The Scotsman who won justice for the people of … toxic Town! Robert Carlyle touches complainant in a powerful drama of Netflix … and the family says: ‘It is he on the screen, we are very proud of what he did’

The lawyer des Collins was baffled when he opened the folder of documents that had mysteriously appeared in his office.

While reading them, he realized that it was the crucial evidence he needed in a case that represented a group of mothers whose children were born with deformities.

The women were convinced that the Council had mistreated the waste of an old steel in the city, exposing them to toxic materials that believed they had caused problems with their children.

It was not until many years after that fateful day in 2004 that it was revealed that the figure behind the leaked documents was the former member of the municipality of Corby, Sam Hagen, who had moved to the city of Northambtnshire from Scotland.

Now, as a new television program explores the scandal and struggle of mothers for justice, Hagen’s daughter, Heather Finnie, has talked about the immense pride of his family in his late father.

She said: ‘He was a justice fan, he wouldn’t let something lie. He was not afraid.

‘If I thought something was unfair, I would fight for it. I am very proud of him, the whole family is.

Although he is played by the Hollywood star Robert Carlyle, the gestures, the voice and, above all, the tenacity of Mr. Hagen in the new television program is unequivocally the man they love.

Corby’s Steelworks waste supposedly caused birth defects, and Sam Hagen fought for parents whose children were affected.

Sam Hagen, a former local councilor who helped expose Corby’s poisoning, with his wife Kath.

Robert Carlyle plays Sam Hagen in the new TV dramatization.

A scene shows Mr. Hagen, who died in 2022, breaking into the council leader’s office with a pile of documents that says shows corruption within the local authority, while asking for measures to be taken.

This, says his family, was something he spoke regularly.

Born in Greenock in 1932, Hagen had moved to Corby in 1962 to work in the Parks Department of the Council before becoming a works manager and then a councilor.

During his time as part of the ruling administration, the council offices were raided by the police in the 1990s in relation to the fraud accusations related to the contracts granted for the recovery of steel plant lands.

The father of four children had been involved in the decision to call the police and had even taken his family on vacation to Florida so that he outside the country while the raid was carried out.

Mrs. Finnie said: “He told us that he wanted to leave the road since the shit was about to hit the fan.”

Hundreds of thousands of documents were seized, but after a three -year investigation, the crown prosecution service decided that there was no evidence to support a prosecution.

However, when he learned that the case was brought by the mothers some years later, Mr. Hagen without flinching filtered the vital files they needed for his case.

Known as ‘Little Scotland’ due to the large number of Scots that had moved there, Corby had been the site of one of the largest carpentry in Europe, with large amounts of toxic waste deposited there until its closure in 1981.

During the subsequent demolition and regeneration of the site, that waste was transported through residential areas in open trucks, releasing toxic dust to the atmosphere.

When an unusually high number of children in the area were born with birth defects between 1985 and 1999, children’s mothers were convinced that they had been exposed to toxins during regeneration.

They faced the Council of the Municipal of Corby for responsibility and compensation in a historical case, but their struggle for justice became a complicated uphill battle that divided the community.

It was not until Mr. Collins received the documents in secret of Mr. Hagen that the tide returned.

In a BBC horizon program transmitted in 2020, Mr. Collins said: “We were scratching my head one day when I entered the office and my desk in a brown envelope was a lever file full of papers.”

‘It is not normal for secret documents to appear: it is like something outside a novel by John Grisham. You think, people write these things and I like to read it, but it doesn’t happen in real life. However, it happened.

In 2008, the 18 families won their legal actions against the Council, receiving several million pounds in compensation.

Faithful to the form, Mr. Hagen gave evidence in court.

Mrs. Finnie, 64, said her father loved the city and her people and wanted to do the best for them.

She said: ‘I am so happy that people now believe her. All I wanted was justice for the people of Corby. He worried about this city.

The granddaughter Kerry Naylor, 43, added: ‘Her grandchildren were born in the 80s and 90s. Any of us could have been affected.

Mrs. Naylor attended the premiere of the Netflix show, called Toxic Town, in London recently and even met Carlyle.

She said: ‘I told her that my grandfather reminded me so much: her gestures, the way she spoke, her accent. He felt like seeing him on the screen.

Mrs. Naylor remembers that her grandfather had often talked about her concerns about corruption and her frustration for lack of action.

At the premiere, he met some of the mothers affected for the first time and received a new appreciation of what his grandfather had done.

She said: ‘One of the mothers told me that she should be very proud of him, and I am. She said they would never have justice if it weren’t for him.