When David Paul fell ill and doctors asked whether he worked with asbestos, his reply was a firm ‘no’.
He had spent 42 years as a manager with Waitrose, a byword on the High Street for traditional, community-minded values, not in one of the industries associated with the dangerous fibres.
It was only when he was diagnosed with mesothelioma – a fatal cancer caused by exposure to asbestos – that he realised he had unwittingly been in contact with the deadly material for decades. Less than two years after his diagnosis, he died at the age of just 65 in November 2021.
Sadly, this well-loved and devoted family man is not alone.
An investigation by the Daily Mail has found deaths from exposure to asbestos in all the major supermarket chains, including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Marks & Spencer and Morrisons – a state of affairs that they and others, including the shopworkers union, seem disappointingly reluctant to discuss.
‘During my early years in Waitrose in the 1970s and 1980s, 65 per cent of goods were ambient – packets and tinned groceries,’ David told his solicitors before the disease took his life.
‘Today, almost 70 per cent is fresh food. As the nature of food sold by Waitrose changed over the years, so did the layout and functions of each store.
‘Branch refits and extensions were common over the years. Wine counters became self-service, fruit and veg was moved to the front of branches and new refrigeration was introduced to meet the increased demand for fresh food.
David Paul spent 42 years as a manager with Waitrose, during which time refurbishments were a regular occurence
David with his wife Judy. He was diagnosed with mesothelioma – a fatal cancer caused by exposure to asbestos
‘Meat and fish counters and patisseries were all retrofitted into stores.’
The result of this British food revolution was that supermarkets were constantly being rearranged and refurbished, and as David said: ‘The work often took place when I was present.’
Such upgrades – undertaken by all the major chains – can disturb asbestos, which is likely to be present in any building put up before it was banned in the UK in 1999.
And when asbestos fibres are breathed in, they can cause mesothelioma, a cancer affecting the mesothelium, a membrane surrounding the lungs, heart and intestines. Symptoms include abdominal pain, chest pains and breathlessness caused by a build-up of fluid on the lungs.
It can take from 20 to 60 years for symptoms to appear but, once they do, most patients die within a year.
Asbestos-related diseases such as mesothelioma, asbestosis – which causes a fatal hardening of the lungs – and other related lung cancers are the UK’s biggest cause of industrially linked deaths, with more than 5,000 a year.
This is why the Daily Mail’s Asbestos: Britain’s Hidden Killer campaign has been calling for action from the Government and demanding a phased removal of the material from Britain’s public buildings, starting with schools and hospitals.
We are also asking for the establishment of a national digital register – accessed by smartphone – to record where the material is and its condition. This would help to combat the accidental release of fibres in store renovations and other refurbishments.
David told his solicitors about the renovations, revealing he was present most of the time
Janice and Stuart Allen before her death aged 57. She worked in M&S for several years
For decades, official government policy has been to leave asbestos where it is – if undamaged – but boxed in or simply painted over.
But we argue that this policy is no longer safe as Britain’s schools, hospitals and other public buildings are crumbling – and that the asbestos in them has deteriorated to a point where it could release the kinds of fibres that David breathed in.
He had spent his career managing more than 20 Waitrose stores across Berkshire, Hampshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire, eventually becoming Head of Retail Operations for the Thames Valley.
‘My dad was my best friend,’ says his daughter, Nicky, 38, who also worked for Waitrose for more than 15 years – as did her mother, Gillian, and stepmother, Judy.
‘He was a lovely, positive family man. He always wanted to make every day a great day.
‘He used to call me Pixie and he’d say: “Well, Pix, today we can have a lousy day or a great day, so what shall we have?” And it would always be great.
‘Dad liked to live life as much as he possibly could and he was expecting a long retirement – my grandparents all lived into their 90s, so he was expecting at least another 30 years. It wasn’t to be.’
David was diagnosed with mesothelioma after returning from a holiday in Sri Lanka where walking up a mountainside had made him breathless – despite being health-conscious all his life.
There is no cure but David had an operation and chemotherapy as doctors tried to prolong his life.
During that period, Nicky says he and the family became disturbed – and disappointed – by a lack of legal cooperation with his compensation claim from Waitrose, before and after his death.
The family’s solicitor, Guy Darlaston of Irwin Mitchell, says he was surprised at levels of intransigence on the part of the John Lewis Partnership, which owns Waitrose. ‘They gave us nothing and we had to build a case from scratch,’ he says.
‘But we found witnesses from the management side who confirmed that, at the time, there was a lack of guidance and awareness training regarding asbestos.
‘We had to force every document out of them but David had told us that he was constantly having to deal with refrigeration, ceiling tiles, refurbishments and boiler problems in basements where, instinctively, we knew there would have been asbestos. But he had received no training in how to identify or deal with it.
‘We were surprised at the John Lewis Partnership. It has this particular position in the minds of the public as being very focused on the fact that its employees are partners in the business and this gives it a very warm relationship with the general public.
‘But when it came down to it and a family who had all worked for them needed something – I’m not talking money, I’m talking disclosure of evidence about the presence of asbestos in real estate – it clammed up. That was particularly disappointing.’
I put this to the John Lewis Partnership and asked whether it now provided asbestos awareness training for its staff.
It replied: ‘David was incredibly well regarded within the partnership and is still missed by many of our team today. Our deepest sympathies remain with his family.
‘While we’re unable to discuss individual legal cases, we take the safety of our partners incredibly seriously and always follow health and safety best practice.’
The John Lewis Partnership paid a ‘substantial’ sum to the Paul family last year without admitting liability. This is a story likely to play out in the future as many other people who worked during the years of change, ignorance and carelessness fall ill, as they inevitably will. Almost three million people work in the retail sector at any one time.
Darlaston says that as well as Waitrose, Irwin Mitchell has had clients who worked for Asda, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Marks & Spencer and Tesco.
Susan Ainsworth, 65, worked at a 24-hour Tesco in Northampton for 20 years, until she was made redundant in 2020.
She was diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma – which affects the stomach – in spring 2021. She worked night shifts and, like David, recalls numerous upgrades and renovations at the store. ‘There would be times that men in overalls would be there and plastic sheeting would be up, but when they finished there was dust everywhere,’ she says.
‘In the morning, the checkout teams would come in and say their tills were covered in dust. I must have breathed some of it in.’
When her solicitor, Alida Coates, also of Irwin Mitchell, investigated her case, she discovered that Tesco had spent almost £1million to remove asbestos from her branch ‘whilst the store was still trading’ over a six-month period.
‘I came across a case study in which a firm of engineers set out how they had undertaken works to remove asbestos from the premises as late as 2020,’ she says. ‘I then obtained asbestos surveys from Tesco which identified significant asbestos contamination throughout the premises. The asbestos was marked in red on the plans.
‘It was one of the most contaminated premises I had experienced in 30 years’ practice. I was quite honestly astounded at the level of asbestos contamination contained within the building.’
Susan received a substantial settlement from Tesco, without the company admitting liability. It also agreed to pay unlimited medical bills to allow her to seek private treatment. She is receiving chemo and immunotherapy and, so far, her health is holding up.
Susan says that she received no asbestos awareness training right up until the time she was made redundant in 2020.
‘If I’d been in construction as a carpenter, or electrician, or plumber, I’d probably have been told about the dangers. But as a retail worker, nobody even thought about asbestos,’ she says.
Twice, I asked Tesco how many other asbestos-related compensation claims it had faced and whether it provided asbestos awareness training for its staff, but it did not reply.
However, when I asked whether customers had been told that asbestos was being removed as they shopped at Susan’s store, it issued a statement that read: ‘The safety and wellbeing of our customers and colleagues is our priority. When managing asbestos, we work with specialists and follow Health and Safety Executive guidance and best practice.’
Janice Allen, who worked at M&S’s flagship Marble Arch store in London from 1978 to 1984, died at a hospice in Kent in June 2018, five years after being diagnosed with mesothelioma. She was 57.
Investigations by her solicitor, Harminder Bains of Leigh Day, established that asbestos had been found at a number of locations where she had worked and that renovations had most likely disturbed it.
Her husband Stuart, 64, says: ‘At first, neither of us could think of anywhere she could have been exposed. We thought that you’d have to inhale fistfuls of asbestos to become ill. It wasn’t until later that we found out that just a few fibres could kill you.
‘It was found on the retail floor when she was in sales and in offices in the back when she later moved on into training. In all but one of all the places she had worked, it turned out that asbestos had been present.’
In a film recorded before she died, Janice described living with her death sentence and said of the company: ‘I just wish that I had never worked for Marks & Spencer at all – that I’d never known them.’
In 2014, M&S paid Janice substantial compensation. I first wrote about the case two years ago. M&S has said: ‘Like many older buildings, Marble Arch dates back to the interwar era when asbestos was commonly used in construction and, sadly, our former colleague Janice Allen worked in the store over 40 years ago, before the consequences of asbestos use were known.
‘Today we rigorously manage asbestos where it is present and ensure the store is safe for every colleague and customer.’
Within the retail sector, there is a profound reluctance to discuss asbestos and what it could mean for its older and retired workers – those yet to develop symptoms of mesothelioma.
On two ocasions I asked the Big Four supermarket chains – Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons – how many asbestos-related cases had been brought against them and whether they now provided asbestos awareness training for all their employees. None provided figures or an on-the-record comment.
I twice asked the retail trade body BRCGS – formerly known as the British Retail Consortium – whether it or its members were aware of the extent of mesothelioma deaths in retail and the potential for more to come but, again, there was no response.
Surely then the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, the biggest retail trade union, with 360,000 members, would have something to say about the dangers and the anguish yet to come? But no.
Despite two requests, the union said it had nobody who could talk about the issue. Its members might want to consider why they bother paying their dues.
Such seemingly wilful blindness to the dangers of asbestos, and to the mesothelioma deaths down the line, serves nobody.
But it will leave the millions of people who have worked in sales over the past six decades wondering whether, when it comes to their health, they have been sold down the river.
