Poignant inquests on four Bradford men who all had asbestos-related lung cancer were heard in the city yesterday on what was Action Mesothelioma Day.

In all of the four cases, verdicts of death from industrial disease were recorded. More than 107,000 people worldwide die each year from mesothelioma after being exposed to deadly asbestos in their working lives.

The inquests heard how Michael Bannister, who was 72 and lived in Hastings Street, Marshfields, worked as a weaver in a textile mill. Meanwhile, Barry Thomas, 70, of Anvil Court, Manningham, an electrician by trade, had spent the traditional Bowling Tide holidays in the city, when employees were away, stripping lagging from the empty mills.

He also worked for the council for a time cutting asbestos sheeting from council houses and had worked in Cape Town in South Africa stripping down a mill there.

Desmond Brady of Bank Crest Rise, Nab Wood, was 81 when he died from broncho-pneumonia brought on by his malignant mesothelioma from inhaling asbestos fibres while working as an engineer travelling abroad with former Cleckheaton firm BBA, making clutch facings, brake linings and other industrial-use linings.

In a written statement Dennis Baldwin, now 79 and a colleague of Mr Brady’s, told how the pair of them went to Argentina, South Africa and Turkey to meet potential customers, visiting production areas which were “less than ideal” and some that had no means of extraction at all for the asbestos dust, unlike their company’s premises at home.

Assistant deputy Bradford coroner Professor Paul Marks said: “I’m entirely satisfied that he was exposed to asbestos fibres. There are no competing reasons why he should have developed this cancer therefore the only logical verdict is that Mr Brady died from an industrial disease.”

Prof Marks also recorded that 63-year-old Allan Nanson of Parkhouse Grove, Low Moor, died from the work-related disease.

Mr Nanson, whose wife and step-daughter were in court, had worked as a plumber from leaving school.

After getting an apprenticeship he spent 17 years with FL Sanderson & Sons, in White Abbey Road, dealing with industrial plumbing and pipe fitting, where he was significantly exposed to asbestos. Prof Marks said: “As was common in those days no one told him it was dangerous, he was not given any apparatus or breathing masks.”