Asbestos Compensation After Grandfather's Death

When retired scaffolder Ken Hoggett heard he was dying because of an industrial disaster four decades earlier, he told his family: "Something should be done about this".

And after painstaking research and detective work, something finally has. Shaw & Co's personal injury specialist Rebecca Moore-Yelland worked to trace the company - now defunct - he had worked for in 1965 when three giant cooling towers at South Yorkshire's Ferrybridge power station collapsed in 100mph winds.

Although nobody died in the freakish accident, tragedy struck 85-year-old Ken generations later as the grandfather succumbed to a rare industrial disease.

He contracted mesothelioma, a rare and aggressive form of lung cancer which develops over many years, after inhaling deadly asbestos fibres during the clearing up process - for which he was given no protection.

Although Ken's ex-employers were no longer trading, Rebecca, based at our Doncaster office, tracked down former workmates to back up his story and traced the insurance company responsible for the firm's affairs.

She was able to secure £49,000 in damages for his surviving family.

Rebecca, who has many years' experience in tracing former employers of people who worked with asbestos decades ago, said proving the link between the firm and Ferrybridge could benefit any other workers yet to develop the illness.

"The defendant was hard to track and identify given the lapse of time, but has now been firmly placed as an employer of men working at the power station in this era," she added.

Ken's daughter Sue Stoppard, 57, whose mother Ann, 89, died soon after her husband of 60 years, said: "We don't know how many other people have yet to discover this.

"We were determined to settle it out of dad's memory - and for my mum because she wanted it to be done as well.

"The day that my dad found out that he had it he said 'Something should be done about this'. Well, now it has."