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
During the 1970s the incidence of mesothelioma in former workers at the factory began to rise, but cases were also being found in people who had never worked for T&N, although they had lived in the vicinity of Midland Works or had relatives who were former employees. In 1987 Richard Taylor, a journalist with the "Yorkshire Evening Post", began checking through the coroner's court reports, examining death certificates and interviewing relatives and neighbours of the deceased. As a result, Taylor was able to demonstrate a pattern "of an incredibly high incidence of mesothelioma deaths in Armley around the Roberts factory." Philip Sanderson Gill, the coroner, agreed with the findings, and said: "It was only as a trend over a number of years that a more precise picture appeared. I have very few other cases from other areas of Leeds. It is significant that virtually all the cases we have come from that area." The "Yorkshire Evening Post" produced a series of articles about the ongoing contamination and disease, which they dubbed the "Armley Asbestos Tragedy".