Asbestos widow: 'Why I won't fight for £1m'

A WIDOW has turned down a potential £1 million compensation payout over her husband's asbestos death because she refuses to fuel Britain's "compensation culture".

Gillian Chapman, 73, lost her husband John, 82, to mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer, in June last year. He developed the condition over 50 years ago while training as a doctor in a London hospital which was built using asbestos.

The family of a plastic surgeon who also died of asbestos-related cancer after working at the hospital was awarded 1.15m after claiming compensation.

But Mrs Chapman, of Sturminster Newton, Dorset, has refused to follow suit because she is disagrees with "ambulance chasing".

She said: ''I don't approve of those people who go around chasing ambulances trying to find someone to sue.

"I think the country is in a bad enough state as it is without people knocking it even more.

"He lived a good, long life. He was a remarkable man for his age. He was ten years older than me, but he had so much vitality you would have thought he was ten years younger.''

An inquest into his death heard that Dr Chapman trained at Middlesex Hospital in Camden, London, in the early 1950s. He came into repeated contact with asbestos, which led to fatal mesothelioma in his later years.