Armley asbestos disaster
On 20 July 1982, Yorkshire Television broadcast the documentary "Alice - A Fight For Life", predominantly the story of Alice Jefferson, who had worked at the Acre Mill asbestos factory in Hebden Bridge for just nine months when she was 17 years old. Thirty years later she was diagnosed with mesothelioma and given only six months to live. The documentary was also an "exposé on the workings of the asbestos industry." Its broadcast resulted in £60 million being knocked off T&N's share price overnight, headlines in the national newspapers, and the setting up of a government enquiry. Within ten days the government had halved the legal limit for asbestos dust in the workplace. In 1988 Yorkshire Television picked up the "Yorkshire Evening Post" story and produced a second critical investigation focusing on the pattern of deaths in Armley, and contradicting the government's reasons for refusing an inquiry. Called "Too Close to Home", it was broadcast as part of the "First Tuesday" documentary series on 6 December 1988.
Armley asbestos disaster
The judge said of the emissions from Midland Works: "there is no doubt but that every process in varying degree gave off dust ... There was at all material times, a substantial emission of dust from the factory premises", and that "There was knowledge, sufficient to found reasonable foresight on the part of the Defendants, that children were particularly vulnerable to personal injury arising out of inhalation of asbestos dust ... Reasonably practicable steps were not taken to reduce or prevent inhalation of emitted asbestos dust." Regarding the conduct of the case, Mr Justice Holland accused T&N of trying to obstruct the legal action and to wear Hancock and Margereson down "by attrition". He said they had shown "a wish to contest these claims by any means possible, legitimate or otherwise" and that their lawyers had "remorselessly persisted in taking bad points, apparently simply to obstruct the plaintiffs' road." In a press statement, T&N repeated their claim that they could not have known "so many years ago of the risks to individuals such as these plaintiffs" and said they believed "the judge was wrong to find T&N liable in these cases. The factory closed almost 40 years ago."