Dockers win asbestos appeal

Hundreds of former dock workers have been given the right to sue the government for compensation over asbestos-related illnesses, following a ruling by the Court of Appeal.

In May 2006, the High Court ruled - in the case of ex-docker Robert Thompson and Winifred Rice, the widow of fellow docker Edward Rice - that the Department for Trade and Industry (DTI) was responsible for dockers' health and safety in the 1950s and 1960s. The DTI appealed, but lost its case last month.

Solicitor Kevin Johnson, who represented ex-docker Robert Thompson and docker's widow Winifred Rice in the case, said it was right that the DTI had been made to take responsibility.

"The Court of Appeal has given former dock workers and their families the lifeline to financial security that they so badly needed," he said. "By the time these men become ill through asbestos, they can't trace and pursue many of the private dock companies that employed them. But the dock labour boards knew they were exposing the men to harm by allowing them to work unprotected."

The ruling makes the DTI responsible for the National Dock Labour Board scheme, which employed dock workers on a casual basis between the late 1940s and 1967. Many dockers unloaded raw asbestos from ships during this period, and those who contracted diseases as a result have now gained the right to compensation from the DTI.