THOUSANDS of former Mersey dockers could have the right to claim compensation after being exposed to asbestos.

In a landmark High Court ruling yesterday, judges found a government labour group was negligent in not warning them about the lethal dust.

Two Merseyside claimants pursued test cases through the courts to win their right for compensation.

They were awarded more than £164,000 damages by Mr Justice Silber.

Now lawyers say the floodgates could open for other claims.

Ormskirk-based Winifred Rice lost her husband, Edward, to the asbestos-related cancer, mesothelioma, in 2000.

And 67-year-old Robert Thompson is suffering from diffuse pleural thickening – a disabling condition leaving him chronically short of breath – after working in Liverpool’s docks for 26 years.

They hope yesterday’s ruling will mark the end of a nine-year legal battle.

Great-grandfather Mr Thompson, who lives in Scarisbrick, near Southport, told the Daily Post: “It’s been hard. I’ve had nightmares over this, I lose sleep.

“I’ve seen colleagues die of this and it’s a horrible death. Touch wood, I haven’t got that at the moment, but I have got the next one to it.”

Mr Thompson said he witnessed 17-stone friends “die as nothing” after contracting mesothelioma.

Mr Thompson and Mr Rice worked in the National Dock Labour Group, which organised workers into pens and contracted them out to work on the ships.

After a hearing in May, 2006, Lord Justice May ruled the Labour Board had a duty of care to dock workers, and that to do nothing was not an option.

But the Government continued to fight the case and brought an appeal to the High Court last month.

Commenting on the decision, Mrs Rice said: “The last thing Edward said before he died was that I had to go on with this case.