Asbestos riddle of officer's death
A DONCASTER man may be the first South Yorkshire police officer to die from an industrial disease.
But it is a mystery how retired constable Michael Jones, who was only aged 49 when he died last week, came into contact with deadly asbestos during his career of almost 30 years.
The only line of enquiry for the Doncaster Coroner is a day about 20 years ago when PC Jones is believed to have visited a garage workshop where car brake pads were being made.
At one time brake linings were made from asbestos to increase their heat resistance under heavy braking.
His widow, 48-year-old Julie, was with her husband when he died last Friday afternoon in St John's Hospice at Balby.
She told the inquest her husband had started suffering with chest pains and breathing difficulties in the summer of 2006 and went to see his GP who referred him to a hospital consultant.
Mr Jones, of Clay Flatt Lane, Rossington, had a biopsy taken and he was told in August 2006 that he was suffering from mesothelioma, which is incurable and is usually a consequence of exposure to asbestos.
Asked where he might have been exposed to the fibres, Mrs Jones said the only place she knew of was when he was working as a traffic officer and visited a Ferodo garage where they were making brake pads.
"It was just a half-day visit about 20 years ago and he remembered asbestos dust being in the air and that stuck in his mind," she said.
Mr Jones spent some time in St John's Hospice last August and returned on January 7. "When he went in he knew he was likely to die in the hospice."
Coroner Stanley Hooper, who said a preliminary post-mortem report showed Mr Jones had died from mesothelioma, adjourned the inquest for further medical evidence.
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