A MAN from Swanmore died not as result of asbestos exposure, but from smoking cigarettes, an inquest heard.

Roger Cutting, of Upper Swanmore, had worked in Portsmouth Dockyard in the 1970s.

The court heard that the 65-year-old was exposed to asbestos during that time, but Dr Adnan Al-Badri, consultant pathologist at the RHCH, told the hearing he did not believe this to be the cause of death.

He said that Mr Cutting's small cell carcinoma was a particularly aggressive form of cancer, the result of smoking cigarettes when he was younger.

He said there was a tumour on Mr Cutting's lung that was in the wrong position to be the result of asbestos exposure.

Recording a verdict of death by natural causes, Grahame Short, coroner for central Hampshire, said: “I'm satisfied he was exposed to asbestos in the early 1970s when he was working in the dockyard in Portsmouth.

“However, it's also clear that he was a smoker of cigarettes and on hearing the pathologist's conclusions, I come to the decision that it was the cigarette smoking that was the decisive factor here, not the asbestos.”