MANY victims of York's asbestos timebomb will receive only "pitiful" compensation in future, a York solicitor warned today.

The warning follows a High Court test case involving ten people from around the country who suffered pleural plaques - scarring of the lungs - through exposure to asbestos dust.

Insurers challenged the right to compensation of people suffering the benign but worrying condition.

Mr Justice Holland, sitting in Newcastle, ruled yesterday that they should continue to receive compensation, but that levels of pay-outs should be about half the figure previously won by claimants.

Industrial disease specialist Ron Thompson, of York solicitors Pattinson & Brewer, said the ruling meant pleural plaque sufferers would only be entitled to a "pitiful maximum of £7,000," compared with a previous maximum of £15,000 for a one-off final compensation payment.

For people claiming an interim pay-out, allowing them to seek further damages if their condition worsens later, the maximum payment had also been reduced from £7,000 to £4,000, which in a small number of cases could precede the development of the asbestos-related cancer mesothelioma.

He said many thousands of people would be affected by the judgement, including many former York carriageworks employees who had been exposed to asbestos.

"This is a very disappointing judgement," he said. "Even though the physical lung damage may be limited and benign, sufferers are often devastated because of the risks of asbestos-related cancers. They feel they are sitting on a timebomb.

"A diagnosis of pleural plaques brings home the reality of exposure to asbestos to sufferers and their families and, having been exposed, there are real risks of malignant disease. If employers had taken basic safety precautions, sufferers would not have been exposed at all."

Another York solicitor specialising in asbestos compensation claims, Howard Bonnett, of Corries, said hundreds of claims were pending nationwide which would be directly affected by the ruling, including at least one he was handling for a former York carriageworks employee.

Paul Cooper, an ex-carriageworks employee who has long campaigned on the asbestos issue, said he also viewed the reduced maximum payments as pitiful, particularly as a number of people who had pleural plaques had gone on to develop mesothelioma.

Updated: 11:19 Wednesday, February 16, 2005