London Underground asbestos exposure continued without legally required face-fitted masks for close to 20 years, according to internal documents that surfaced during an employment tribunal, and the paper trail is now threatening Transport for London with a fresh wave of personal injury claims.
The tribunal, held at the London Central Employment Tribunal, was brought by Micky Steeds, a former London Underground cleaner who was sacked in August 2023 after being signed off work with anxiety. According to James & West Law, which represented Steeds, a judge-led ruling issued in May 2026 found he had been given an unfair and unjustifiable ultimatum to return to work or be dismissed.
The ruling went further. The tribunal found that London Underground’s evidence ‘fell short of demonstrating compliance on all occasions’ and that ‘the failure to dispose of hazardous waste appropriately may give rise to criminal and civil liability.’ Steeds had made numerous protected disclosures between 2020 and 2023 about health and safety failings at some of London’s busiest stations, including concerns about failed face-fitting tests for respirator masks, as Rail Business UK reported.
What the Internal Documents Actually Say
The emails and meeting minutes disclosed during the proceedings are damning in their specificity. One manager said he had no recollection or record of face-fitted masks being issued to vent-cleaning teams in 2018. A second manager stated in December 2020 that face-fitted masks were not introduced to London Underground’s civils teams until late that year. His words were unambiguous: ‘A lot of people aren’t face-fitted. Staff shouldn’t have worked without face fit, but it has happened.’
A 2019 email from a third manager described Steeds being allowed to continue working without a fitted mask as an oversight. A 2023 email from a fourth manager admitted that asbestos dust fibre sampling, itself a legal requirement under the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2002, had not been conducted.
Transport for London’s own FOI response states that it has processes and procedures in place to ensure asbestos management complies with those regulations. The gap between that assertion and the contemporaneous internal admissions is the heart of the legal exposure TfL now faces.
The Scale of London Underground Asbestos Exposure
The numbers are hard to dismiss. TfL has recorded more than 20,000 asbestos-containing materials across its network, according to data released under freedom of information to Confront Power. Rob Donnan, a former cleaner who is separately appealing a tribunal rejection of his own unfair dismissal claim, estimates that up to 80 cleaners in the vents department alone worked without fitted masks between 2002 and 2020, with a further 300 staff in the escalator department similarly unprotected.
One experienced cleaner told the tribunal he encountered asbestos on cables 90% of the time and sometimes found ‘broken chunks of asbestos or cable shearing.’ His response to finding it: ‘We would just carry on and use common sense… don’t bash cables and do what you can.’ That is not a safety protocol. It is improvisation in a toxic environment.
Donnan’s own tribunal claim was rejected. Law360 reported that a judge found Donnan’s assertion that his protected disclosures cost him his job to be unfounded. The contrast with Steeds’ successful case is instructive: the legal outcomes hinge on the specifics, but the underlying workplace picture both cases describe is consistent.
Catriona Ratcliffe, a solicitor from the personal injury team at Leigh Day, secured a six-figure settlement from TfL earlier this year for a former inspector who was diagnosed with sarcomatoid mesothelioma 27 years after supervising asbestos removal from the Northern Line. She said the documents in Steeds’ case could produce further injury claims, noting that where asbestos materials are damaged or in poor condition, the risk of fibre release is higher. She added: ‘If someone is exposed to asbestos over many years, even at low levels, that is going to put that person at risk. And if the employer had knowledge of the risk of exposure, that could result in a legal claim if they have not taken the precautions required under regulations.’
TfL has already paid out more than £7 million in asbestos-related compensation and legal fees. Tribunal counsel Chevan Ilangaratne argued in closing submissions, as reported by the London Evening Standard, that the dismissal of Steeds was ‘exceptionally hasty and harsh’ and that his concerns were legitimate and in the public interest.
TfL is appealing Steeds’ tribunal ruling and says it has strict controls in place. But managers’ own emails, spanning years and multiple departments, say otherwise. The organisation’s next problem is that the documents are now in the public domain. More claimants will read them. More solicitors will cite them. The £7 million already spent may prove to be the opening figure in a much longer column of costs.
