Toxic waste is being blamed for a cluster of children born without fingers.

The families of 24 children with limb deformities are demanding answers over the disposal of waste from Northamptonshire’s once thriving steel industry.

Corby Borough Council has now been ordered to hand over documents which could help prove that harmful chemicals were allowed to escape during the transfer.

A legal battle involving eight families is already under way and the council faces paying compensation of up to £10 million.

Corby was once at the hub of a successful steel industry. But when the industry went into decline the local authority had to clean up the toxic waste left behind.

An estimated eight to sixteen pits around Corby were re-opened and lorries transported the contents- mostly lead and zinc by-products- to sealed containers north of the town.

So far, campaigners have identified 24 children who were born with upper and lower limb deformities between 1992 and 1999 when the clean-up operation was still in progress.

Many of the children have already had gruelling surgery with more to follow and struggle to carry out every day tasks. Joy Shatford, 30, can still remember the sour smell that hung in the air when the clean-up was in progress.

“You could smell and taste it,”, she said “ Everyone in Corby was talking about it”.

At the time, Mrs Shatford, a secretary was expecting her first child and was driving in and out of Corby twice daily to take her husband Darren, 32 to work at a bank.

“Darren and I had been together since we were at school and we were so excited to be having a baby”, she said.

“When Daniel was born the nurses just wrapped him up and gave him to me and didn’t say anything about his hand. It was only when I unwrapped him that I saw he just had these five little buds on his left hand. I thought I had done something wrong. All sorts if things went through my mind. But I didn’t drink or smoke, I didn’t even take aspirin”.

Daniel, now seven has already had three operations in which toes have been grated on to his hands but still struggles with simple tasks such as doing up buttons. It was on a hospital visit to Leeds with Daniel that Mrs Shatford met Susan McIntyre and her son Connor, also seven.

The two mothers soon realised that birth defects among children in the 60,000-population town of Corby were higher than average.

In fact, figures suggest the rate of upper-limb abnormality in Corby is 15 times higher than the national average.

Mrs Shatford who lives in Desborough, Northamptionshire, said compensation was not the main priority. “It would make much more difference to have an explanation or an apology” she said.

“When Daniel goes to a birthday party and they play ring a ring o’roses and the next child says “I won’t hold his hand”, I get a lump in my throat and we are back to square one.”

Mrs McIntyre, 35, said she too was desperate for answers. “I loved Connor from the start no matter what” she said. “But it ripped my first marriage apart”.

“When Connor was younger he would show everyone his hand, but now he gets bullied and has started hiding his hand away in his sleeve or pocket”.

“We just want answers and to know how this could have been covered up in this way”

The families of the seven boys and one girl have been awarded £20,000 in legal aid to flight their claim. Des Collins said “We have now got medical reports that rile out alternative explanations for what caused the upper limb deformities in these children”.

In 1997, police investigated allegations of corruption in the awarding of contracts during the clean-up operation, but the Crown Prosecution Service decided there was insufficient evidence to proceed.

However, a district auditor’s report revealed that none of the council engineers involved in the removal of toxic waste had professional experience and concluded that the operation “was not properly staffed”.

Mr Collins welcomed the decision of the High Court in London to order the council to disclose documents in connection with the management of the toxic pits.

He said “clearly after all this time we are glad on behalf off the families that the court has ordered these documents to be produced but we wonder why this wasn’t ordered earlier.”

A spokesman for the council said that claims were being studied but added that he could not comment because of ‘legal and insurance’ implications.