Original subtitles

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 well being 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!

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