Swindon teacher's widow gets asbestos compensation

A widow has been paid damages after her art teacher husband died from the effects of asbestos.

Terry McLaughlin died in 2018 from mesothelioma. He had been exposed to asbestos while teaching in Swindon.

Jean McLaughlin said: "It didn't occur to us, and when it did it was too late. Terry died just six weeks after his diagnosis."

Wiltshire Council said the insurers for its predecessor authority, Wiltshire County Council, has settled the claim.

Mr McLaughlin taught at Headlands Secondary School from 1979 to 1984 and at New College until 1993, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

During ceramics lessons, he would use asbestos gloves and at New College he refurbished the asbestos kilns to save the county council money, not realising the risks.

Mrs McLaughlin said: "Terry loved his job as a teacher, especially at New College.

"He was very popular and he had a really good and keen group of students there.

"He was so happy in that job, but we didn't know it was going to rob him of 20 years of his life.

"It's also robbed me - we did everything together and he was everything to me."

She said other former staff and students at New College could also have been exposed.

As the law on asbestos changed in 1969, Mr McLaughlin should not have been working with the dangerous substance into the 1980s and 1990s.

Lawyer Lorna Webster, from Hodge, Jones and Allen Solicitors, said: "The disregard given to Terry's health by the council is shocking.

"Sadly we are seeing more and more cases like Terry's, where the contact with asbestos happened in an occupation not immediately linked to asbestos exposure. "

A Wiltshire Council spokesperson said: "Insurers for our predecessor authority, Wiltshire County Council, settled this claim, which related to historic events when Mr McLaughlin was working in schools and colleges in the previous designated authority boundaries more than 30 years ago."