Downham Market man who died from asbestos said sugar factory was covered in it

A Downham man who worked at British Sugar at Wissington for 27 years died after regularly handling asbestos, an inquest heard today.

The hearing into the death of Michael John Bryan, aged 69, heard that he died on Thursday, January 28.

Mr Bryan, who lived with his wife Jane of nearly 40 years on the Crowthorne Estate, Downham, had been being treated in Cambridge for several years for mesothelioma, the lung cancer caused by inhaling asbestos fibres.

In evidence read by area coroner Yvonne Blake to the inquest at Norwich Coroners' Court, it was said that Mr Bryan was suffering from mesothelioma and heart disease.

She read statements from Mr Bryan that said he had worked for 12 months in the mid-1960s for Barker Bros, builders, as they worked on a development in Downham and he had first handled asbestos sheets there, having to cut them up.

But he also detailed many years of working with asbestos at British Sugar.

Mr Bryan worked in the electrical engineering department from 1967 to 1994, when he was made redundant. For most of that time he was on the shopfloor. Asbestos lagging was used throughout the factory.

He said in his statement that he was "very angry with his former employer". He said "asbestos dust was blown all around the factory" and there were "huge piles of dust at the end of the sugar beet season".

His clothes would be covered in the asbestos which he would take home for his wife to wash.

He said he had spent "many, many years working near or covered by asbestos" and he could never remember he or his colleagues ever being informed about the dangers of working with asbestos.

Mr Bryan said that he had enjoyed walking and many other active pursuits, even taking part in a charity skydive, but from about 2016 onwards he had become progressively sicker.

Mrs Blake reached a conclusion of death by industrial disease and offered condolences to Mr Bryan's family.