School asbestos exposure linked to woman's death at 46, family claims

Caroline Bryan was 46 when she died. Three months earlier, doctors had told her she had mesothelioma—an incurable cancer caused by asbestos exposure. She was far younger than the typical patient, most of whom are in their eighties. As she faced her diagnosis in what would become her final weeks, Caroline began retracing her life, searching for the moment she might have breathed in the microscopic fibres that would kill her. She had never worked in construction or heavy industry. She had been mostly a stay-at-home mother. The only place that made sense was her high school in Cardiff, where she had spent her days in the early 1990s.

Her daughter Brooklyn was 23 when her mother died. She remembers her mother mentioning, years before the diagnosis, that the school building wasn't in good condition—broken ceiling tiles, dust and debris when things were disturbed. At the time, neither of them knew what they were looking at. After Caroline's death, Brooklyn's world, as she describes it, turned upside down. She was forced into adulthood overnight, suddenly responsible for running the household, paying bills, cooking, cleaning. But she also became responsible for something else: continuing her mother's fight for answers.

The family's legal team obtained council documents showing that asbestos was used extensively at the old Fitzalan site during Caroline's time there. The buildings were in poor condition, with damage to walls, floor tiles, and ceiling tiles. Now, in early 2027, the family will bring a High Court claim against Cardiff Council. Caroline wanted justice not just for herself, but to prevent others from going through the same ordeal. Her daughter is determined to see that through.

Caroline's case is not isolated. Epidemiologists studying mesothelioma patterns have begun noticing something troubling. The number of cases in people under 40 has doubled over the past five or six years, rising from 2.5 cases annually to 5. There is also a slightly but significantly increased risk among female teachers. Professor Julian Peto, who has spent decades studying these patterns, says the findings raise concern, though they are not yet conclusive. Two explanations seem possible: either the large-scale removal of asbestos from schools in the 1980s inadvertently exposed more people to dangerous fibres, or the asbestos already in buildings is deteriorating and releasing more fibres to successive generations of pupils and teachers.

A Freedom of Information request by BBC Wales revealed the scope of the problem. More than three quarters of schools in Wales still contain asbestos. Of the 22 local authorities in Wales, 20 responded: 76 percent of primary schools and 81 percent of secondary schools have asbestos-containing materials. Mesothelioma itself is the 20th most common cancer in the UK, responsible for 2,200 deaths per year. It can develop from a single fibre lodged in the lungs, often breathed in unknowingly decades before symptoms appear.

Solicitors handling asbestos cases are seeing a shift. Richard Green, a partner in the asbestos litigation team at Hugh James Solicitors, says they are now seeing more women, most of whom cannot readily identify where they were exposed. They are also seeing younger people—three clients under 40 in recent months alone, which remains exceptionally rare but represents a marked change from a decade ago, when most cases were men who had spent their careers working directly with asbestos. Until recently, his firm rarely considered claims from people who believed they were exposed in schools. Now they do.

Linda Langhelt was a retired science teacher who had worked in Cardiff and Essex. She went to her GP thinking she had heart problems, complaining of shortness of breath. Instead, she was diagnosed with mesothelioma. The hospital told her she could have contracted it 20 or 30 years earlier. She died at 82, eighteen months after her diagnosis. Her sister Helen said the horrible thing about mesothelioma is that you have no idea you have it until it is too late. As a biology teacher, Linda understood exactly what her diagnosis meant. She remained stoic until the end.

Cardiff Council said it would not comment on Caroline's case, citing ongoing legal proceedings. But the council stated it takes the management of asbestos in its buildings extremely seriously and maintains robust plans to survey buildings, maintain asbestos records, and monitor the condition of known asbestos-containing materials. The Welsh Government echoed similar assurances about safety and support for local authorities. Yet the question remains unanswered: whether the danger lies in the asbestos still sitting in school buildings, or in the very act of trying to remove it.