Mystery surrounds how a retired village GP was exposed to lethal asbestos which led to his death.

Dr Roger Selby, who was a senior partner at Wilsden medical practice before he retired in 1989, could not recall ever coming into contact with the toxic substance through his working career at home and abroad or in any of the homes where he lived.

Dr Selby, who was 83 when he died last Thursday at his home in The Narrows, Harden, was diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma in March.

The inquest in Bradford yesterday heard how Dr Selby had successfully claimed for compensation from a Government scheme for victims of mesothelioma, despite no clear history of ever coming into contact with asbestos. An in-life statement by him, read out to the inquest, described how he only went to the doctors after losing his usual healthy appetite.

His GP then found he had fluid on one of his lungs which he said “was a shock to both of us”. After more tests and biopsies which found the mesothelioma, he added: “I never expected to be told the results. I could not recall if I have ever been exposed to asbestos dust.”

He had written how his brother had worked in the wool trade, but did not remember him coming home dirty with dust, and he listed all the hospitals he worked in, including Guys in London, Darlington Memorial, military hospitals in Nairobi and in Nicosia and at St Luke's Hospital in Bradford, but said he had never been in their plant or boiler rooms and could not remember maintenance work being carried out around him.

He also said as far as he was aware none of his four sons had been exposed to asbestos and neither had his hospital doctor wife Betty, now also retired.

Assistant Deputy Coroner Oliver Longstaff said in light of the payout he had telephoned Dr Selby’s solicitors and was told the payout had not been from any employer or institution, but was from a Government compensation scheme. He said sometimes mesothelioma is caused by an environmental factor and, rarely, the condition can also occur naturally.

He said there was not enough evidence to record Dr Selby’s death was from industrial disease so gave a narrative verdict that he had died from malignant mesothelioma, but at the time of his death had not been able to identify any exposure to asbestos in his lifetime either during his work or in the environment around him.