Speaking truth to power risks personal security, professional status and public ridicule. PR practitioners frequently pay it lip service. That makes Karl Connor’s Sellafield story exceptional.

Three years ago I published an anonymous blog from a senior practitioner about the gap between his organisation’s policy on mental health and the reality of its culture.

I don’t usually normally post anonymous blogs but it was an important story.

That practitioner was Karl Connor. He spent 13 years as a senior communications manager at Sellafield leaving to join a charity in January 2021.

Sellafield is a nuclear site close to Seascale on the coast of Cumbria. It employs 10,000 people in nuclear fuel reprocessing, nuclear waste storage and nuclear decommissioning.

Karl recently took part in a BBC investigation that reported on a “toxic mix of bulling and harassment” at the site. Here he picks up the story.

It was drummed into me from the moment I took my first formative steps into public relations that the last thing a practitioner should do is become the story.

BBC investigation into bullying and harassment

I was apprehensive when the BBC asked to interview me about my experiences of working at Sellafield.

They were investigating what other whistleblowers had told them was a “toxic culture.” They wanted to understand whether the issues were serious enough to cause safety concerns at Western Europe’s biggest and most complex nuclear site.

I had a lot to say, and it was not that I hadn’t previously spoken about my experiences.

The first time was a blog I wrote and sent to Stephen Waddington anonymously three years ago. You might have read it.

Writing it had been cathartic and I hoped at the time that it contributed to the discussion around attitudes to mental health in public relations. But by anonymising it to protect myself I had ensured it could not have any direct impact in my workplace.

To make changes I needed to speak up, but the time of the BBC approach, last August, I was still employed by the company who run the site. I was back at work and slowly recovering from a breakdown.

I was very much still hoping I could rebuild my career with the business and had no plans to leave. An obvious question would be why anyone would want to rebuild a career with a company where the culture is so toxic.

Let me explain.

Salary versus speaking out

It seems crass and a little shallow to say pay — but I would be being disingenuous if I did not admit that was a major factor.

To give some context, my wife and I have three children, with a fourth due to join us in April. The eldest is only six.

The salary I was paid at Sellafield had afforded us the opportunity for my wife to be a stay-at-home Mum. We both feel that our children have benefited enormously from her making the sacrifice of putting her career on hold so she could spend so much time with them at home in their early years.

I also happen to live in one of the most remote areas of England: whether I go north or south it takes at least an hour to reach a motorway or mainline railway. Getting another job, especially in the middle of a global pandemic, was going to be difficult.

I had to balance that with the fact that I’d been witness to so much and had a stack of information which I felt strongly it was in the public interest to reveal.

I’d been the company’s first ever communications lead for equality, diversity and inclusion.

I had spoken to employees who had trusted me with their experiences of mental health breakdown and then had to suck it up as human resources cherry-picked the case studies which painted the company in the best light.

I had battled the senior manager who wanted to decommission the only flagpole on site, rather than let us fly a transgender recognition flag.

I had ignored the senior human relations leader who agreed we could sponsor a local Pride event so long as “we didn’t let them make a song and dance about it”.

I had also had painful discussions with a group from another department who shared our open-plan office, and repeatedly used the word coloured in the aftermath of Grenfell. They refused to accept, when challenged, either that the phrase was racist or why it should matter, “because everyone on this floor is white anyway.”

Sellafield is the biggest employer in West Cumbria by some distance.

Everyone either works there or knows someone who does. My own kids, my nieces and nephews, the children of my closest friends - many of them will go on to work at the site or in the supply chain. That is not to mention the 10,000 local people who are employed there today. Or the people, former colleagues, who I have seen beaten into submission, driven to alcoholism and attempted suicide, or left facing financial ruin after being let go.

I felt like I had a duty to them all to speak up.

Sellafield storyteller turns whistleblower

I accepted the BBC’s invitation, ignored many mentors in PR, and stepped in front of the camera.

It felt liberating and terrifying, righteous and sneaky, brave and stupid, all at the same time.

In the months since the piece was recorded things moved on for me. I cannot say why I left Sellafield because I am taking legal action against my former employer. Suffice to say that as 2020 became 2021 it became clear that rebuilding my career in communications at Sellafield would be impossible.

I had been starting to look at alternatives. The landscape looked difficult and I faced a huge drop in salary but if suffering mental ill health has taught me anything, it’s that value and money are not the same thing.

I have been really lucky and have found somewhere I feel I fit perfectly.

My new job, as head of communications for a charity in South Cumbria, pays two-thirds of what my old one did, and it is an hour away from home.

But the positives greatly outweigh the negatives.  The money is still good, especially for the charity sector. The commute affords me a chance to unwind and because we work flexibly, I can blend home and office working.

By far the most important thing is that I feel safe and accepted.

After mental illness I don’t think you’re ever normal again. You evolve and find a way to be the best version of yourself you can be. I honestly think I am better at what I do now, both as a practitioner and a leader, but also as a human being, because of the experience I’ve gained.

Becoming the story

I got the call to say the BBC stuff I had recorded would be going out about 24 hours before it did. I’d already felt comfortable enough with my new employer to have told them about it in advance. Although I was still nervous going to bed the night before it was due to come out “subject to the survival of Prince Phillip” and didn’t sleep much.

My main worry was that in rural West Cumbria you are either with us or against us.

People here are tough and expected to be tough — especially the blokes. Most of us have been marched to a rugby club by the time we reach the age of eight or nine whether we wanted to be or not. And you do not dare refuse to play for fear of dishonouring your family. I played open age rugby from age 15.

I really did not know how locals would take to me: 6ft 3in, 20 stone, complaining about bullying on national television.

I got up with my two-year-old son when he stirred at 5am. I read the BBC’s online piece. I liked it. It was balanced.

The first of so many supportive messages had already landed in my inbox by the time I heard our story on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme at 7am.

Over the course of the week since I have been inundated with messages of support. Many from people who I hardly knew or did not know at all. I have had relatively senior managers in the nuclear industry thank me privately for raising the issue.

Most people have understood that I’ve spoken out to try and make things better.

One of the benefits I had not expected has been people who I have known or worked with in the past and lost touch with who’ve contacted me and said really nice things.

An old boss, a university lecturer, a director in a sister company to Sellafield who I was not sure would even remember me.

Senior people in my profession such as Stuart Bruce, Dan Slee and Stephen Waddington. That kindness is magnified so much when it comes from people for whom you have such respect and when it reaches you as you are feeling hyper-anxious.

I have been overwhelmed by people getting in touch directly to share their stories. I knew what happened to me at Sellafield was not unique, but I’ve heard stories of the very worst kind, far beyond what I thought I might hear.

“Offer to sit down with the Chief Executive to try and help remains open”

While I am glad those people have felt comfortable to trust me with their experiences, it’s really sad to know so many people have suffered and are suffering still at Sellafield. I will do what I can to help them.

Some are keen to go public and I have been able to advise them on the best ways of doing so and the potential pitfalls.

I have heard nothing from Sellafield management. In truth I didn't really expect to. The ongoing legal action means they are unlikely to engage with me away from our lawyers, although my offer to sit down with the Chief Executive to try and help remains open.

I am told that Internal comms at Sellafield have acknowledged a problem and talked about reflection. They have made some commitments to make positive changes. That is what all this was about for me really. Perhaps most importantly the publicity has put the issue on the desks of the right people in Whitehall who have the authority to make sure Sellafield honours those commitments.

What I hoped to achieve when I agreed to talk to the BBC was to start a conversation and it very much feels like it has been worth it.

Maybe whistleblowing is the one time when that golden rule about not becoming the story can be ignored.