Hailed as the world's first whistleblower's charter, the Public Interest Disclosure Act (Pida) of 1998 promised to provide a robust legal safety net to "reassure people that if they act reasonably to protect the legitimate interests of others who are being threatened or abused, the law will not stand idly by should they be vilified or victimised".
Nearly 15 years later, however, Pida is being denounced as "not fit for purpose" by the very people involved in its drafting and initial consultation.An august list of senior politicians and legal experts accuse it of "endangering society" by offering whistleblowers false promises of protection.
Eileen Chubb, who brought the first case under Pida and has given evidence to Dame Janet Smith's review of the Savile inquiry, said Pida "is so badly written that whistleblowers don't stand a chance". Chubb, who lost her job as a carer in Bromley after whistleblowing about the abuse of elderly residents, said she has been blacklisted by every care home in the area and now works as a cleaner to make ends meet.
In response, she set up Compassion In Care and helps whistleblowers whose lives, she said, "have been totally ruined by their attempts to protect others from abuse and harm".
She added: "I also speak to people who are afraid to speak out about things they know are wrong. The awful thing is that they're right to be afraid: when whistleblowers turn to Pida to protect others, they're totally failed and left to be hung out to dry by vindictive employers.
"There have been so many cases in the headlines recently of whistleblowers being ignored at best, or abused at worst but nothing has changed.
"Even after the Jimmy Savile scandal and the Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust report, where whistleblowers were dismissed while patients died of horrific abuse and neglect, Pida remains a perverse piece of legislation which takes an active part in suppressing the truth."
One whistleblower interviewed by the Guardian can only speak anonymously: like Gary Walker, the former chief executive of an NHS trust being investigated over high mortality rates, who was forced in 2010 to quit his job at United Lincolnshire NHS Trust after speaking out over patient safety concerns, Pippa (not her real name) was gagged as part of a settlement.
Another, Delyth Jenkins, had worked as an administrator at Johnstown Centre, Carmarthen, for 16 years when she blew the whistle on the abuse of one of the users of the day centre for adults with learning disabilities. Her attempt to protect the vulnerable woman led to what she says was "appalling harassment" by her managers.
"From 2005 to 2006, I and others saw 'Sally', a vulnerable woman, physically abused by a manager at the centre a number of times. I complained to senior management but nothing happened, so I went to the public service ombudsman for Wales," she said.
"When the ombudsman's report was finally published in 2009, he found that Sally had been abused exactly as I'd reported. He also found that the council's social services department had failed to deal properly with my whistleblowing. But in the three years that it took the ombudsman to report, I was subjected to the most appalling harassment.
"It began as soon as I blew the whistle on Sally's abuse and was specifically targeted, I felt, to force me to resign and drop my complaints. I was subjected to psychological abuse and bullyboy tactics by managers who saw me as a troublemaker and wanted me out.
"I was accused of conspiracy and breach of confidentiality. I became so ill with pains in my chest that my doctor signed me off work."
Jenkins said she "was totally unprepared for what would happen to me for simply telling the truth. I was entirely unprotected by the law."
She resigned in 2010 and began a tribunal process. The council settled a day before the hearing, "which let them off the hook and left the truth untold".
She added: "I am still distraught that the management structure which failed so miserably are still there, given a second chance. They have also been given anonymity in the ombudsman's report, but if there is no accountability, nothing will change and this will happen again."
Pippa, a nurse for 35 years, has been barred from speaking openly about the abuse she saw – and the victimisation she suffered when she reported it.
"I had worked in the NHS, then moved to the private sector to manage a care home in Wales. I was winding my career down in 2011 when I agreed to do night duty at a local, privately owned care home for the elderly and infirm. The manager told me he wanted someone 'strong' on nights as there had previously been problems with the way staff were treating residents.
"I effectively 'blew the whistle' many times during my time at this home. Residents were being left in their faeces for hours on end. They were missing meals because they were asleep and no one could be bothered to wake them. A carer was seen force-feeding a resident by pinching her nose and shoving the food into her mouth.
"I think eventually the management got sick of my whistleblowing. The final crisis came when I saw another nurse, about whom I already had serious concerns, submitting a dying man to appallingly rough and unnecessary handling.
"I reported the nurse to the manager of the care home but the investigation they launched immediately became a fishing expedition into my professionalism."
When another carer, a friend of the nurse Pippa had complained about, said Pippa had shouted at a resident, she was immediately suspended and referred to the Nursing and Midwifery Council: an unusually aggressive reaction.
"Normally, the manager would have talked to me first," she said. "At worst, someone found guilty of this offence would have expected a verbal or written warning. Instead, I was immediately suspended and, before all the evidence had been collected, the manager wrote to me saying I was sacked."
Pippa appealed to the manager. An independent external consultant was bought in to hear Pippa's appeal, and agreed with her regional Union organiser that she should get two months' pay under a compromise agreement.
"It was a pathetic amount but it had never been about the money and by this point I was so traumatised, stressed and broke that I just wanted it all to be over.
"But along with the compromise agreement came a gagging clause, meaning I am not allowed to speak about this case. That makes me furious. Why shouldn't the home stand up and be counted? If they're allowed to stay unidentified, then perpetrators are allowed to continue working and flawed management structures remain in place – both of which have happened in my case.
"The abusive nurse is still working in the home but now there's no one left to report on any future abuses because they've seen what's happened to me. How is that in the public interest?"
Pippa still has a friend working in the home. "She phones me quite regularly in tears about what's happening but she won't make a report because of what happened to me. She says she's a coward but she needs her job. I feel proud that I had the courage to stand up for my residents. It's the whistleblowing system that stinks and is letting elderly, vulnerable people down."