{"id":341188,"date":"2026-05-06T18:00:05","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T17:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsisc.com\/videos\/sewage-scandal-the-system-letting-water-companies-off-the-hook\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T18:00:05","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T17:00:05","slug":"sewage-scandal-the-system-letting-water-companies-off-the-hook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsisc.com\/videos\/sewage-scandal-the-system-letting-water-companies-off-the-hook\/","title":{"rendered":"Sewage scandal &#8211; the system letting water companies off the hook"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.ytimg.com\/vi\/HhdYLdh5OIs\/hqdefault.jpg\" alt=\"Sewage scandal - the system letting water companies off the hook\"><br \/> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HhdYLdh5OIs\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the dirty secret at the heart of England\u2019s waterways. The water companies publicly insist they are cleaning up their act, but privately they have been allowed to avoid prosecution for years through a little-known mechanism which lets a company admit fault and pay money to a good cause instead of facing criminal charges. <\/p>\n<p>[Subscribe to our Substack newsletter: https:\/\/channel4news.substack.com\/subscribe]<\/p>\n<p>The Environment Agency says the payments are a \u201cbrilliant tool\u201d, faster and simpler than taking a case through a lengthy court process. But Channel 4 News has uncovered how these payments have been used repeatedly by water companies accused of polluting rivers, allowing them to sidestep court, scrutiny, and conviction. Our investigation has also found that the Environment Agency has not completed a single prosecution of a water company for any pollution occurring in the last five years, despite almost two million sewage discharges.<\/p>\n<p>In this episode of The Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy speaks to Chief Correspondent Alex Thomson, who has been looking into this story, campaigner Fergal Sharkey, and whistleblower Robert Forrester, who has firsthand experience of how these cases are handled inside the system.<br \/>\n&#8212;&#8212;-<\/p>\n<p>Get more news at our site &#8211; https:\/\/www.channel4.com\/news\/ <\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our Substack newsletter: https:\/\/channel4news.substack.com\/subscribe<\/p>\n<p>Follow us:<br \/>\nTikTok &#8211; https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@c4news<br \/>\nInstagram &#8211; https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/channel4news\/<br \/>\nTwitter &#8211; https:\/\/twitter.com\/Channel4News<br \/>\nFacebook &#8211; https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Channel4News\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s the dirty secret at the heart of England\u2019s waterways. The water companies publicly insist they are cleaning up their act, but privately they have been allowed to avoid prosecution for years through a little-known mechanism which lets a company admit fault and pay money to a good cause instead of facing criminal charges. [Subscribe [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":341189,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[128813],"tags":[135670,129441,130147],"actors":[],"class_list":["post-341188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-channel-4-news","tag-dirty","tag-its","tag-secret"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Sewage scandal - the system letting water companies off the hook | News ISC Videos<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Watch Sewage scandal - the system letting water companies off the hook for free, here on News ISC. 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