A HAMPSHIRE electrician died from cancer aged 50 after a decade of asbestos exposure, an inquest heard.

Antony Bulpitt, from West Wellow, near Romsey, spent “months at a time” working in roof voids caked in the deadly substance, at a time when its threat was known.

In a statement taken before his death in February, read to Winchester Coroner’s Court, Mr Bulpitt said he fitted cabling across the south for Southamp-ton-based electrical firm Gale Kemish from 1980 to 1991.

During ten-hour days he would crawl through “cramped” spaces to fit cabling for new IT systems, rubbing against asbestos coating and getting it on his clothes.

He added that his father, fellow electrician Antony Bulpitt Sr, joined asbestos “snowball fights” and would take his overalls into the home and family car, exposing his child to the dust.

Mr Bulpitt was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a cancer strongly associated with asbestos exposure, in 2011. He died on February 7.

A verdict of death due to industrial disease was recorded.