BREAKING NEWS: Citizens arrest of Anglian Water CEO, Mark Thurston, made in London for Public Nuisance

At 7.10 this morning, a group of women made a citizen’s arrest of Mark Thurston, CEO of Anglian Water at Coulsdon South station, in South London. The women approached Thurston at the station and surrounded him, holding hands in a circle to prevent him from leaving the scene while one of the group read him the charges he is accused of. A number of police are currently attending the scene.

The group is accusing Thurston of up to 3 counts of public nuisance, focusing on environmental damage and illegal sewage spills, which poses a risk to the public's access to clean water, their failure to maintain equipment which leads to the spills, and mismanagement of funds following bill increases and Thurston’s bonus ban.

At 7.04, the group of 8 women approached Mark Thurston as he walked towards the station entrance. Immediately they encircled him, and Isabel Rock made the citizens arrest. Immediately after, at 7.07, the group of women called the police on 999 to inform them about the Citizen’s Arrest and invite them to come to the scene and arrest Mark Thurston for Public Nuisance.

The group of women detained Thurston in this manner for 57 minutes, preventing him from leaving until the police arrived. At 7.19 he dialled 101, also asking the police to attend the scene. At 8.01 the British Transport Police arrived in two cars. The group of women presented their evidence dossier of Mark Thurston’s crimes to the Police, and left the scene at 8.19 after the Police took Mark Thurston into the MiniCab office at the station.

A passerby was heard remarking to the women: “I support you and thank you for doing that”.

The citizens arrest was made by the group Citizen’s Arrest Network, and comes days after Anglian Water were given approval by the competition body to raise bills over the cap initially set by the soon to be defunct Ofwat.¹ This follows an already agreed 19% increase that customers have seen this year, along with the biggest increase in sewage discharges in 2024.²

Isobel Rock, who made the citizens arrest, said:
“I’m here to hold Mark Thurston to account for the crimes Anglian Water is committing everyday against our environment and pockets. These water companies are ignoring environmental protections and are focused on shareholder profit making over public safety or keeping bills affordable.

“Our water is being polluted by these companies every day and continues to be, despite public uproar. And now our bills are set to increase once again, passing the buck back on to customers. Meanwhile Anglian Water made a profit of nearly £5m last year, the CEO is set to make £700k in with his salary, despite the bonus ban, and pay shareholders millions. All while Anglian has a huge debt that we're paying for. When are those responsible going to start paying for the damage they create to our environment? We are the victims of their continued failure and we want the police to take us seriously”.

Since taking over at Anglian Water, Mark Thurston has seen the company receive a fine of £62.8m for repeated failures to address their poor sewage infrastructure, and continue to be one of the worst companies in the country for sewage spills.³ 1,347 events were reported in January and February of this year alone. Thurston earned nearly £700,000 in 2024 as CEO and allowed dividends payouts exceeding £88m.⁴

Polling from Survation released last week, shows that the public overwhelmingly back criminal charges for Water Bosses (74%), and that 71% thought water companies were responsible for environmental damage and climate change.⁵ This shows a clear growing resentment from the public, for executives who make huge sums of money from facilitating climate breakdown, and severe health risks in UK water.

Anglian Water also has a debt of £7.72bn, a 10% increase on the previous year, in order to pay for improvements to infrastructure. Research from The Guardian found that between 2019 and 2023, an average of 24% of customers' bills went towards servicing the company's debt, despite the huge payouts and profits received by executives and investors.⁶

Mark Thurston was approached last week, along with another 7 water bosses across the UK by a group of women in order to hand them evidence dossiers, which outlined the damage of water pollution their companies have committed and the effect this has on the public and their access to clean water. The police where called to Anglian Water HQ, but failed to turn up despite making clear his crimes are serious and ongoing. The government has been fining water companies for years, but there is yet to be any jail time or accountability for CEOs. Police did attend other Water Company HQ’s but no final arrests were made.

As well as this action, another group began the UKs biggest ever environmental lawsuit over river pollution in the River Wye was announced. The lawsuit has over 4,000 people signed up and going against major poultry producers and a water company over allegations of "extensive and widespread pollution" in three rivers - the Wye, Lugg and Usk.⁷

-ENDS-

Sources