Teacher forced to quit job after chronic condition linked to sewage pollution – as sickness reports nearly triple
A secondary school teacher was forced to stop working after developing an incurable ear condition he believes was caused by surfing in sewage-polluted water.
Reuben Santer told Sky News he has had “an awful nine months” after contracting Meniere’s disease, which has caused him to have severe dizzy spells and hearing loss.
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His case has been highlighted by Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) who say reports to them of being sick after entering the water have nearly tripled in the last year.
Their concerns come as the chair of the water regulator Ofwat is to face a grilling from MPs tomorrow on how water companies plan to invest in crumbling infrastructure that has led to sewage regularly being spilled in UK waterways.
SAS says that as well as being an environmental problem, the sewage scandal is increasingly a public health one too.
‘Traumatic experience’
Reuben’s problems started last November when the 33-year-old developed an infection in his middle ear after a surf at Saunton Beach in Devon.
“I had this really loud, intense ringing in one side the day after a surf,” he told Sky News.
“I thought I was having a haemorrhage; I had no idea what was going on. I went to the doctor and they said it was a middle ear infection likely caused by dirty water but it’s impossible to prove.”
Reuben Santer (L) has suffered from ear infections linked to sewage pollution
Reuben’s symptoms went away with antibiotics but he fell ill a month later after going back in the water for the first time. He only realised afterwards that a sewage pollution warning had been in place and a day later he was “throwing up, having intense rotational vertigo, I completely lost my balance”. It emerged he had labyrinthitis in his inner ear.
“You can normally recover from that but somehow it triggered Meniere’s disease which is the same symptoms but chronically. It doesn’t have a known cure.
“I’ve had a really awful nine months, the worst thing is I lost my job.
“Being a teacher is stressful, I could not handle being in a classroom and having unpredictable attacks of vertigo…when everything around you is spinning. It was pretty traumatic.
“I haven’t been going out on my own, I haven’t been driving when I was previously an independent person so that’s been pretty tough. I also have hearing loss in my left ear and roaring tinnitus and sound sensitivity.”
Reports of sickness up by nearly a third
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What caused Britain’s sewage crisis?
While the definite cause of Reuben’s condition is not provable, Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) is concerned about a rise in people getting sick from dirty water.
In its annual Water Quality Report released this week, the campaign group said between October 2022 and September 2023 1,924 people reported getting ill after entering the water – up from 720 the year previously.
Of those who visited a doctor, three out of four people said the doctor attributed their illness to exposure to sewage-polluted waters.
The illnesses caused an estimated five years worth of sick days and the majority of cases happened at bathing sites considered to be “excellent” quality, the SAS report said.
Surfer ‘horrified’ to contract parasite
Naomi Jenkin, 37, was ill for three weeks after she contracted the parasite cryptosporidium following a surf in Newquay in the spring.
“It’s something that you get from water that’s contaminated with sewage,” she said. “I was horrified.”
She said her symptoms included being “doubled up in pain and feeling nauseous”.
“I had to just stop work and basically take myself to bed. I had a really bad stomach upset, and it basically went on for three weeks in total, so it really affected my life quite a lot.
“It’s also knocked my confidence to go back into the water.”
Naomi Jenkin was ill for three weeks after contracting a parasite
In some cases, sicknesses caused by suspected sewage pollution have been so severe people had to be hospitalised.
Robbie Bowman fell ill a few hours after going for a swim with a scrape on his leg in Cardiff and was found by his son “lying on the floor, waving my arms about, not making any sense”.
In hospital he was diagnosed with the bacterial infection cellulitis and kept on intravenous antibiotics for a week as doctors feared he had sepsis.
He told Sky News that he spent most of August “with my leg up trying to encourage the healing of my skin and the blisters on the back of my calf” and his skin is still red. A possible cause was given as Golden Staph, which can be caused by swimming in dirty water.
“It has quite massively impacted me,” he said. “I don’t trust the water anymore. That for me is the biggest shame.”
General Election ‘tipping point for change’
Giles Bristow, the CEO of Surfers Against Sewage, said the rise in sickness reports could be due to more people being aware of the sewage scandal and linking their health issues to that.
But he said more people are using water for recreational activities at the same time as rampant sewage dumping so “it’s bound to be that more people are getting ill”.
While firms are allowed to discharge sewage overflow when there is too much rainfall, this is only meant to happen in exceptional circumstances – yet several investigations over the past few years have found it is regularly happening illegally.
The SAS’s report found that untreated sewage was discharged across waterways in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales more than 399,864 times – over 1,000 times a day.
Mr Bristow said the report “reveals the complacency and disregard of governments, water companies and regulators towards the health of rivers and coastlines in the UK – and by extension people’s health”.
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Huge sewage spill captured in cornwall
With a general election looming, he called on all parties to adopt the SAS’s End Sewage Pollution Manifesto – a five point plan that includes cracking down on the profits made by water companies and ensuing regulators have resources to enforce pollution laws.
“This is an absolutely key issue for the public and we’ve got a mandate for change like never before,” he said.
“You wouldn’t put up with a Victorian health system where you turn up to your doctors and they give you a leech. So why should we put up with turning up to use our rivers and sees and finding it’s a Victorian system that discharges pollution into our waterways?”
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Government admits sewage dumping ‘unacceptable’
A Defra spokesperson admitted the levels of sewage dumping in UK waterways is “unacceptable” but insisted action was being taken to address it.
They pointed to the Plan for Water which will see firms face unlimited fines for sewage dumping.
“This plan includes targets so strict they are leading to the largest infrastructure programme in water company history – £60bn over 25 years – which in turn will result in hundreds of thousands fewer sewage discharges,” the spokesperson said.
Industry body Water UK has said it is prepared to almost double that spending to pay for upgrades and cut sewage discharges.
However, there is anger at the suggestion to increase consumer bills to fund it – given the large bonuses and dividends made by water company bosses in recent years.
The issue looks set to become a key battleground when voters next go to the polls, especially in rural and coastal areas traditionally represented by Conservative MPs – but which the Lib Dems are looking to take.
Tim Farron, the Lib Dems’ environmental spokesperson, called the SAS report an “insult” to people “who want to swim in their local river or sea without getting sick”, and called on the Conservatives to “ban bonuses for water company bosses until this filthy practice is brought to an end”.
Labour’s shadow environment secretary Steve Reed said the water industry “is broken after 13 years of Tory government” and Labour “will give Ofwat the powers to ban the payment of bonuses to water bosses until they have cleared up their filth”.
It’s like The Godfather, one reformed drug trafficker tells me.
The mythical gangster film centred on an organised crime dynasty locked in a transfer of power.
Communities in Scotland currently have a front row seat to a new war of violence, torture, and taunts as feuding drug lords and notorious families grapple for control of Glasgow and Edinburgh.
There have been more than a dozen brutal attacks over the past six weeks – ranging from fire bombings to attacks on children and gun violence.
A firebomb attack in Scotland
Victims left for dead, businesses up in flames
Gangsters have filmed themselves setting fire to buildings and homes connected to the associates and relatives of their bitter rivals.
The main aim, they boast, is to “exterminate” the opposition.
The taunting footage, accompanied by the song Keep On Running by The Spencer Davis Group, has been plastered over social media as part of a deliberate game of goading.
A 12-year-old boy and 72-year-old woman were left for dead when teenagers wearing balaclavas burst into a home in north Glasgow.
Garages and businesses have gone up in flames. Shots were fired at an Edinburgh house.
Signals are being sent of who wants control of Scotland’s dark criminal underworld.
A firebomb attack that saw a man throw an incendiary device through a building window
The fire attack set to the song Keep On Running by The Spencer Davis Group
What’s caused the gang war?
The former director of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, Graeme Pearson, explains how a “vacuum of leadership” is playing a part.
Last October, Glasgow-based cocaine kingpin Jamie Stevenson, known as The Iceman, was jailed after orchestrating a £100m cocaine shipment stashed in banana boxes from South America.
The mob leader was one of Britain’s most wanted, running his business like another on-screen criminal enterprise: The Sopranos.
The 59-year-old fugitive went on the run before eventually being hunted and apprehended by police while out jogging in the Netherlands.
Jamie Stevenson. Pic: Police Scotland
Pic: Crown Office
‘Old scores to settle’
But paranoia was running rife about how this notorious gangster could be brought down. Was there a grass? Was it one of their own?
It further fuelled divisions and forced new alliances to be forged across Scotland’s organised criminal networks.
It wasn’t until The Iceman case came to court that it was revealed an encrypted messaging platform, known as EncroChat, had been infiltrated by law enforcement.
It ultimately led to Stevenson pleading guilty.
Ex-senior drug enforcement officer Mr Pearson told Sky News: “It is a complex picture because you have got people who are in prison who still want to have influence outside and look after what was their business.
“On the outside you’ve got wannabes who are coming forward, and they think this is an opportunity for them, and you have got others have old scores to settle that they could not settle when crime bosses were around.”
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Graeme Pearson
Mr Pearson describes a toxic mix swirling to create outbursts of violence unfolding in Scotland.
He concluded: “All that mixes together – and the greed for the money that comes from drugs, and from the kudos that comes from being a ‘main man’, and you end up with competition, violence, and the kind of incidents we have seen over the past four to six weeks.”
New wave of violence ‘barbaric’
Glasgow man Mark Dempster is a former addict, dealer, and drug smuggler who is now an author and respected counsellor helping people quit drinking and drugs.
He describes the “jostle for power” as not a new concept among Glasgow’s high profile gangland families.
Mark Dempster
“There is always going to be someone new who wants to control the markets. It is like The Godfather. There is no difference between Scotland, Albania, or India,” he said.
Mr Dempster suggests a shift in tactics in Glasgow and Edinburgh in recent weeks, with 12-year-olds being viciously attacked in the middle of the night.
“It is barbaric. When young people, children, get pulled into the cross fire. It takes it to a different level.
“At least with the old mafiosa they had an unwritten rule that no children, no other family members. You would deal directly with the main people that were your opposition.”
Police Scotland is racing to get control of the situation, but declined to speak to Sky News about its ongoing operation.
It has been suggested 100 officers are working on this case, with “arrests imminent”.
But this is at the very sharp end of sophisticated criminal empires where the police are not feared, there are fierce vendettas and, clearly, power is up for grabs.
UK
Laws may need to be bolstered to crack down on exploitation of child ‘influencers’, senior MP suggests
Laws may need to be strengthened to crack down on the exploitation of child “influencers”, a senior Labour MP has warned.
Chi Onwurah, chair of the science, technology and innovation committee, said parts of the Online Safety Act – passed in October 2023 – may already be “obsolete or inadequate”.
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Experts have raised concerns that there is a lack of provision in industry laws for children who earn money through brand collaborations on social media when compared to child actors and models.
This has led to some children advertising in their underwear on social media, one expert has claimed.
Those working in more traditional entertainment fields are safeguarded by performance laws, which strictly govern the hours a minor can work, the money they earn and who they are accompanied by.
The Child Influencer Project, which has curated the world’s first industry guidelines for the group, has warned of a “large gap in UK law” which is not sufficiently filled by new online safety legislation.
Official portrait of Chi Onwurah.
Pic: UK Parlimeant
The group’s research found that child influencers could be exposed to as many as 20 different risks of harm, including to dignity, identity, family life, education, and their health and safety.
Ms Onwurah told Sky News there needs to be a “much clearer understanding of the nature of child influencers ‘work’ and the legal and regulatory framework around it”.
She said: “The safety and welfare of children are at the heart of the Online Safety Act and rightly so.
“However, as we know in a number of areas the act may already be obsolete or inadequate due to the lack of foresight and rigour of the last government.”
Victoria Collins, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for science, innovation and technology, agreed that regulations “need to keep pace with the times”, with child influencers on social media “protected in the same way” as child actors or models.
“Liberal Democrats would welcome steps to strengthen the Online Safety Act on this front,” she added.
‘Something has to be done’
MPs warned in 2022 that the government should “urgently address the gap in UK child labour and performance regulation that is leaving child influencers without protection”.
They asked for new laws on working hours and conditions, a mandate for the protection of the child’s earnings, a right to erasure and to bring child labour arrangements under the oversight of local authorities.
However, Dr Francis Rees, the principal investigator for the Child Influencer Project, told Sky News that even after the implementation of the Online Safety Act, “there’s still a lot wanting”.
“Something has to be done to make brands more aware of their own duty of care towards kids in this arena,” she said.
Dr Rees added that achieving performances from children on social media “can involve extremely coercive and disruptive practices”.
“We simply have to do more to protect these children who have very little say or understanding of what is really happening. Most are left without a voice and without a choice.”
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The researcher pointed to one particular instance, in which children were advertising an underwear brand on social media.
She said: “The kids in the company’s own marketing material or their own media campaigns are either pulling up the band of the underwear underneath their clothing, or they’re holding the underwear up while they’re fully clothed.
“But whenever you look at any of the sponsored content produced by families with children – mum, dad, and child are in their underwear.”
Dr Rees said it is “night and day” in terms of how companies are behaving when they have responsibility for the material, versus “the lack of responsibility once they hand it over to parents with kids”.
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