Six figure payout for asbestos death

TUC Risks 29th March reported that a Yorkshire widow has received a six-figure compensation payout after her husband died of an asbestos cancer.

Sylvia Worth, 54, was awarded £122,000 in damages. Her husband, Harry, who was in his late 60s when he died, was exposed to asbestos as a teenager, while working as an apprentice electrician at the Campbell & Isherwood shipyard on Tyneside, now known as Sorbo Ten Ltd. He was diagnosed with mesothelioma in February 2004 and died just a few months later in June 2004. Mrs Worth said Harry could not believe he could develop such a deadly disease from the few years he worked alongside asbestos. 'He was astounded when he was diagnosed. He thought you had to work with asbestos for a lifetime before you could get something like mesothelioma. He said to the doctor that he hadn't been near asbestos in 45 years.'