Rob Dawber, a former rail trackside worker, who contracted mesothelioma

A former York railwayman-turned-scriptwriter who fell victim to the asbestos timebomb has won almost half-a-million pounds in damages.

A judge decided that Rob Dawber, who has scripted film director Ken Loach's next movie The Navigators, contracted mesothelioma through exposure to asbestos dust while working at the trackside.

Mr Dawber, 44, of Sheffield, who lived and worked in York in the 1970s and 1980s,

breathed in dust raised by colleagues as they smashed up concrete troughing containing asbestos.

The judge concluded that his employers, British Rail, failed to give adequate warnings to staff or protect them from the hazard, said Mr Dawber's York solicitor, Kevin Hughes, of Pattinson & Brewer.

Mr Hughes believed this was the first successful asbestos-related claim for damages in Britain by a rail trackside worker. It was also the first time an employer had been found liable in the UK for intermittent exposure - primarily to white asbestos - out-of-doors.

He said that, if any track workers in the York area were ever to contract mesothelioma in future, this judgement would assist them in a damages claim.

The damages award of £443,000 included a sum for loss of earnings in Mr Dawber's new career as a film scriptwriter.

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