Man who 'inhaled asbestos' as a child dies

Published on Tuesday 10 May 2005 00:47

A 32-YEAR-OLD man thought to have developed cancer after inhaling asbestos dust from his stepfather’s work overalls when he was a toddler has died after a year-long battle with the disease.

Barry Welch, a father-of-three, is thought to be the youngest person in Britain to suffer from mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer linked to asbestos exposure.

His widow, Claire, said she was "devastated" by his death, which came earlier than doctors had predicted. She said she would carry on with a compensation claim her husband had been pursuing against the company his stepfather, Roger Bugby, had worked for.

"He was a loving, caring man who would do anything for anyone," said Mrs Welch, from Leicester. "He was everything to me. It seems so unfair."

Law firm Irwin Mitchell, which is pursuing a compensation claim for Mr Welch’s widow, said they were now seeking colleagues of his stepfather, who worked as a scaffolder at Kingsnorth power station in Kent during the 1970s.

When Mr Bugby came home from work at Kingsnorth, Mr Welch’s mother, Kate, would brush down his overalls at the family home in Chatham, Kent, each evening, to remove the dust.

Mr Welch, who was diagnosed with the disease in June last year, had been pursuing a claim on the grounds that exposure to the dust, which contained asbestos, as a child made him susceptible to the disease in later life. Children are more susceptible to the rare form of cancer than adults.

He said last year: "I haven’t really come to terms with the fact that I am going to die and leave behind my wife and three children because of this disease.

"It seems so unfair that my life will be cut short even though I never knowingly came into contact or worked with asbestos. I am an innocent victim."

Mrs Welch said her husband wanted to provide for her and his three daughters, Natasha, 11, Samantha, nine, and six-year-old Leticia, after his death.

She said that the speed of the disease had taken the family by surprise.

"He became ill last May," said Mrs Welch. "We thought it was an asthma attack. The doctors didn’t think it was cancer. In fact he asked them and they laughed it off because he was so young. It was in June that he was finally diagnosed.

"Baz kept grasping at other things, thinking it would be OK, but I was devastated. I listened to the doctors a bit closer than he did. There was nothing they could do."

A spokesman for the lobby group Clydeside Action on Asbestos said Mr Welch’s death was a "tragedy".

"It is very unusual for a child to be affected," he said. "Usually it is the wife of the workers. But sadly the disease is set to peak around 2015/2020."

Mesothelioma affects about 2,000 people in the UK each year and kills most victims within a year of diagnosis.

Martyn Hayward, of Irwin Mitchell, said that he would still be seeking compensation for Mr Welch’s family.

"We are still putting together the claim against Mr Bugby’s former scaffolding company," he said.

"We would like to hear from any of Mr Bugby’s colleagues from the time who might have helpful information."