A MINER'S widow who says she paid a law firm almost £2,000 for claiming compensation for her late husband's chest disease says she wants her money back.

Ceinwen Wixey, 60, of Brooklyn Terrace, Llanhilleth, says she paid a firm of solicitors in Brighton called DMH a total of £1,933.57 - 15 per cent of her bereavement award and compensation.

But after reading an article in the Argus last month, which urged miners and widows to seek legal advice if they had money deducted from their compensation, Mrs Wixey now intends to seek that money back.

The Argus has campaigned for five years to speed up the payout process. Although costs should have been met by the government under the scheme, solicitors were in some circumstances allowed to make deductions from compensation. An MP called for DMH to be removed from the list of solicitors authorised to handle coal compensation claims because of their failure to respond to government inquiries on the running of the scheme.

But there is no evidence that DMH has unfairly double-charged any of their clients.

Concern that lawyers have taken money to cover legal costs - even though fees were met by the government - was raised in an independent review of the coal health scheme last month.

Up to £50 million is believed to have been paid nationally to lawyers who charged miners or their families a fee for their services.

Mrs Wixey's husband Derek worked in the pits for almost 30 years and was diagnosed with cancer in 2000. The father-of-three died in April 2003 at 58.

A post mortem examination found he also suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and she put in a claim for compensation through DMH.

In February 2004 she received a £10,573.70 bereavement award and the firm asked her for a 15 per cent contingency fee of £1,586.02. "I paid that straight away," she told the Argus.

Later that year she also received £2,329.64 compensation for her husband's illness and was again asked for a 15 per cent fee, of £347.55. "I didn't think anything of it and probably wouldn't have unless I had read the piece in the Argus," she says.

"My husband worked for 30 years in the pits and suffered ill-health. He wouldn't have let this go - he would have fought for the money." In 2004 the Department of Trade and Industry wrote to DMH requesting they confirm that they did not double charge and, if they had, that they repay any deductions. The DTI had no reply.

Last night the DTI confirmed the firm is still processing miners' compensation claims.

A spokesman for the Law Society said: "DMH is not a firm that handles a significant number of miners' compensation claims and is not currently one of the firms that we are investigating as a priority." DMH refused to comment when contacted by the Argus.