'Constant pain from a young age'

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Sixteen families, who blame their children's birth defects on toxic particles released during council work at a steel plant, have won a landmark victory as the High Court ruled Corby Borough Council was "negligent" in its clean-up of the site.

Children were born with deformities to their hands and feet

Fiona Taylor's son George, 17, was born with defects to his right index finger, thumb and forearm.

She told BBC Radio 5 live's Victoria Derbyshire show they noticed George's hand was "different" as soon as he was born.

"A couple of his fingers, his thumb and forefinger didn't bend or move or anything. As he grew it became more obvious and we had some tests and realised the thumb and finger wouldn't grow properly," she said.

"The two long bones in his forearm were not growing at the same rate either, so he had a bit of a curvature in that arm.

"He was in constant pain from a very young age, he was on constant painkillers, from when he was a toddler and using Tens machines for pain relief. We were told there was nothing really they could do."

Radical surgery

In 2005, George developed a tumour and had an operation to remove one finger.

Unfortunately, the tumour returned, and in 2007 he had to choose whether to have his hand removed or to try some very radical surgery; he opted for the latter.

Mrs Taylor said: "This resulted in most of the hand being removed and left him with just a couple of fingers, which is working really well at the moment. And they transplanted another finger to make a new thumb, which is there, it doesn't work very well but it's there and he's learning to live with that.

"We don't know what the future holds so we just have to take it a day at a time."

George described how his deformity affects his life: "It means I have to think of new ways to do just normal stuff like hold a can, hold a bottle, open stuff, play tennis."

We knew that they were trying to clean up the land, but what we didn't know what that they weren't doing it properly Fiona Taylor

He said the question of compensation had not yet been discussed, saying: "The money is not the important thing. The important thing is for them to be proved wrong or guilty."

His dad had owned the King's Arms pub in Weldon, Northamptonshire, which was popular with the workers clearing the old steel works.

Mrs Taylor said: "The steel works dominated the employment in Corby and when it closed down we knew that they were trying to clean up the land, but what we didn't know was that they weren't doing it properly.

"Some of the contractors who were working on different areas used to come into the pub all of the time, covered in muck and dust, we would have to clean up after them. I was constantly driving between Corby and Weldon at either end of the steel works plant."

She was pleased with Wednesday's verdict, she said.

"Once I'd stopped crying, total relief that it's taken 10 or 11 years for this conclusion to be made, it's just such a weight off our shoulders," she said.

"It's just total, total relief that it's finished."