A woman ingested asbestos while washing her husband’s dusty overalls, an inquest heard.

Coroner Roger Whittaker said on the balance of probabilities 83-year-old Frances Astin would have been exposed to the substance that was on her husband’s work clothes when he was a GPO telephone engineer.

The Bradford hearing was yesterday told how Mrs Astin, of Heddon Walk, Bowling, Bradford, was diagnosed with malignant meseothilioma in 2009.

Although tests after her death in November, 2009, showed no clear evidence her disease had been caused by her coming into contact with asbestos, Coroner Roger Whittaker said there was no other known cause of a than asbestos exposure.

Yesterday’s inquest heard how Mrs Astin, who had worked as a secretary at various mills ,and also worked behind bars, and there was a possibility she could have come into contact with asbestos while working in a mill damaged by bombs during the war or at St Luke’s Hospital where blue asbestos was found while she was working there.

But Mr Whittaker also heard how Mrs Astin had regularly washed her husband’s overalls and would have to shake out the dust and dirt first. As part of Mr Astin’s work for the GPO, he had to dismantle the blue police phone boxes made out of asbestos boards.

Recording a verdict that Mrs Astin died of industrial disease, he said: “I don’t need clear cut evidence. I’m satisfied washing her husband’s overalls containing asbestos was the likely place where she was exposed to asbestos and I believe I can extend the industrial disease process to that.”

After the case, Carol Duerden, of Bradford Asbestos Victims’ Support Group, said more cases similar to Mrs Astin’s were now emerging.

“At first it was thought it would only be the men who had heavy industrial exposure to asbestos who would die but then the women who lived with these men and washed their clothes started dying. Now we are seeing more cases of children who hugged their fathers coming home from work on a night contracting the disease,” she said.

She also said although asbestos fibres were usually found in victims’ lungs “it only takes one fibre in the wrong place” to develop cancer and that single fibre will not always be found in tests.