Analysis Channel 4’s Dirty Business is a clarion call to nationalise the water industry Sandra Laville

As the drama shows, private firms no longer able to pollute the coast of England of Wales just switched to rivers instead Mon 23 Feb 2026 22.00 CET

There is a moment in Channel 4’s drama Dirty Business when Julie Maughan holds the body of her dead child and lets out an anguished cry. It is as brutal as it is compelling.

Her eight-year-old daughter Heather had just died in hospital, two weeks after playing in the sea on the beach at Dawlish Warren in Devon, where she contracted E coli O157, a bug which comes from raw sewage. She became ill with diarrhoea and blood loss. Transferred to Bristol children’s hospital, her parents agreed to switch off her life-support machine after she suffered kidney failure and brain damage.

The cause of her infection was not identified, and a jury ultimately returned a verdict of misadventure. At her inquest the coroner led calls for action to tackle sewage pollution on England’s beaches.