A retired docker has opened up on his bitter guilt, after his wife died from a cancer caused by washing his asbestos-ridden overalls.

Leonard Faram feels like he “murdered” devoted Annette and fears their children might develop mesothelioma too after inhaling the deadly dust he brought home from work.

Leonard, 81, spent around 10 years moving asbestos fibres from ships along the Thames to the Cape Asbestos factory in Barking, Essex, in the 1960s.

The factory workers were given protective clothing and masks but Leonard says his boss dismissed his repeated requests for dock workers to have protective gear too.

“Even back then people knew asbestos dust was a killer,” he said. “Our employers said it wouldn’t hurt us because we were working in the open air.”

Leonard fears his children also inhaled asbestos dust (
Image:
Thompsons Solicitors)

Although Leonard knew he was putting his life in danger, he never imagined he was putting his family in harm’s way.

He and Annette married in 1959 and set up home in Rainham, East London, where they had two children, David, 53, and Paula, 50.

Leonard said: “When Annette died I was with her in hospital. Her last words to me were, ‘Thank you. I’ve had a wonderful life’.

“And we did have a wonderful life together, I’ll for ever be grateful for that. But she should still be here today, enjoying life, spending time with our five grandchildren.

Asbestos fibres become lodged in the lungs (
Image:
Archive Photos)

“People tell me I shouldn’t feel guilty but I do. I feel like it was me that killed my wife because it was me that brought that disease home.

“It should have been me that died, not my Annette. It hurts me so much to talk about it. In my mind I feel like I’m a murderer.”

Annette, a retired secretary, died three days after her 79th birthday in January 2015.

She is one of 8,054 women who have died from mesothelioma in Britain between 1981 and 2015, along with over 45,527 men.

Leonard said: “She had been a really fit person. But then suddenly she started getting short of breath.

Leonard feels responsible for 'bringing the disease home' (
Image:
Thompsons Solicitors)

“Eventually we ended up in A&E. I mentioned I’d worked with asbestos.

“They sent her for urgent investigations and found the asbestos cancer growing in her lungs. The doctor sat us both down and told us it was terminal. I felt like I’d been shot down in flames.”

Before she died, Annette won a six-figure compensation payout from the government on behalf of the now defunct National Dock Labour Board.

Leonard, who was awarded an MBE in 2000 for charity work, said: “To me it’s blood money. I don’t want it. I’ve passed it on to the children.

Solicitor Lorna Webster is campaigning for more families to be aware that mesothelioma can be contracted through secondhand asbestos exposure (
Image:
Thompsons Solicitors)

“Every day I live in fear that they might get it too. Once you’ve been exposed to asbestos this disease can rear its head at any time. It’s like a ticking time bomb.”

His solicitor Lorna Webster is campaigning for more families to be aware that mesothelioma can be contracted through secondhand asbestos exposure.

Ms Webster, who heads Thompsons Solicitors’ South East asbestos team, said: “Local people who just went to work are at risk years later. So are their families who they went to work to provide for.”

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