The death of the pits left a legacy of disease and suffering for many miners and their families who are still waiting for compensation. In the latest of our series looking back over the decade since closure, Stuart Arnold reports on their continuing battle for justice.

SHUFFLING slowly into the room, Arthur Bartholomew sits down and lets out a sigh.

A proud man, his weathered face bears the scars of a lifetime spent down the pits as a face worker and then colliery overman. Now 85 years old, he waits for his financial due with lungs wrecked through a combination of chronic bronchitis and emphysema.

Mr Bartholomew, who was part of the rescue effort in the 1951 pit disaster at Easington Colliery which claimed 81 lives, is one of thousands of men who submitted claims against the Government for their industrial disease.

The floodgates opened in the mid to late 1990s when separate court judgements found the former British Coal liable for not taking appropriate steps to prevent Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) caused by breathing in coal dust. The same was true for Vibration White Finger (VWF) caused by vibrating power tools.

The Government agreed to take on the liabilities and two separate compensation schemes were set up to accept claims. To date, in the region's former coalfields £105m has been paid to 57,011 lung disease claimants and £228m to 42,100 VWF claimants.

The figures, though, mask a catalogue of highly-publicised delays and frustrations in the payment of the cash. And despite a number of breakthroughs in the log jam, largely affecting those suffering lung injury, some problems still remain.

After submitting his claim almost five years ago and undergoing three medicals to assess his condition, Mr Bartholomew, who worked 40 years at Easington, is yet to receive a final financial settlement.

In the meantime, he survives with the help of inhalers and tablets and finds himself able to walk only short distances before feeling out of breath.

He said: "I used to love going to watch the football in the village, but I cannot get up the bank anymore to go see it.

"I feel very badly done to particularly as I have been given no explanation for this delay. People are dragging their feet."

Easington MP John Cummings, whose father, George, contracted chronic bronchitis and emphysema after working down the pits, said: "I am still 100 per cent committed to ensuring justice for all those people who have suffered. I am extremely concerned about continued delays, but recognise that progress has been made.

"I want to see these people get their compensation to give them some element of comfort in the few years they have left and I am constantly pressing the matter with ministers."

Alan Cummings, a long-time critic of the Government's handling of the compensation schemes, says previous promises that the claims of the eldest and sickest former miners would be given priority have been broken.

The former NUM lodge secretary at Easington said: "I don't know of one my elderly members from the lodge who has received final payment for their lung disease.

"We have moved on but things have been painfully slow and the time it is taking from a man having his final medical examination to being made a final offer is still too long.

"The worst cases have been examined, but it is taking too long for the money to flow," he said.

"The whole procedure from submitting a claim to receiving payment is complicated but the people in charge have had long enough to get it right."

Mr Cummings said delays in getting IRISC - the company that handles the claims - up and running to deal with lung compensation claims created a backlog which has never been cleared. He also said that in some cases claims were being unnecessarily queried or held up.

He concluded: "People feel a great affinity with the miners. They worked in hard, arduous conditions keeping the country going and expected better.

"Communities have been decimated by the closure of the pits and it remains payback time."

Two years ago, The Northern Echo began its Justice For The Miners campaign after uncovering how just a handful of lung disease claimants had received their full due.

A public meeting in August of that year organised byThe Northern Echo heard urgent demands for action to speed up payments amid fears of a "ticking time bomb".

A delegation of Government officials present promised to take on board a number of suggestions aimed at speeding up the process.

As the pressure grew - and with hundreds of men thought to be dying each month before receiving payment - the Echo paid a visit to the Department of Trade and Industry headquarters in London along with Stanley woman Pat Daglish.

Ms Daglish, whose father Thomas died as result of a crippling lung affliction caused by working down the pits, handed over a petition of more than 10,000 protest signatures to the then Energy Minister Helen Liddell.

The pressure led to a series of concessions from the Government including a £90m cash injection, a "fast tracking" procedure for claims and streamlining of the collection of medical and employment records.

Six months later and with the Government having rejected demands in the House of Commons for an inquiry a new package of improvements was announced.

New Energy Minister Peter Hain, admitting there had been too many delays and mistakes, said hundreds of cases in the North-East were being prioritised and moves made to end a shortage of qualified chest consultants.

Eighteen months later, and the rumblings of discontent have continued in some quarters despite money being paid faster and in ever larger amounts.

North-East solicitor Roger Maddocks is a member of the claimants solicitors co-ordinating group which helped negotiate the handling arrangements for both compensation schemes.

He said: "The scale of the compensation schemes is unprecedented.

"After a slow start - due to their complexities with the aim to ensure claimants receive broadly what they would be awarded by a court - they are now delivering long overdue compensation in volume.

"But there are still important issues that have yet to be resolved satisfactorily.

"It is essential that complacency does not creep in."

Mr Maddocks said that the DTI's insistence that VWF claims brought by widows or families of deceased miners must be submitted by the end of this month, in spite of there being no final agreement on how many such claims will be assessed.

It also continues to resist allowing elderly and sick miners or their widows to amend claims for chest disease to include items originally omitted in error as a result of a genuine mistake.

Meanwhile Energy Minister Brian Wilson - the third person to hold the post in three years - says the Government is continuing to do all in its power to make improvements.

He said: "Over £300m has been paid out in the North-East but the work does not stop here.

"I have set challenging targets of making full and final offers to 50,000 lung disease claimants UK wide by the end of the year.

"We are pulling out all of the stops to ensure we meet this and I will be meeting claimants at regional meetings over the next four months to ensure everything possible is being done to speed up the payments."