Toxic Town: Tracey Taylor Tells Her True Story And The Tragic Loss Of Her Baby, Shelby Anne

Content warning: This story contains discussion of baby loss.

Spoilers below.

After watching Toxic Town, many of us have been left phones-in-hand wondering how this could've all happened, and what more there is to know. No more so than in the case of Tracey Taylor (played by Aimee Lou Wood), whose daughter Shelby Anne sadly died at just four days old.

In a heartbreaking turn of events, viewers see that in the end, Shelby Anne is not one of the children included in the court case against Corby Borough Council, despite Tracey having fought for years. The show, in some ways then, is a small piece of justice for the family, who are integral to the streaming service's story.

In a touching feature by Netflix, Aimee Lou Wood and Tracey get to meet — it's an incredibly emotional reunion.

But Tracey also gets more of a chance to give more detail on what happened to their family. Asking what is the most sensitive or poignant part to watch of the show, Tracey says in an exclusive interview with Netflix: 'Probably the actual birth and what happened. We were excited, it was going to be our first child. Shelby was beautiful, they wrapped her up and gave her to me and I pulled a bit of the blanket away because I wanted to see her face, and that’s when I saw her deformed ear.

'They took her down to the special baby care unit and put her on oxygen and that’s when the doctor said, "We think there’s something seriously wrong." We called our priest who’d married us to baptise her and give her a blessing and then they came back, took us into a room and they said "We’re really really sorry but unfortunately she’s only got a two chamber heard instead of a four chamber heart, there’s blood being pumped into her lungs."

'I said, "Can you please try and operate?" And they said "We could take her in but it’s over 90% chance she won’t be coming out alive", so we had to make the decision of did we put her through that and any more pain or did we let her go.

'So we asked my mum and dad to come down and see their granddaughter and say their goodbyes, which they did, and we decided as parents we would take her off the life support machine. If she lasted a little while we’d give her the chance of going into surgery and give her the chance of being operated on, knowing there’d be many more years of surgeries for her. But if she went, at least she went in our arms lovingly, and she only lasted five minutes.

Speaking about what happened next, Tracey says: 'They did testing on both of us and said there was no reason why it should’ve happened. And I started to feel, "Is this something I’d done in the first three months?" You start to blame yourself as a mother.

'It turns out I was working next door to it where the main toxic waste, deadly stuff was being done. That was the whole of the pregnancy.

'All of this at the start was one big jigsaw puzzle and slowly the pieces came together.'

In the end, the Corby mothers do prosper against the council after years of fighting, with Tracey giving evidence despite Shelby Anne not being included in the court action.

'We had to show we were strong independent women who were going to prove that what they did was wrong and we were not going to be lied to,' she reflects.

'All the years of fighting and then finding out that yes, the judge believed us mums and we were right it brought a real big sense of relief because it was like "I didn’t do anything wrong, it’s not my fault."

'We were a great team and that’s what was needed, to take them to court and win. So yeah there is a friendship and bond that’s going to be there until the end of time.'

Toxic Town is available to watch on Netflix now.

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