Dudley widow appeals for help from workers at Alcan Industries and Trist Draper

Brian Stearn worked at Alcan Industries in Smethwick between 1964 and 1968 and at HHP Trist and Co/Trist Draper, also in Smethwick, from 1969 to 1972.

Brian’s widow, Elaine believes that her husband came into contact with lethal asbestos dust and fibres during his time working at the two companies and would like anyone else who worked at the firms and can bear out Brian’s recollections of their working practices to help her with her legal claim.
 
Brian, originally from West Bromwich, was employed as an apprentice electrician at Alcan Industries in Middlemore Road. He believed he was exposed to asbestos in old lagging in the areas where he worked.
 
While at Trist Draper, Brian worked on a team grinding down new asbestos brake linings with a mechanical grinder to make them fit old brake shoes. The work released a lot of asbestos dust into the air. Brian and the team were not given masks for protection. Brian also had to pack the brake shoes into boxes and sweep up the asbestos dust at the end of each working day.
 
Brian’s contact with asbestos proved fatal and he was diagnosed with mesothelioma in January 2020 and died just six months later when he was aged 71.
 
Elaine Stearn said:
 
“I believe Brian’s fatal contact with asbestos must have been when he worked at Alcan and Trist Draper.  I need others who were employed at those workplaces to share their recollections of working practices at the firms. Brian lived his whole life not knowing that he had had contact with a deadly substance and in the end he died too soon.”
 
Leigh Day solicitor Louisa Saville, who represents Elaine Stearn in her legal claim, said:
 
“If anyone who worked at Alcan Industries and Trist Draper in the late 1960s and early 1970s is able to get in touch with us and share their recollections, Elaine would be very grateful.”
 
Please contact Louisa Saville at lsaville@leighday.co.uk or call 0161 804 0761.