I exposed the sewage crisis – this is why water bosses aren’t facing criminal charges

The Environment Agency’s prosecution of a former Southern Water CEO is for “publicity” and doesn’t do enough to tackle current wrongdoing, according to a former employee who helped expose the sewage crisis. Former Southern Water CEO Matthew Wright and his former colleagues Philip Barker, Clive Massey and Mark Gregory, are facing criminal charges over allegations they conspired to defraud the EA by faking wastewater data at a treatment works between January 2012 and December 2017. The case marks the first time a water company CEO has personally been prosecuted by the EA and was hailed as a turning point for the watchdog, which has been heavily criticised for not doing enough to prevent firms dumping sewage into waterways. Shorts However, Robert Forrester, a whistleblower who left the EA earlier this year, told The i Paper he thought the case was for “good publicity” and accused his former employer of “smokes and mirrors”. “They need a hard-hitting headline to show they’re still a relevant organisation with regard to environmental protection and to justify their integrity to some extent,” he said. A spokesperson for the EA said the allegations were “unfair” and rejected them “entirely”. They said the EA has concluded over 70 prosecutions against water and sewerage companies since 2015, securing fines of over £158m. Forrester worked at the EA for more than 20 years and has been a key figure in publicly revealing the extent of the sewage crisis as a whistleblower within the regulator. His identity was revealed earlier this year as part of the Channel 4 docudrama Dirty Business. Forrester pushed back against the narrative that the EA is seriously tackling the pollution scandal, and questioned why the regulator is taking action against Southern Water bosses a decade after the alleged incidents. “The question is going to have to be asked: did you have this information at the time? If you’d have thrown a CEO in jail then, would that have brought everyone in line? Would we be where we are?” he said. The EA has said it spent years gathering the evidence to prosecute the former Southern Water employees and was prevented from publicising the case for a period of time due to an anonymity order. ‘Austerity not to blame’ The EA has been heavily criticised for its role in the sewage crisis, with campaigners arguing that a light touch approach to regulation allowed water companies to get away with dumping waste into rivers, lakes and seas. The EA has previously blamed its failings on austerity; the regulator’s environmental protection budget was more than halved between 2009/10 and 2019/20. However, Forrester pushed back on the narrative that the EA lacked the resources to monitor water firms, arguing instead that water was “deprioritised” by the agency throughout the 2010s. He pointed to data showing how the staff budget for the Land and Water team reduced by eight per cent from 2019/20 to 2021/22, while the overall budget for Water, Land and Biodiversity increased by 21 per cent during the same period. EA ‘complicit’ in wrongdoing There is plenty of evidence the EA could use to prosecute a sitting water company CEO, Forrester argued – but he believes that doing so would be difficult due to the regulator’s “complicity”. “It’s hard to prosecute someone if they’re potentially working with the agreement or knowledge of the regulator,” he said. A spokesperson for the EA said it was “false” to suggest the regulator was complicit in any wrongdoing. Forrester points to the gradual decline in the number of pollution incidents being attended by the regulator and accusations that water companies were allowed to downgrade the severity of these incidents to avoid ramifications. The i Paper previously reported that by 2022, the EA was not attending 90 per cent of pollution incidents, including more than 60 per cent of the most serious incidents. In response to public outcry over the sewage scandal, the EA has increased the number of inspections of water company assets, completing over 10,000 inspections last year. However, Forrester said the current situation is still a far cry from when he joined the agency over 20 years ago. “The water companies rightly feared us because we’d take enforcement whenever it was needed. We had a presence out on site. We’d be attending almost every incident,” he said. “There was no real need to prosecute CEOs because there wasn’t the problems that there are now.” An EA spokesperson said: “These are serious allegations and we reject them entirely. The suggestion that the Environment Agency is complicit in any cover-up is false and unfair to the hundreds of dedicated staff who work to clean up our rivers, lakes and seas. “Since 2015, we’ve concluded over 70 prosecutions against water and sewerage companies, securing fines of over £158m including taking criminal proceedings against Southern Water Services Limited and a number of former employees. “We take our responsibility to protect the environment very seriously and will always pursue and prosecute those alleged to have committed serious offending against the environment.”