Victims of asbestos-related cancer have called on the Scottish Government to alter the law to counter insurance companies' "underhand tactics" in compensation cases.

The Herald newspaper reported that Clydeside Action on Asbestos has accused insurance companies of changing the way they date the beginning of illnesses, in a deliberate ploy to get claims thrown out of court.

The award-inning campaign group said insurers are 'time-barring' hundreds of cancer claims.

According to the group, insurance companies have said that if victims do not take up their damages case for the symptomless condition of pleural plaques within three years of diagnosis, they will not be able to claim for any further developments, including the fatal mesothelioma.

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Phyllis Craig, senior welfare officer at Clydeside Action on Asbestos, accused insurers of being "heartless" and said the move was "just the latest in a long list of underhand tactics".

Scots who contracted cancer after working with asbestos fibres in the shipyards and heavy industries believed they had won their battle for compensation in October last year when Supreme Court judges in London upheld a Scottish Government ruling that gave people with pleural plaques the right to pursue compensation.

But the latest twist in their tale has left them facing meagre compensation of just a few thousand pounds after contracting a deadly illness at work.

Solicitor Chris Gordon said: "We are calling on the Scottish Government to make sure that the insurers do the right thing."

But a Scottish Government spokesman said application of the law was "a matter for the courts."

(NE/GK)