WHEN David Bavaird used to come home from work, he was cloaked in so much asbestos dust that his sons dubbed him the “snowman”.
The teenage boys would follow him into the garden and laugh as they dusted him down.
His son Derek, 60, said: “It would be all over his hair and his overalls and we would be breathing it in, with no idea of what it could do to him or us.”
This week in a landmark ruling, South Lanarkshire Council have been held liable over David’s death, closing a loophole that lawyers claim would have had victims staring into a “black hole” in their bid to win compensation.
David was 79 when he died in 2008 – 12 years after South Lanarkshire Council assumed the liabilities of his ex-employers, the East Kilbride Development Corporation.
The Court of Session rejected the council’s case that they were not liable as he was not ill in 1996.
The ruling gives David’s family the green light to fight on in their bid for justice.
He was exposed to asbestos when he worked for the corporation in the 60s, in the maintenance of their houses.
Derek said: “He was drilling in the ceilings and the asbestos would be falling on to his face. The authority already knew how dangerous it was but my father didn’t. No one warned the men.”
The ruling has an impact not only on existing claimants but there could be secondary action from those like Derek, his brother Gordon, 63, and his sister Christina, 51, who were exposed to it, unwittingly.
Derek said: “It does worry me, of course it does.
“They have known the dangers of this substance for 100 years or more, so there was no excuse for putting so many people at risk of a horrendous disease.”
He still struggles to keep it together when he talks of the devoted father he lost.
When he died, David had 25 grandchildren and great-grandchildren and they would pile into the cottage he shared with wife Ruby in Jackton, Lanarkshire. Derek said: “It was like Walton’s mountain. It was full of children. They loved him.”
He married Ruby in 1949 and she died two years after him, utterly devastated by his death.
Derek said: “They loved each other very much and she was never the same without him.”
David didn’t drink or smoke and was always active. He worked until three months before his death.
Derek, who owns a firm selling prams and nursery equipment, said David would often help out.
He explained: “He worked at the same pace as me when he was in his 70s.”
David’s illness took hold when he came home from a holiday and his breathing was badly strained. Derek took his dad on a delivery from his base in East Kilbride and found him uncharacteristically subdued.
He said: “He just knew himself there was something seriously wrong.”
Three months later, he was dead. Derek said: “It was horrible. He had tubes coming out of his back. The death is like drowning.
“Ultimately it leads to pneumonia and heart failure. To see such a strong, fit and loving man die like that was the worst experience of my life.
“He was looking at me with sadness in his eyes. It was awful.”
He said the latest bid by the council to dodge liability was “a cynical ploy” but he refuses to give up the fight.
On his deathbed, David signed the legal papers allowing his case to go ahead and he told Derek to ensure that the message got out to others of the perils of asbestos.
“They have dragged it out… but I feel that justice will prevail. We are determined and our lawyers are tenacious.
“People have to know about this. It is so horrible and I want other people to know what asbestos does.”
Paul Manning, Executive Director of Finance and Corporate Resources, said: “The tragic death of a father and husband was at the centre of this court case, and our sympathies are with David Bavaird’s family.
“This was a highly complex case, as was reflected by Lord Brailsford’s earlier ruling that the Council could not be held liable. Mr Bavaird worked for a number of employers, including East Kilbride Development Corporation 33 years before he was diagnosed with mesothelioma and 22 years before South Lanarkshire Council even came into existence.
“We will now consider the Court of Session ruling.”
