HORRABRIDGE widower Lionel Turk is backing a campaign to persuade the government to give equal entitlement to benefits.

Mr Turk, aged 64, retired from his job as a sales and marketing manager in London in 1997.

His wife had worked for a catering company in Essex for many years. They moved to Devon and she died later the same year aged 60.

'Had I gone first she could have claimed a widow's pension on my National Insurance contributions, but it does not work the other way round,' said Mr Turk.

'The law is antiquated. It was fair when men worked down the mines and usually died first, but these days it is often the wife who dies first.'

The rules governing widow's benefit will change next April and the new bereavement benefit will be paid equally to men and women.

But in the interim widowers have no entitlement.

Mr Turk, who is not eligible for his company pension until he reaches 65, has lodged a claim with the Benefits Agency and has instructed London solicitors Royds Treadwell to push his case.

They have told him that the government has already paid two men who threatened to take the issue to the European Court of Human Rights.

The claimants were paid the same amount that bereaved widows would have received, according to the solicitors.

Mr Turk said he would be willing to go to court but thinks it may not be necessary.

Geoffrey Cox, the Conservative prospective candidate for West Devon and Torridge, is encouraging people in the same situation to use the new Human Rights Act which came in on October 2 to enforce equality between the sexes.

He said the widowers had a very good case and should be successful if it came to the High Court.