John Bridle of Asbestos Watchdog: "lies, illegal tests and self aggrandisement"?

The Sunday Telegraph has a column called the Christopher Booker notebook.
This is a column that has supported and endorsed the John Bridle and the Asbestos Watchdog.

Mr Booker has written about Asbestos Watchdog that "...thanks to the Sunday Telegraph, there is now one organisation equipped with the expertise to combat the ignorance [about asbestos].

Are these personal endorsements by Mr Booker or corporate endorsements by the Sunday Telegraph?

Does the Sunday Telegraph have a duty of care over the factual content of its newspaper and the representations it makes about the services of companies endorsed in its publications?

Asbestos Watchdog claims it has saved Sunday Telegraph readers £34,000,000.

What happens if readers have been misled, suffered damage or been encouraged to perform unlawful act as a result of representations made by Mr Booker in the Sunday Telegraph?

Could the Sunday Telegraph be vicariously liable for the actions of its columnist?

In last week's column (October 15th), Mr Booker stated that he accompanied Mr Bridle and lobbied the Conservative Party about asbestos prior to a Parliamentary. Does this suggest a high degree of proximity between a columnist of the Sunday Telegraph and Mr Bridle?

Was Parliament misled? If so, was it by Mr Bridle? Mr Booker? or both?

Perhaps only time will tell.

Perhaps Christopher Booker and the Sunday Telegraph are victims of Mr Bridle?

After all, Mr Bridle is a convicted criminal found guilty of an offence under the Trades Descriptions Act and, according to the BBC, he is a liar.

The BBC radio programme was packed full of examples were Mr Bridle's CV was wrong about claims that he had control over. Grand-sounding international institutions that don't exist?
-The International Centre for Asbestos Research of the University of Glamorgan?
-The European Asbestos Accreditation Centre, Lisbon, Portugal?

John Bercow MP took the time and trouble on national radio to confirm that John Bridle was not, or has ever been, his, or the Conservative Party's asbestos expert.
It takes integrity and guts for a politician to go on national radio and admit mistakes had been made. John Bercow said he took Mr Bridle at face value and Hansard records Mr Bercow describing John Bridle as "an experienced South Wales surveyor, qualified chemist".

After being presented with a copy of the CV from the Asbestos Watchdog website, John Bercow MP suggested that John Bridle's claims are "wrong, far-fetched and misleading."

Similar CVs were presented to major house building companies such as Persimmon and Bellway and these companies paid for the services of John Bridle based on false information (some of which has also been published in the Sunday Telegraph).

If a court decides that certain of John Bridle's acts have been unlawful...could this also be 'obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception'?

Where does that leave Mr Booker and the Sunday Telegraph?

Might a court decide that there was an element of 'aiding, abetting or procuring' by Mr Booker or the Sunday Telegraph?

On the other hand, could they have been innocent victims duped by a conman?

Perhaps this is best left to proper lawyers not barrack room ones.

Does british Sunday Telegraph columnist Christopher Booker know that Asbestos Watchdog Ltd director John Bridle has close links with what remains of the world's asbestos industry?

The dust trail leads to Montreal Canada, home of the Chrysotile Institute (formerly known as the Asbestos Institute before the spin doctors changed the name). To the shame of many Canadian taxpayers, the work of this front organisation is funded by Federal and Provincial tax dollars.

The fiberous web of this shadowy organisation leads to some unexpected places including the former Soviet Union and Zimbabwe.

Before the Iron Curtain fell, the gallows humor of Soviet workers explained that "there were no cases of occupational lung disease in the Soviet Union- just lead poisoning".

Similar statistics are still trotted out in the Marxist Utopia that is Zimbabwe- according to Comrade Mugabe's official government sources, there are no incidents of asbestos lung disease from Zimbabwean Chrysotile. Who owns the asbestos mines in Zimbabwe?

In the british Sunday Telegraph, Christopher Booker's Notebook has also been towing this medically miraculous Party Line with phrases describing chrysotile (white asbestos) and asbestos cement as: "no measurable risk", "harmless" and "not a single case of mesothelioma, a deadly lung disease, has ever been associated with white asbestos cement products".

Does Mr Booker know he is in bed with Comrade Mugabe, or is all this an innocent mistake?

First port of call - the Press Compalaints Commission:

 http://www.pcc.org.uk

PCC Code of Practice:

 http://www.pcc.org.uk/cop/practice.html

Does Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan and Captains of Industry support Prof John Bridle in the promotion of its incredible natural resourses?

 http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=3518660467944829417&q=borat+response

Canada, glorious nation of Kazakhstan and Chrysotile...

 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061009.wcomment10/BNStory/Front/

John Bridle- sole director of Asbestos Watchdog Ltd (and its "President" and "UK Chief Inspector") seems to be in more trouble...

His company's website instructs people to take samples of suspected asbestos materials and send them to his home address in Dinas Powys.

As the self-confessed "world's leading expert on asbestos science" he thinks his advice is lawful...

...Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union don't seem to agree

Here is a link to the BBC Radio report:
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/youandyours/items/02/2006_46_wed.shtml

If it is a criminal offence to send asbestos through the post then how many Sunday Telegraph readers (that John Bridle claims to have saved £34 million for) have exposed themselves to a cancer risk AND broken the law?

Sunday Telegraph readers criminals? Shurley not?

Does Christopher Booker and the Sunday Telegraph owe a duty of care to its readers and others who, as a result of the newspaper's promotion and support of Asbestos Watchdog Ltd, have followed Mr Bridle's advice by disturbing asbestos and posting it for analysis?

The Christopher Booker Notebook is in the news section of the Sunday Telegraph NOT the opinion section. News must be accurate (and lawful).

If posting asbestos is a criminal offence then who has incited the offenders?

Answers on (an asbestos-free) postcard to:

Patience Wheatcroft- Editor
Sunday Telegraph
1 Canada Square
London E14 5DT

A brand spanking new Asbestos Watchdog website is up and running.

Who says you can't polish a turd?

...of what remains of the world's asbestos industry.

Before the BBC investigations and the ‘revamp’ of the Asbestos Watchdog website, John Bridle’s own modest description of himself and his Russian accolade was written in the following purple prose:

QUOTE: “John has recently been awarded a prestigious honorary degree in Asbestos Sciences from the Russian Academy of Sciences, the world's leading authority on asbestos related disease. The Academy reviewed the 300,000 words of asbestos information John has written on the subject, and after inviting him to address their conference on asbestos and health in Moscow, confirmed their intention to make him a professor of the academy. His new professorship makes him the foremost authority on asbestos science in the world”.


THE “Russian Academy of Science”? – nope, the RAS have NEVER heard of him let alone made him a professor- real, honorary or imaginary.

“300,000 words of asbestos information?” Was this a ‘cut and paste’ job from past decades of asbestos industry propaganda or was it 300,000 words of original, referenced and peer-reviewed work? Come on ‘professor’, let’s have a look. Publish or be damned.

To say that any Russian institution is “the world’s leading authority on asbestos related disease” may be stretching it a bit, even by Mr Bridle’s elastic standards.

Why would the Russian asbestos industry want honour Mr Bridle?

Perhaps looking at this documentary clip might explain more:


 http://tinyurl.com/yzh826


(click on the 3rd thumbnail picture on the right (3 of 33) to view the Workers’ Paradise (now privatised) and the working and environmental conditions endured)

Mr Bridle has admitted that he has NO formal academic qualifications whatsoever.

When you watch this film clip, ask yourself - What kind of sick, sad individual calls himself a Professor and promotes the continued use of asbestos and claims that it is harmless?

Just after the BBC investigations into John Bridle and his company Asbestos Watchdog Ltd, the AW website changed radically. One of the most noticeable absences was the page describing the Asbestos Watchdog ‘Team’. (These are the people that John Bridle/Christopher Booker have referred to in order to give academic or scientific gravitas to their claims that white asbestos poses no risk whatsoever to health etc).
The Asbestos Watchdog page with the names, photos and brief biographies of these “Independent” and “world leading experts” seem to have been airbrushed from the web.
However, thanks to internet archiving, the following glowing description from the old website is brought back to life:
“Dr Allen Gibbs is…
A leading Consultant Histopholigist [sic] with a special interest in occupational lung pathology, Dr Gibbs is internationally respected for his work with asbestos. He is author of many papers on asbestos and related lung disease.
Dr Gibbs is an experienced expert witness on asbestos related cases.”


Is this the same “internationally respected” and “experienced expert witness” that gave evidence for defendants against a South Wales woman who died from mesothelioma as a result of exposure to white asbestos?

A stone’s throw away from John Bridle’s home in Dynas Powys (also known as Asbestos Watchdog’s international headquarters and registered offices for his business (J&S Bridle Associates etc) is Cardiff County Court. The recent case of Jones v. Metal Box may have the phone lines humming between Dynas Powys, Quebec and Russia…

Dr Allen Gibb’s expert evidence appears to have been dismissed by His Honour Judge Hickinbottom.

Following a comprehensive review of the leading international literature about white asbestos and mesothelioma the court judgment contains a damning reference to the Asbestos Watchdog ‘Team’ member:

“In the circumstances, Dr Gibbs’ opinion as to medical causation is fatally undermined.”

“FATALLY UNDERMINED” -This may be a rather fitting epitaph for the whole argument peddled by what remains of a dying asbestos industry about the ‘safe and controlled’ use of supposedly ‘harmless’ chrysotile asbestos.

There are always 2 sides to every story, and isn’t it just a bit worrying that in amongst all the hype about John Bridle no one has thought to question who’s creating this hype? And why is it so hollow and vindictive; something to hide maybe?

This is a topic too long to go into here, but the following are just a couple of points that it is worth giving some thought:

1) Jason Addy claims to be a good guy helping victims of asbestos with his Spodden Valley campaign, but doesn’t it put a different perspective on it that he is a claims lawyer, standing to make money from each individual asbestos sufferer he meets. It makes you think that maybe these campaigns make more than just headlines from asbestos - using customers to make asbestos claims whether they are real or not.

2) Isn’t it also concerning that the BBC program in question has the feel of being put together with the help from people who have many financial interests in seeing asbestos demonised, not least of all asbestos removal companies and asbestos insurance companies (who put millions away in funds and make huge profits from this).

3) Conveniently the MP Michael Clapham works with Lawyer Laurie Kazan Allen who runs million pound ban asbestos conferences, yet appears to have no independent source of income. Her brother, however, is one of the biggest asbestos claims lawyer in the US – doesn’t it make you wonder who’s scratching who’s back within the ban asbestos lobby?


A word to the wise for everyone jumping on the bandwagon, don’t believe everything you read. Take the time to consider the motives of the ban asbestos lobby; saving lives is important to everyone, but when sufferers become exploited to line the pockets of lawyers surely that is what John Bridle is trying to stop?

Comments from “Concerned from Kent” have just been drawn to my attention. They are false and libellous. If this person would supply me with their real name and contact details I will commence an action in defamation against them.