THE case of a Hampshire scientist whose body was riddled with cancer when he died 20 years ago could help Britain’s cold war atomic bomb test survivors’ case for compensation.

Stuart Ellis, who worked as a senior scientific officer aboard HMS Diana in an atomic weapons testing zone in the Pacific in the 1950s, brought radioactive material back to his family home for one night on his return.

When he died in 1989 aged 63, every organ in his body was destroyed by cancer.

Experts from Southampton General Hospital said he had been the victim of a “most unusual multiple myeloma” and cancer specialists said they “hadn’t seen anything like it”.

Ellis had previously expressed concerns that his health had been destroyed by the radiation he had been instructed to measure.

During the ‘50s and ‘60s, the British government exploded a series of atomic weapons in the South Pacific as it tried to develop an independent nuclear arsenal.

About 700 servicemen and civilians who helped run the tests are now suing the Ministry of Defence for negligence. Their cases will be heard at the High Court this month in one of the largest ever compensation claims against the MoD.

Ellis’ 82-year-old widow Edna, who lives near Basingstoke, said her husband brought back radioactive material from HMS Diana to their family home.

The material, which was inside a briefcase-sized package, was kept at their home – then in Middlesex – overnight before it was handed over to the authorities.

She said: “He was just carrying out orders. He was very good at his job, which was why he was asked to join the trip.”

Mrs Ellis is convinced that damaging health effects from the HMS Diana tests have been passed on to subsequent generations of her family.

Her daughter needed a back plate to support a crumbling spine, her granddaughter was born with a hole in her heart, and her grandson was born prematurely.

“It is very important that the case for compensation is successful for the families that are left behind,” she said.

A secret journal by HMS Diana’s medical officer will also support the survivors’ compensation claims.

The diary discloses for the first time that inadequate training and equipment led to the men on the British warship being exposed to an “omnipresent” and “dangerous” risk of radioactive poisoning.

The officer’s concerns contradict the government’s view that the nuclear tests had no adverse effects on the servicemen, which it still upholds.

HMS Diana was sent into the atomic testing zone in the South Pacific to discover the effects of a nuclear explosion on naval vessels and their men.

Two-thirds of the 308-strong crew have died, and survivors claim to have suffered illnesses including cancer, cataracts and lung disorders caused by ingesting radiation.

The MoD refuses to accept any liability or that there is a link between the veterans’ health and their atomic experiments.