A group of 16 families in Corby could be in line to receive millions of pounds in compensation after the high court agreed that toxic material from a local steel works caused their children’s birth defects.

Residents of the Northamptonshire town began to worry when four children were born in the mid-1990s with fingers missing and other limb deformities.

They suspected that the problems stemmed from the reclamation works at Corby’s British Steel Works between 1985 and 1999, claiming that lorries containing toxic waste had been driven open over the roads, spilling dangerous sludge in the town.

Some 16 families with disabled children took legal action against Corby Council, which denied the allegations and fought the case to the high court.

Now however, a judge has agreed that the waste did cause the children’s defects and has given them the right to pursue compensation that could total £10 million.

The case has been described as the biggest related to toxic poisoning since thalidomide, when thousands of children were born with shortened limbs as a result of exposure to the anti-morning sickness drug that was believed to have no side effects.