Gran's family wins payout after asbestos ridden council house led to her death

24 December 2023 , 18:24

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Daughter Isobel said that her mum should still be here (Image: Hull News & Picture)

The family of a woman unknowingly exposed to a deadly poison in her own home have finally won a six-figure sum in compensation.

The Scottish grandmother was told her by landlords that, despite her concerns, the asbestos in her home was safe and she should have no worries. However, after spending decades unknowingly breathing in toxic fibres found in the cupboards of her council house Christobel Grant, 76, died after being diagnosed with a rare form of cancer caused by the poisonous substance she was told by landlords was safe.

Now, after a decades-long battle, her family have finally been given some comfort, after winning a six-figure payout from West Lothian Council, who owned the house, in what is a landmark legal case in Scotland.

Her daughter Isobel Grant said: "My mum should have still been here and the council failed to protect her and keep her safe. She knew there was asbestos in the house but was told it was ‘safe’ asbestos – now we know there’s no such thing.

Christobel Grant with her grieving husband Ian (Collect)

"It makes me angry that her granddaughters have been deprived of her. She doted on them and they adored her. She was so fit and healthy but within months she was dead. The disease took everything from her." The case is the first in Scotland where a victim has ben exposed to asbestos, not from working in Scotland's heavy industries, where the horrific substance was prevalent, but in her own home.

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Christobel died on April 26 2019 – five months after being diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma. Mesothelioma – a rare cancer which has plagued many ship workers in Greenock, Port Glasgow and Glasgow, is caused by breathing in asbestos fibres and although it usually affects the lungs it can also impact other parts of the body like the stomach or heart.

The former radiographer first encountered the fibres decades earlier in her home on Hamilton Avenue in Linlithgow, West Lothian, where she lived from 1976 until her death. The fibres lay dormant in her body, damaging her tissues slowly before she began feeling unwell in November 2018.

But her teacher daughter Isobel fears thousands of others may have been exposed in the same way and is calling for the Scottish government to review homes in Scotland that could contain the lethal fibres. She said: "My mum was really fit. She never smoked or drank, she exercised and ate well. She was 76 but you’d never have known that as she was in such good shape. We had gone to celebrate her birthday – we always went for afternoon tea but this time she said she just wasn’t up to it and didn’t feel like eating."

Toxic fibres were found in the cupboards (Collect)

Medics gave her blood tests but she was told she had cancer. She said: "Within a few weeks her stomach had ballooned. She looked about six months pregnant. I had to take her to hospital and they drained litres of fluid from her stomach." Eventually medics diagnosed the grandmother with stage four peritoneal mesothelioma and told her she was unlikely to live much longer – now too sick for any medical intervention to have chemotherapy she passed away at home in April 2019.

Isobel had talked with her mum about where she might have been exposed to asbestos and they remembered cupboards in the family home, where she still lived, had contained shelves made from the killer chemical. Isobel said: "When I was younger mum would always tell us not to bang the cupboard doors as they were really heavy and the shelves and her dishes were always getting covered in dust.

"She had reported this so many times to West Lothian council and they had told her the shelves were made from asbestos but it was safe and she should just paint over them. They were crumbling and the asbestos was coming out onto the plates and everything but they told her to just paint over them with normal paint so that’s what she did. After a few months the problem would just come back. She was very house proud and a proud council tenant. She didn’t want to bring shame on the council or make a fuss."

In 2006 the council replaced the kitchens in all the properties on the estate. But Isobel claimed that while the construction workers were fully covered her parents were offered no protection and weren’t relocated. "The amount of asbestos in the houses was very apparent in the fact that when they came to take the kitchens out the guys were all in hazmat suits and they had showers out the back. My mum and dad weren’t even decanted out of the house. They were just told to set up camp in the living room which was right next door."

Isobel said the Scottish Government should now review council homes to make sure there are none which still have asbestos in them and if they need to replace fixtures they have to remove residents.

Hannah Rodger