A welder from Liverpool has won £140,000 in compensation after he contracted terminal cancer from working with asbestos.

Ronnie Cadwallader, 76, was diagnosed with mesothelioma in November 2007 after spending part of his working life stripping asbestos lagging off pipes, turbines and boilers.

His wife Ann told the Livepool Daily Post: "Ronnie was so fit and healthy, always running and never smoked or drank. All of a sudden he was really poorly with no energy.

"It was horrific."

His two-year struggle for compensation was made more complex by the fact that the two firms he had carried out such work for were no longer in business.

But Mr Cadwallader has finally been offered compensation by insurance firm Zurich, which was the insurer for one of his former employers, Carolina Engineering.

The Health and Safety Executive has recently launched a campaign to raise awareness about the dangers of working with asbestos aimed at tradesman and maintenance workers.