I'm sitting on a cancer timebomb, scared and now they say there's no compensation

Former shipyard worker, 70-year-old Laurence Purvis recalled how he had left the docks night after night covered from head to toe in the deadly dust.

Mr Purvis, who was diagnosed with pleural plaques in 2004, was one of the many hundreds of sufferers in the region left reeling by yesterday's news that the Court of Appeal had overturned a 20-year legal precedent allowing claims for the condition.

Compensation payments for pleural plaques have averaged a modest £3,500 - but it is not about the money, says Mr Purvis, who lives with his wife, Ann, in Fulwell, Sunderland.

"It is the principle that matters," he said. "It is a recognition that we worked for years in good faith with asbestos material without so much as a face mask."

The father-of-two and grandfather-of-four said that since his diagnosis, his close-knit family had been left with the constant anxiety of wondering whether his condition would develop into the killer mesothelioma cancer.

"It is like sitting on a timebomb you never know if or when the condition is going to progress," said Mr Purvis, who as an electrician at Sunderland shipyards worked almost daily with asbestos materials.

"I used to wear a beret to stop the dust going into my hair and my overalls were often covered from top to bottom. I worry now that my wife had to wash my clothes and could herself have become contaminated."

Mr Purvis is not just concerned about his own welfare, but also that of his fellow workers.

He told The Northern Echo how a friend of his had been diagnosed with mesothelioma and ten months later was dead.

"It's scary," he said. "My family is worried about what will happen. Now it's not serious and I seem to be in good health, but that's not guaranteed to last."

And he added: "There is asbestos on my lungs and I cannot do anything about it - but this decision by the appeal court has just added insult to injury."