Who is Richard Spoor?
What is it that causes righteous anger to simmer inside him about the state of occupational health in the mining industry?
Spoor is the lawyer who, on behalf of poor and ill former asbestos mine workers, their families and people who have yet to fall ill, took on the might of Gencor, the former investment holding company, and won R460 million in compensation.
While the victory was slim, it brought hope to thousands of people that they would receive compensation for asbestos-related illnesses acquired through the shameful lack of safety precautions by mine owners.
Business Report managed to pin Spoor down on a recent visit to Kuruman, where, at a meeting of the Asbestos Interest Group, he was given a standing ovation.
It was in the group's name that he sought to interdict Gencor, the now dormant investment holding company, from unbundling its R17 billion stake in Impala Platinum until it had made sufficient provision for its liability to former asbestos mine workers who had become ill as a result of exposure to asbestos dust and fibres.
Gencor, without admitting liability, paid an out-of-court settlement of R460 million into the Asbestos Relief Trust.
Spoor, 44, graduated from the University of Cape Town on a Gold Fields bursary.
In 1985, as the revolt against the apartheid government gathered momentum, he started work at Gold Fields' head office as a corporate lawyer.
Increasingly dismayed at the racist treatment of black mine workers, Spoor secretly assisted the emerging National Union of Mineworkers (NUM).
He was dismissed by Gold Fields after security police, monitoring meetings he had with the mine workers, told the firm he was helping the trade union.
Spoor then found a job with law firm Cheadle, Haysom and Thompson as an articled clerk.
He worked alongside Priscilla Jana, now ambassador to the Netherlands, to tackle the case of the Vaal Civic Association, which had in 1984 launched a rent boycott.
How did he become involved in the asbestos litigation?
Spoor explains that he visited Kuruman in the Northern Cape at the invitation of Jannie Roodt, a successful white businessman who was dying of mesothelioma - a cancer of the lungs caused exclusively by blue asbestos. Roodt spent his life providing engineering services to the mines.
Roodt found a dozen more sick and dying people and arranged a community meeting.
"It was an extraordinary event," says Spoor. "Jannie Roodt had sent out a few notices and placed a little advert."
"I arrive here and the hall is packed with hundreds and hundreds of people."
"There is no seating; they are stuffed in the aisles."
After the meeting the sick people came forward and started providing their details.
"At that stage it had become very clear to us we can't do this alone," says Spoor.
"It just so happened that Dr Sarah Kisting, who did health and safety work for the NUM, and people from Brown University in the US, were about to do a project in this area on the problem of asbestos, socioeconomic and health issues."
As part of the programme two American law students assisted and started moving into the villages.
At that stage, with Laurie Flynn, a Scottish journalist and documentary producer, they travelled to London to meet the chief executive of Thompsons, a law firm that exclusively assists trade unions, and obtained funding for litigation.
"We then put together this case against Gencor in record time," says Spoor.
He says that even though Gencor made an out-of-court settlement without admitting liability, it is not the end.
Etternet, the Swiss-based resources firm which previously owned mines in South Africa, will be asked to contribute money to the Asbestos Relief Trust.
There is also the potential liability of the state and its constitutional duties and responsibilities to create a healthy environment.
"There are hundreds of asbestosis and mesothelioma victims in the industry," Spoor says. "Many of those people are in exactly the same position as heavy industry workers, because, through a quirk and the way the law has developed in this country, heavy metal and heavy industry workers are also covered by the Occupational Diseases in Mines and Works Act."
"There of course is a huge range of other occupational diseases: pneumoconiosis, obstructed airways, emphysema."
"We are now peering into a dark cavern, which is filled with ghosts and demons of the mining and heavy industry in South Africa. Should we pull that door open ... the implications would be huge," says Spoor.
"The problems that we face, other than resources, is that although industry and mining keep a very low profile on these things, behind the scenes there is a furious plotting, scheming, planning and manoeuvring going on in a way to interdict us from opening that door."
"Their main message is that mining and heavy industry in this country is under threat through royalties, black economic empowerment and the rand."
"If this liability for hundreds of people who were killed and maimed without compensation is put on their shoulders, it will be the straw that broke the camel's back."
"It will result in job losses; it will reduce South Africa's competitiveness and it's the end of the world," says Spoor.
"The Chamber of Mines recognises that there is this huge liability. It accepts that but it says there was a social contract between the mining industry and South Africa, in terms of which South Africa accepted this cost and must share the burden with the industry."
The litigation against Gencor was not without risk. The company had the financial resources to have been able to stall litigation for years.
It was at this stage, according to a close friend, that Spoor mortgaged his family home to help pay the legal costs.
Asked about this, Spoor is reticent and will only say: "We incurred debt."
In the face of allegations that lawyers were involved in the litigation, Spoor says his firm earned R4 million for four years' work, after costs and including his fee.