A DISGRACED solicitor has been accused of selling out thousands of ailing miners.

Russel Young is being sued by the ex-pitmen who claim he was negligent in advising them to accept paltry pay-outs for the crippling condition vibration white finger.

Young was paid more than £1.5m by the Government for dealing with 3,025 compensation claims, picking up fixed costs of £500 for each one.

The Newcastle solicitor was struck off in 1999 and then fled to Majorca.

He went behind the backs of a group of solicitors fighting for fair compensation pay-outs to do his own deal with the Government.

Among those bringing the case is 76-year-old Jim Marley, from Fatfield, Washington, Wearside, who spent 42 years down the pit.

Mr Marley accepted a pay-out of £1,450 in May 1997, only months before the test cases at the High Court at Newcastle. He has since been told he could have had a claim for more than £20,000.

Mr Marley said: "It is sickening to think he was paid so much money while people like me were picking up cheques for just a thousand pounds."

Young's former clients picked up payments as low as £400 when other solicitors were winning compensation of more than £15,000 for the same illness.

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has confirmed the average pay-out to Young's clients was only £1,900. But he still picked up his £500 cheque no matter how low the compensation.

Legal actions allege he was negligent in not advising his clients to wait for compensation under the Government scheme.

The first case will come before the High Court in London next week.

In September 1997, seven former pitmen won a landmark case at the High Court at Newcastle with pay-outs ranging from £41,000 to £11,000.

But in March that year, Young had cut his own deal with British Coal, with the lowest settlement at £400 and the highest at £2,640