'It was agonising watching him suffer'

Asbestos can trigger cancer

In a landmark court hearing, six tests cases are being brought against insurance firms which are disputing who should be liable for pay-outs to the victims of an asbestos-related cancer.

One of those fighting is the family of Charles O'Farrell, from Merseyside.

The effects of asbestos exposure took three decades to emerge in Charles O'Farrell, but then swiftly claimed his life.

He died, aged 81, in October 2003, just two months after the diagnosis of mesothelioma was made.

Charles spent just three years at the Linacre Gas Works in Bootle working as a steel erector between 1964 and 1967, and coming into contact with asbestos on a daily basis.

My dad has been dead five years in October and we still feel like the stuffing has been knocked out of us Maureen Edwards

He later said that he was never warned of the dangers of breathing asbestos fibres.

Mesothelioma is a particularly aggressive form of cancer and there is no cure.

When his family was awarded £152,000 in compensation against his former employer in the county court, Humphreys and Glasgow Limited, they thought that this would mean someone would accept financial responsibility for his death.

Out of business

However, Charles had outlived his former employer by some distance - Humphreys and Glasgow had ceased trading in 1986 and remains in liquidation.

So the family turned instead to the company which had provided public liability insurance to the firm back in the 1960s, Excess Insurance Company.

They refused to cover the award, saying that the public liability was only triggered at the point his symptoms emerged, at which point they were no longer insuring the company.

His daughter Maureen Edwards, 52, is now one of those leading the test-cases into the High Court in an effort to force them to pay.

"He was exposed to asbestos while doing a hard day's work, yet here we are all these years on, fighting for justice for him.

"It is no longer about the money. It is about the insurers accepting responsibility for what he went through."

Our grief and sorrow is being dragged out and made worse by the insurers who we feel are doing all they can to get away without accepting any responsibility Maureen Edwards

His old union, now called Unite, is supporting the case on behalf of thousands of asbestos victims and their families in a similar position.

But for Maureen, it is much more personal: "My dad has been dead five years in October and we still feel like the stuffing has been knocked out of us.

"Mesothelioma is such a dreadful disease and it is agonising watching a family member suffer in the way my dad did.

"But now our grief and sorrow is being dragged out and made worse by the insurers who we feel are doing all they can to get away without accepting any responsibility."

"It's important to us that we win this test case, not just for our family, but for all the other families now and in the future who will be devastated by this awful disease."