter
of 23 June..."

EVANS:
From time to time, you become

absolutely convinced you're
going to achieve something.

I didn't...

always expect that, but
in the thalidomide case, I did,

'cause it seemed to me it was
so transparently an injustice.

Phil Knightley stayed
on the story,

keeping in touch
with the parents.

And that moment when he came

into my office and said,

"They're being offered half
of what they are entitled to

by comparison
with the earlier judgment,"

that was when I decided
to start the campaign.

Harry Evans said,

"If necessary, I'll run a story
about thalidomide

for the next ten years to get
justice for these children."

I know that sounds like a-a film
script, but that's what he said.

NARRATOR:
Harry decided it was time

to contact the most prominent
thalidomide parent.

He had an idea
of the next step.

So he sent Phillip Knightley
to see him.

MASON:
He said,

"I want you to come down
to The Sunday Times,"

he said,
"and, uh, meet Harold Evans

and meet some of the board."

And he said,
"I'm on the Insight team."

He said,
"And we think we have a way

of freeing you up
and helping you."

James Evans,
no relation of Harry Evans

but as their lawyer,
had found a way through.

JAMES EVANS:
Our argument throughout was

contempt is about prejudicing
the legal issues in a case.

If you steer clear of those

but advance the moral arguments,

then you should be allowed
to do this.

Now, there was no decision
on-on this,

and, uh, we just had to take
a bit of a chance on it.

And this provided us with the
opportunity to-to write about...

to write about thalidomide
on a...

from a moral point of view

rather than from
the negligence point of view.

I mean, it should be
quite a short hearing.

HAROLD EVANS: James Evans saw it
as his job not to stop us

publishing things which were
in the public interest,

but to justify them

once we were satisfied
it was in the public interest

and to find
the justification in law

for getting round

the most restrictive press laws
in Western democracy.

He was so calm.

He said, "I get the picture."

Tourist says, "Find me
a safe way up the Eiger."

One wanted to be sure
that one took the editor

up this sort of, as it were,
north face of the Eiger

by the safest possible route.

Uh, but, of course, uh,
the editor carries the can here.

NARRATOR: Harry and James spent
late nights making sure

they'd covered every base,

because this was
a very big risk

for both the paper
and its editor.

HAROLD EVANS:
I asked him to draft

an editorial.

Well, he's a top lawyer,

and he drafted an editorial
which I made very little...

few changes.

And I wrote the headline
"Children on our conscience"

and launched the moral campaign.

♪ ♪

(speaking indistinctly)

And probably
the most striking thing

is to get the actual inventor
of thalidomide...

NARRATOR: As the Insight team
compiled the first article,

Harry prepared to contact
the great and the powerful

in order to enlist support
for the campaign.

He broke the news to Joan.

So he said, "Joan,
we're gonna have to write to

every single MP
a separate letter."

He didn't want photocopies
being sent to all the MPs,

so I just set about typing 620

or 630 letters.

He-he hammered the point,
really,

that it was such an injustice
to the children.

EVANS:
The phone rang.

It was
the advertising director.

"I believe you're gonna go ahead

"with, uh, this strong attack
on Distillers.

"I want you to know
that they spend 60,000 pounds

with advertising
with The Sunday Times."

He-he broke new ground
in terms of focusing

on the very corporations
whose advertisements funded

the newspaper's profit.

He said,
"It won't stop you, I know.

And it shouldn't."

(machine whirring)

I brought David Mason into
the office to see the presses

going round with the story,

which he couldn't believe
would ever happen.

MASON:
And he said,

"I want to show you
the power of the press."

And we went downstairs,
and, uh,

there was silence in the room.

And he said, "See that button?

Push it."

And all these papers
just poured off.

He gave me
one of the first copies,

which I still have.

(whirring)

♪ ♪

His, uh,

generosity, his kindness,
his compassion,

his-his brilliance
as a journalist,

his... the way he was able

to get a cohesive team
about him,

the way he was able
to motivate people.

That was the best thing
that happened to the campaign,

Harry Evans coming on board.

EVANS:
No sooner had we published

than a deafening silence

came over
every other newspaper.

I can remember being at the BBC,

the only place
which would even interview us,

a lawyer at my shoulder.

I mean, th-these children exist
in the real world,

and we mustn't, uh, be put off

telling the public about
the plight of the children.

The only person we heard from
was the attorney general.

"What the hell are you playing
at, publishing this stuff?

It's contempt of court."

NARRATOR: What prompted
the threat was a line

at the bottom
of the first story,

which promised future articles
on the origins of the tragedy--

by implication, an exposé
of Distillers' negligence.

EVANS: It wasn't the thought
of avoiding jail

which was uppermost;
any fool can go to prison,

and I certainly
would've been prepared to do it.

But if we had published
a single article

and gone to prison,
end of campaign.

No-no further money
for the children or anything,

no further public discussion.

So we tried to avoid that
throughout, all the time.

We wanted
to sustain the campaign.

Thalidomide was a campaign
from the outset.

He never envisaged
just doing one piece.

In fact, what we all
learnt-learnt from Harry

is that a single investigation
did not deliver.

I think it might not be
a bad idea also

to write... I'll write
to Distillers today...

POTTER:
It-it was three-pronged.

Th-There was the whole...
the legal story,

uh, the investigation
into-into the drug,

and, of course, the families

who were at the heart
of-of everything.

We were so overstretched

that we decided
we'd get somebody in

just to pursue the families,

and that's
when Marjorie came in.

Well, my role
was to go round the country

and stay with and interview
and experience what it was like

to have a thalidomide child
at that time.

I would go along and I would

actually lie on the floors
of some of their houses

and know what it was like
to have to wake up

every moment in the night
and turn

a thalidomide child over
who couldn't turn themselves.

By living their lives with
them, living and experiencing

what they experienced,
I felt I understood

what it was like to have
a child with these deformities.

When I started finding

the thalidomide children
and their families,

some of them were very hard
to track down.

And some of them
certainly didn't want

to be interviewed.

It was a very difficult task.

And what I did find
was stories that...

very bleak circumstances.

They were receiving very little
help, very little recognition,

and they were being shunned
by society.

Everyone was afraid.

They were afraid
of these deformities

of the children.

And not only was it

just the arms and legs.

Some of the children had...
were like a jigsaw,

a jumbled jigsaw
of the displaced organs.

I would know what it was like
just taking a child

into a café, say.

And within minutes,
within seconds,

you look round,
and the queue had evaporated.

Or I would go along with them,

say to a crowded beach,

and, within minutes,
it was a deserted beach.

Marriages broke up.

Husbands walked out.

"That creature's got nothing
to do with me."

GALVIN: One day...
(whispering): my husband...

I can't say it in front of...
My husband.

-Can you hear me?
-INTERVIEWER: Yes.

Said to me, "We've got to talk."

And I said, "Yeah, talk."

I couldn't believe it.
He said...

he said, "You have a choice."

I said, "What?" I said, "No."

I said, "That's a choice
I will never make."

So I said...
He said, "Otherwise, I'll..."

I said, "Well,
that you'll have to do.

I'm not gonna give up
on this one."

And that's what he did.

And I was left
with a big mortgage.

I was left with children, small.

And I didn't want them affected
by the epilepsy.

And I knew I had to think
and think very hard.

And I got the night duty,
12-hour shift every night.

And I did that for 16 years
without ever going to bed,

and, for some reason,
I was never tired.

Somebody's looking after me.

WALLACE: What happened
with The Sunday Times,

Harry Evans,
he would put these photographs

on the pages of the newspaper

that everyone else would say
was unacceptable.

But by doing so,

he really liberated
many of the families.

MYRIAD SINCLAIR:
The doctors said

this had been caused
by me eating lamb

that had been infected
from a nuclear fallout.

We suspected when we saw the
first article by Harold Evans.

We wrote to The Times

and got information from them.

And without that,
we wouldn't have known.

NARRATOR: The moral campaign
had shone a light

on the lives
of the thalidomide victims.

But still, the threat of legal
action by the attorney general

hung over The Sunday Times.

EVANS: The real turning point
in the campaign was

I got a letter

from the attorney general
one day.

"The attorney general decided
not to proceed against you

"on what you've already
published, the moral campaign,

"but if you go ahead
with the rest of what you said,

take care. We..."

The implication:
we will then sue you.

NARRATOR: The attorney general's
letter to Harry

allowing the moral campaign

effectively granted
the same right to MPs.

Jack Ashley and Alf Morris
had been supporters

of the campaign
from the very first.

In parliament, they had been
the main driving force

behind trying to persuade
the speaker to grant a debate.

EVANS: That day--
that very day-- Jack Ashley

was going to see the speaker
in the House of Commons to say,

"Look, let's have
a debate on this.

These-these children are not
getting proper compensation."

And the next day,
the speaker agrees to give up

parliamentary time
for the Labour Party

for a debate on thalidomide.

That's the moment.

Before the debate,

I was stopped in the corridor

by the prime minister's
personal assistant.

He said,

"We'd like you not to go ahead
with your campaign,

"and we've arranged for
an extra five million pounds.

But don't go ahead."

So I said, "I'm sorry.
It's not enough."

I said, "I want...
We need 20 million.

I'm advised we need 20 million."

NARRATOR:
Jack Ashley opened with words

that moved members
on all sides of the House.

"We are debating today
a great national tragedy.

"Nonetheless poignant because
it happened ten years ago.

"But what kind of adolescence
will a ten-year old boy

"look forward to
when he has no arms,

"no legs and is only
two feet tall?

"That is the height
of two whiskey bottles

"placed one on top
of the other.

"How can an 11-year old girl
look forward to laughing

"and loving when she has
no hand to be held

and no legs to dance on?"

EVANS:
So, we had the debate,

and that was
absolutely stunning,

because now the press,
having been scared--

either scared of contempt

or competitively jealous,
whatever--

would now report in the case,
we now had a case.

Also, what was now
very important,

as distinct from when I was
editor at The Northern Echo

and got complaints,
I now got thousands of letters

saying, "Please continue."

I think there was
definitely a-a...

maybe not a day,
but definitely a week

when the fight changed from
nobody knowing about it

to, you know,
the population of England

realizing that something
was happening.

NARRATOR:
Once free to report,

much of the press joined

with The Sunday Times
in condemning

how the children
had been treated.

Now informed
at what had been going on,

the public were shocked
and disgusted.

The floodgates opened,
and Distillers reeled.

Distillers were
on the back foot,

trying to limit the damage
and the amount of compensation

they would have to pay.

They responded by apparently
raising their offer

from anywhere between
five and 11 million pounds,

but these were exposed
as little more than

accountancy tricks
designed for them

to pay as little as possible.

Within a very short time,
the plight of the children

became a national
talking point.

People wanted to help
in any way they could.

A small group of people
decided to appeal

to the individual
shareholders directly.

When they approached Distillers
to buy a list of the names,

the company, who were
legally bound to comply,

said the volumes
would cost 2,000 pounds--

a figure
well beyond their reach.

They turned to Harry for help.

So they came to our...
my office,

uh, with Knightley's
encouragement,

and we bought
the shareholders, uh,

paid Sunday Times money
buying the lists of names

of the shareholders
so we could write to them.

MASON: It was like
a general election.

I mean, the phone would go,
and, uh, people would say, uh,

"We represent Ealing Council.

We have so many shares,
and we support Mason."

And, uh, so it went on.

So I thought,
"Well, this is great."

Another person who made
a huge difference was Ron Peet,

who headed
the Legal & General company.

I was speaking as
an institutional investor.

And I thought that it would be
in the shareholders' interest

if Distillers were to make
some sort of reasonable offer.

And he-- amazing-- he got up

and-and made a speech
in the city, as I recall...

Their products had clearly
done a vast amount of harm,

and they were not admitting
any moral liability,

which I thought there was.

It is now evident
and has been made clear

that we have
the necessary ten percent

of the voting power needed
to serve upon Distillers

notice for them to call an
extraordinary general meeting.

And indeed, the share price
for Distillers

started to tumble and fall.

Because by now, we've had
the huge debate in Parliament,

we've got the continuing
campaign in The Sunday Times

with photographs and Marjorie
Wallace's stories and stuff.

And we got, as our
high explosive pack,

that Bruce Page
and Elaine Potter documentation

of the fact that it...

there really was
negligence here.

NARRATOR: As press
and the public's anger built,

so did the pressure
on Distillers.

Individuals and retailers

started to boycott
their products.

Many companies, big and small,
offered whatever they could

to aid
The Sunday Times campaign.

DAVID GREIG: I personally
have been very concerned

about this for a long time.

And with all this,
uh, as I call it,

lack of understanding
for the feelings

of the people involved,

then somebody
has got to take a step.

PEET: Customers were turning
against Distillers' products.

And there were
these stories going around

about people going into
the duty-free shop at Heathrow

to buy whiskey,
and when asked what they wanted,

they said they didn't mind
as long as it wasn't Distillers.

And that didn't seem to me to be
very good for shareholders.

NARRATOR: Harry's moral campaign
had grown to such an extent

that it caught the eye
of American

consumer rights champion
Ralph Nader,

who offered his support.

Mr. Nader. How are you?
Nice of you to phone.

NADER:
David Mason asked me

if I could help him
with the consumer groups

in the United States
to put pressure on Distillers,

uh, to up their
paltry compensation.

So I decided
to go over to America.

I got Ralph Nader
to agree to see me.

MALE REPORTER:
David Mason will be meeting

Ralph Nader later tonight,
and they're expected

to hold a joint
press conference later

to announce what action
they plan to take.

MASON: And I got on this Pan Am
flight, and I'm sitting there,

and then there was
this announcement.

They said, "Well, um, ladies and
gentlemen, now we're going to...

"the drinks trolley
will be going round,

"and we can offer you
Johnnie Walker's Whisky

and Gordon's Gin
and this and that."

I thought, "What?" So I got...

I thought,
"I'm not standing for this."

So I followed the drinks trolley
round the cabin.

So when somebody said,
"I'd like a-a Gordon's Gin",

I'd say, "Well,
I'm David Mason. This is..."

And I had the newspaper things
and they'd say,

"Well, I'll have another drink."

I followed the drinks trolley
all the way round the plane,

and not one person
bought a Distillers product.

Now, the importance
of that was very...

It was absolutely huge.

All you had to do was,
uh, develop enough antipathy--

maybe five percent
of sales reduction--

and these companies would pay
attention, because y-you're

dealing with hundreds
of millions of dollars.

And once a stigma is attached

to a brand name
and that brand name

involves alcoholic beverages
which are easily abandoned,

uh, in favor of similar
alcoholic beverages,

uh, the message
was quite clear to Distillers.

MASON: And, uh, there were
all loads of press.

CBS, NBC, you name it,
they were all out there.

Uh, Harold Evans
had done a great job

of laying it on with the press
over in America.

What they're really after
in the complicated,

uh, accounting, uh, processes
of-of these companies

is-is to... is to pay out
just enough

to avoid having
any net cost to the company.

Uh, now, the significance
of the boycott

is that it talks the language
of Mr. MacDonald,

who understands, as they say,
pounds and pence.

And one chap stood up
and he said,

"Mr. Nader", he said,
"the realities

of bringing about
a boycott", he said,

"are very far-reaching and huge,

and just to set it up
would take forever."

And I said,
"I think I can answer that,

"because I was flying over here
on a Pan Am flight

and the following thing
happened."

And I started to recount
what had happened

on this Pan Am flight and how
everybody boycotted the prod...

Well, th-they just loved it.

And Ralph was
looking at me, absolut...

'Cause I hadn't told him
about it, and everybody wa...

everybody was laughing,
and-and he said,

"Well, there we are. Mr. Mason's
just carried it forward

and shown you
how it can be done."

And David was
extremely articulate.

Uh, one should never
underestimate the role

of-of a handful of the parents

who broke through
their grief and became,

uh, eloquent advocates
for their cause.

NARRATOR:
The Sunday Times moral campaign

wasn't just going to fade away.

In nine days, Distillers shares

lost 35 million pounds
in value.

This was arithmetic
Edinburgh understood.

EVANS: We began the campaign
in September 1972.

Three, four months later,
Distillers caved in.

And they offered the 20 million.

Uh, the...

We were told that
the treasury had to tax it.

So I wrote an editorial
the same day,

saying this would be
unthinkable.

And Harold Wilson, the next day,
gave an extra five million

so that no tax had to be paid.

Here, David.

LOUISE MEDUS-MANSELL:
I remember being in the paper,

on the press.

I remember, um,

the strain on-on the family.

And I also remember
meeting Harry at my house.

I didn't know who he was;
I thought he was

a rather strange man
to start off with.

And the fact that he and my dad
and the rest of the campaign,

you know, the rest
of the campaign team

finally did
get the compensation--

that was so important to us.

You know, I remember
saying that at...

(clears throat)

...that at the end of the day,
there were no medals to be won,

because the victims
still had no arms and no legs.

(film projector rattling)

MIKEY ARGY:
We received the compensation,

and the trust fund was set up

around the same time,
because they were aware--

Harold Evans was very aware--

that we would need that money
for the rest of our lives.

NARRATOR: But the settlement
was not universally acclaimed

by other commentators
who didn't know the full facts.

EVANS: Peregrine Worsthorne
and all those were saying,

"Harold Evans
is like a Robin Hood.

He's just, you know,
a bandit holding people up."

AJP Taylor,
the famous historian, said,

"This is outrageous, what
The Sunday Times was doing."

So, it's very, very important,
therefore, to conti...

for two reasons:
one, to show what had happened,

and two, to learn.

If we don't learn
from this drug disaster,

which we should have learned
in 1962, we should ha...

1963, we should have
learned, 1964.

And we're now in 1973,
and we still haven't learned

what the cause of the disaster.

They're really incredible.

This is... this is the, uh,
chemical breakup of it...

NARRATOR: Although they had won
the moral victory

and proper compensation,

the true story about the drug
had yet to be told.

The Insight team carried on

with their forensic
investigation

into the hidden causes
of the disaster,

and started to compose the most
explosive piece of all:

"Thalidomide:
The Story They Suppressed."

POTTER:
After the...

the September the 24th article
appeared,

it was only after that, uh,

that we... we really
began the investigation.

NARRATOR:
The first question to ask was:

Why did Distillers want
to license the drug?

They had little history
of pharmaceuticals.

POTTER:
The thing about Distillers

was that
they were new to drugs.

Thalidomide was practically the
first drug they'd ever handled.

And they'd read an article,
which I think actually appeared

in The Sunday Times,
uh, written by Aldous Huxley,

a sort of
Brave New World account

of what was going to happen,

a sort of futurologist
sort of piece,

saying that drugs were
gonna replace alcohol.

And they-they sort of had a bit
of a panic, and they thought,

"Well, we better do something
about this."

And that is...
that is why they got into drugs.

(machine clacking steadily)

NARRATOR:
The investigation looked

to challenge
the Distillers claim

about the tests
carried out in that era.

POTTER: We looked to see
which drug companies did what

and what they knew
about drugs in the '50s.

I then went to America.

And I went round
all the major drug companies,

finding out what they knew

before marketing new drugs.

And what we very quickly
learned and confirmed

was that the serious companies,

the companies which had been in
the business for a long time,

did reproductive studies
actually looking

to see whether they produced

damage to the fetus.

Lederle, Hoffman-LaRoche,

Smith-Kline & French--

they all did
reproductive studies.

And ICI here.

ICI actually went to

the level of using primates, uh,
which was very serious indeed.

NARRATOR: In 1957,
Distillers had sent the drug

for independent testing.

The results warned
that it could cause damage

to the thyroid gland,
a known cause of birth defects,

but they still went ahead.

Bruce Page went
to extraordinary lengths

to understand
the complex details

of how the drug
actually worked.

PAGE:
One of the things you've got to

understand about...
about the testing of drugs

is, even now, with the best
possible technology,

it isn't foolproof.

But you can say

that nature...
usually provides warning signs

around desperate chemicals.

And almost any time
you look at thalidomide,

it shows up bad.

It's a very complex
little molecule.

Exists in strange forms,

and its actions
are very unpredictable.

Thalidomide is asymmetric,
and that's in the words

of Dr. Robert Smith, I recall,
at St. Mary's Hospital.

He said, "Just look at that.

"That's a nasty molecule.

There's something wrong
with it."

Grunenthal were really,
really bad at drug testing,

and Distillers knew nothing
about it at all.

The intersection of

this bunch of soap makers,
which is what they had been,

with the bunch
of whiskey makers in Britain,

was a horrible
one-off disaster.

EVANS: The Minister of Health
at the time, Mr. Enoch Powell,

instead of rushing
to the defense of the parents,

doesn't have a public enquiry
and is

briefed, or receives a briefing,

which is basically the
Distillers case, and accepts it.

Yes, the civil servant who
briefs Powell is himself briefed

by a senior man at Distillers.

NARRATOR: Finally,
the investigation was complete.

The results damning.

But still, The Sunday Times was
prevented from publishing it

because an injunction
was in place.

MALE REPORTER:
And you can't tell me now

what was going on in Distillers?

I can't tell you, no.

I'm bound by the injunction,
as anybody else is.

Did they have
research facilities,

laboratories for testing drugs,
that sort of thing?

Not on the scale
that would've been necessary

to market a drug
like thalidomide in Britain.

But nonetheless,
they did market it.

Yes, they went ahead
and marketed it.

And how that came about is
the part that you can't tell?

That's what
I'm not allowed to tell.

We're already
on touchy ground here.

The details of why they actually
picked on thalidomide,

why they went
to Chemie Grunenthal,

uh, what tests
they did on the drug

before marketing it on animals,
uh, what tests they did to see

how the drug was absorbed
into the human system,

what tests they did to see
whether it was safe

for pregnant women to take
before advertising it as such,

what clinical trials they did
and the results

of those clinical trials,
I can't discuss.

NARRATOR: However, building on
the Insight team's research,

the Thalidomide Trust
and others have finally,

but only recently,
began to uncover the full story

of the drug's development.

They looked into how the owners
of Chemie Grunenthal

had had the resources to set up
a pharmaceutical division

when all around them
was rubble.

They discovered
that they were paid-up members

of the Nazi Party

who'd exploited
the Aryanization program

in order to buy up
Jewish-owned companies

at a fraction of their value.

According to
the company's records,

it only took eight weeks
from starting

to develop their wonder drug
to the first patent

for thalidomide being filed.

This seemed a suspiciously
short amount of time.

In all likelihood,
the scientists involved

had been working on these
compounds prior to the war.

NARRATOR: Hitler ordered
one of those scientists

to develop an antidote.

After the war,
Otto Ambros went on to work

at Chemie Grunenthal.

JOHNSON: Now, Otto Ambros was
known as "the Devil's Chemist,"

and he was the man

who decided that there should be
a big concentration camp

at a place called Auschwitz.

We looked at thalidomide,

and we looked at the claim that

it was a completely new type
of compound,

and we discovered instead
that, in fact,

it was one of thousands
of similar compounds,

and-and some of them
well-known drugs,

that went back to the 1940s
and the 1930s.

We got hold of the earliest
patents for thalidomide,

and we showed them
to one of our experts,

and he looked at the description
of the effects

of this chemical and said,
"How did they know that?"

And the effects
he was looking at

were five different effects
on the nervous system.

NARRATOR: These five
separate descriptions show

that the writers of the patent
knew that the drug acted

on the nervous system
in such a way

that it caused a slowing down
of muscle movements,

creating a sedating effect.

It reduced the metabolism,
heartbeat,

circulatory
and digestive systems

with effects
on the immune system.

JOHNSON:
There was no legal way

in which they could've tested
this chemical on humans

before they wrote this patent.

And in any event,
in postwar Germany,

that would've been illegal.

Although we have
no direct evidence

that thalidomide was used
or tested in the camps,

there is a lot
of circumstantial evidence,

and one of the startling
stories we heard

was from the mother
of one of our thalidomiders.

SINCLAIR:
It was my brother-in-law

who was one of the first

into Belsen Concentration Camp,
who liberated them.

It was only nearing the end
of his life that he said,

"You know,
that's where I saw babies

with deformities
like thalidomide."

He said, "Some were living,
only just,

and others were very dead."

But he says, "They had been

obviously giving it to
the mothers of these children."

REPORTER: This is the doctor
in charge of the female section

of the concentration camp,
Bergen-Belsen.

(woman speaking German)

She adds that various
medical experiments

were made on the prisoners.

Doctors gave some of them
intravenous injections.

And it was when we started
looking at the patents

for similar compounds
in the 1940s that we realized

that all of these drugs
were being tested

for their anti-convulsant
effects, and...

this... this made sense

only in an era
where people were trying

to find antidotes
for the nerve poisons.

MALE REPORTER: This clothing
will protect the wearer

from contact
with liquid nerve agent,

as well as
from nerve agent vapor.

And if symptoms of nerve agent
poisoning appear,

you have still another form
of protection:

your atropine injector.

This is to be used
only after symptoms

of nerve agent poisoning
appear.

NARRATOR:
Any potential antidote

to the nerve gasses would have
to have been designed

to temporarily deaden
the victim's nervous system.

However, this effect would have
catastrophic consequences

for a baby developing
in the womb.

JOHNSON: The way the drug
damaged the babies was acting

as a nerve poison,
and the thalidomide molecule

gets into the baby,
just as its nervous system

is starting to form,

and kills
the developing nerve end,

and it does it
with great precision.

(heart beating)

The nervous system begins
developing around day 20,

so, on day 20 to 21,

uh, the-the baby is liable
to have severe brain damage.

Then at day 21

to 22,

it may remove one
or both of the eyes

and damage the remaining eye.

And at 23,
it'll take away the hearing.

And it may remove the ears,

it may damage the inner ear,
the middle ear,

the outer ear, and it may
do those in random combinations.

And around day 24, it will
begin removing the arm system,

so it begins with
a complete removal of the arms,

until by 28, it'll just be
damage to the hands and wrists.

And around day 30, it'll be
the removal of the legs,

or severe damage to the legs,

down to day 35,

where it will be moderate damage
to the legs and feet.

So, thalidomide attacks
the embryo

almost with the precision
of a sniper's rifle,

with the effects
changing day by day.

NARRATOR:
So thalidomide was a by-product

of the Nazi chemical warfare
program.

It only stood out from
the other compounds developed

at the time because it acted

as an addictive sedative
that gave the user a high.

DANDILY (echoing):
So I took 'em, which you did.

They was good,
don't get me wrong.

They were smashing when I...
when I took 'em, you know?

I felt real good.

TELFORD TAYLOR: The crimes with
which these men are charged

were not committed in rage

or under the...

NARRATOR: Ambros was implicated
in serious war crimes

involving the deaths
of tens of thousands of people.

But by the time of
the Nuremberg trials in 1946,

the Allies were overwhelmed
by war criminals.

-Otto Ambros.
-Ambros.

NARRATOR: Although some
Nazi scientists were executed,

most punishments
were relatively lenient.

JOHNSON:
Otto Ambros could

no longer go and work in the
top companies in the industry,

and that's why they were working
around smaller businesses

like Grunenthal.

NARRATOR:
Inexplicably, in December 1970,

the judges at the trial of
executives of Chemie Grunenthal

suspended what was by then

the longest criminal trial
in German history.

After two and a half years
in court,

the accused were neither
exonerated nor found guilty.

The question
of criminal responsibility

has never been concluded.

The Page-Potter article
was finally completed

and the presses ready to roll,

but The Sunday Times were told
they couldn't publish,

and an injunction was issued
by the attorney general.

They appealed and won.

The case then went to
the House of Lords.

EVANS: So we're now
in the House of Lords,

and I'm sitting there
with my colleagues.

And the final conclusion
of the judge is the following--

just listen to this--

"The article will be banned.

"It is perfectly all right
for The Sunday Times

"to have conducted
a moral campaign,

"but it is illegal
to publish the facts

on which the moral campaign
was based."

So we've now lost
in the House of Lords.

So what do we do?

So we appeal to the European
Commission of Rights

that Harold Evans, representing
my colleagues, of course,

had been denied free speech

under Article 10
of the Human Rights Act.

So we then got in bumpy
airplane rides to Strasbourg

week after week after week

to argue the case
before the court.

And we won by...
really, by two votes.

FEMALE REPORTER:
Mr. Evans, just how significant

do you think
this judgment is today?

Tremendous. It's the most
important judgment for the...

not only for the freedom
of the press

but for the citizens' right
to know in England.

The most distinguished group
of judges have told

the British government,
"Reform the laws."

They've got to do it now.

That was Harry's
greatest achievement, I think,

to change British law in favor,

if you like,
of press freedom, in favor...

give more power
to the powerless, in a sense,

by enabling
investigative journalism

to continue
despite a gagging writ.

♪ ♪

(typewriter clacking)

EVANS:
The production is

superb today; we're well ahead.

Everything's pretty...
Well, everything is set.

Everybody who we wanted
to-to comment has said no,

and we'll say that
on the front page.

And in the meantime,
I must get on with this.

MAN: It's the right number
of words, is it?

I think it's over. I've...

My guess is that we're probably
two or three columns over.

But how can you deal
with ten years of nonsense

and silence and secrecy?

♪ ♪

(speaking indistinctly)

NARRATOR: The Insight team's
exposé of Distillers

was finally published.

It was the culmination
of a long battle

and a significant step
towards liberating

what Harry famously called
"the half-free press."

RUSBRIDGER: There's something
about the institutional weight

of a newspaper that has
to stand behind reporting,

and-and that is...
that is the fourth estate.

And I think that's-that's
the thing that I most fear

about the digital age,
is-is that you lose that

counterbalancing force of-of
what the institutional weight

of the press
standing behind reporting.

Uh, whether it's
against countries

or corporations or governments.

Uh, and, you know,

I think Harry Evans,
in some ways, embodies that.

NARRATOR:
In 2005, Harry was given

the post of editor-at-large
for Thomson Reuters,

the world's largest
news agency,

where he once again works
under the proprietorship

of the Thomson family.

EVANS:
Every newspaper editor's

face should be marked
with his features removed

and a big question mark
superimposed.

Does he have curiosity?

He needs to have a sense
of purpose.

What is he in the game for?

Is it to maximize money?

Is it to maximize
his own reputation?

What is it for?

Once it d... gets defined
by the making of money only--

let's say we need it,
we need to be sustained--

but once it's defined
by the making of money,

there are no inhibitions.

Anything that makes money,
he's justified.

To my way of thinking,

which sounds
a bit like a Boy Scout,

that's not a sufficient
definition of a good editor

and a sufficient guidance.

(indistinct chatter)

Yeah, she likes
having hers done.

I hate it.

EVANS:
This whole fantastic story

can only begin by my saying
to everybody here,

b-beginning first with the
mothers, whom we often think,

"Oh, they were the mothers."

Yeah, the mothers,

giving birth to you,

much as you were loved,
it was a shock.

And the fathers--

most of whom were good,
some of whom were not.

And, of course, you.

And I just think
it's absolutely astonishing

and amazing to me

that those babies I first saw

when I was editor
at The Northern Echo

are now here making lives.

So if we'd never won a penny
of compensation,

that would be an amazing reward.

So congratulations to you.

(applause)

ARGY:
He changed the dynamic

and the intention
of what was going on

in the rest of the world, where
the fault was with the parents.

You know,
countries were saying that,

"Well, the mothers took
the drug.

It's their fault
the children are like this."

But Harold Evans came along
and he said, "No,

"this is the fault
of the pharmaceutical companies,

and they're the ones
who must pay."

And he took the blame away
from the parents,

which is a massive thing,
because any parent

will always blame themselves for
the way their child turns out.

-Thank you so very much.
-(applause)

He took that responsibility
away and that guilt,

and he made it very clear
that it was

the pharmaceutical company,
Distillers,

and not the parents
who were at fault.

There was a Daily Mirror
front page...

GALVIN:
I will remember

as long as I live the day I read

in that paper about
that injunction, that writ,

and about
what they were going to do.

-It's here.
-He was determined

to take on the big boys. And,
you know, the bigger they are,

the harder the fall,
which he proved.

(Dominic speaks indistinctly)

He's only a little guy,
but, my God,

he is Mr. Perfection,
Mr. Sunday Times.

Without him, we didn't stand
a... we didn't stand a chance.

The ever complex,

multifaceted, changing,

thrilling nature
of the mosaic of news.

And that's
how I got into journalism.

♪ ♪

Let me make
the following statement

on behalf of the government.

I know many thalidomiders have
waited a long time for this.

It is agreed with
the National Advisory Council

of the Thalidomide Trust.

The government wishes to express

its sincere regret
and deep sympathy

for the injury and suffering
endured

by all those affected
when expectant mothers

took the drug thalidomide
between 1958 and 1961.

ARGY:
It was like

the world stood still;
everything just stopped

when Mike O'Brien,
the health minister,

started his statement of regret.

It was kind of like...
The only way I can describe it,

it's like everything went
into alignment.

The challenges
that many continue to endure,

often on a daily basis...

I'd waited my whole life
to hear this apology,

and finally I've heard it.

And then I flew out to New York
that night

on the 6:00 p.m. flight.

Next morning, I went banging
around to Harold Evans' house.

And it was so exciting,
because for everything

that Harold
had managed to do for us,

one thing he hadn't been able
to do was get that apology.

So we watched it together and we
just had our arms wrapped round

each other, and we were
just crying, staring at the...

at his little computer screen,

watching Mike O'Brien
make his apology.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

(music fades)