SICK miners have been a goldmine to a South Yorkshire solicitors’ firm.

Beresfords, based in Doncaster, has been paid £73 million by the Government for handling industrial disease claims by tens of thousands of colliery workers. This has helped Jim Beresford, the senior partner, and Doug Smith to become multimillionaires. Mr Beresford, 55, and his wife, Linda, 54, invested £1.8 million last year on a private jet and have spent heavily on improvements to their home in Linton, near Wetherby.

Fortune has also smiled on their two daughters. Esta, 27, a solicitor, is one of the three partners at Beresfords. She and her husband, Aaron Rae, 29, are among the directors and shareholders of two family-owned companies.

In 2002 they bought a house at Ingmanthorpe Hall, near Wetherby, for £470,000.

Mr Rae owns a racehorse, and a few weeks ago he joined the board of Doncaster Rovers FC at the same time as his father-in-law became its vice-chairman.

The other daughter, Chloe, 24, also has shares in the family companies, Quaypoint Ltd and Keypoint Investment Mis-Selling Services Ltd. She lives in a £1.1 million home in Sutton Coldfield with her husband, Matt Murray, the Wolverhampton Wanderers goalkeeper. Her father and Mr Smith, 49, who lives at the £840,000, Grade II listed Noblethorpe Hall, love expensive cars. In recent years their garages have housed three Aston Martins, a Bentley and a Ferrari.

Since 2003 a £4.8 million investment has taken the firm from a rundown part of Doncaster to a glass-fronted lakeside development on the outskirts. Beresfords has also invested in a new market: handling claims for the mis-selling of endowment mortgages. At new offices in Leeds, Keypoint boasts that it has recovered more than £25.5 million for claimants. Clients do not pay anything upfront but if their claim is successful the company keeps 26.4 per cent of their compensation as a fee. And so the gravy train rolls on.

Explore Law

• Columnists

• Law Panel

• Law Reports

• Student Law

Times Recommends

• Linklaters trounces rivals as UK's biggest firm
• Clifford Chance profits plunge 37 per cent
• Casual drinkers hit by spread of 'dry' zones