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Video: Scargill wins £13,000 damages after NUM ‘tried to disown him’
FORMER miners’ leader Arthur Scargill has been awarded £13,000 in damages after he sued a trust fund of the union he led for 20 years.
Mr Scargill, 74, sued the National Union of Mineworkers Yorkshire Area Trust Fund (YATF) over a range of expenses he claimed he was owed when he worked for them in a £26,000-a-year role after he retired as NUM national president.
Today, a judge at Sheffield County Court rejected the former union boss’s claim that he should have had his telephone costs reimbursed by the trust.
But Judge Robert Moore ruled that Mr Scargill was entitled to a car allowance substantially more than the £50 the trustees eventually offered him.
He awarded him £12,000 in damages. The judge also awarded Mr Scargill a further £1,000 in damages because he was denied membership of the NUM for 10 months during the dispute.
Judge Moore told the court that when the trustees began to question Mr Scargill’s contract, “there was a clear agenda both to disown him and to pay him as little as possible”.
Mr Scargill’s barrister Timothy Pitt-Payne QC said the trust treated his client “in a thoroughly shabby way and in a way that was quite inappropriate, given his long and distinguished career within the union”.
The court heard that Mr Scargill took up a role with the trust after he retired from his £70,000 post as national president of the NUM in 2002.
Despite two trustees of the fund claiming they did not realise he worked for them, Judge Moore said in his judgment that Mr Scargill’s work over the last decade was “meaningful and considerable”.
The judge outlined how the former president’s expertise was used in relation to the preparation of a range of legal cases.
He said these included an aborted attempt to reclaim £8 million from the union’s former solicitors, a long-running property dispute relating to union offices in central Sheffield, and former miners’ compensation claims regarding the condition vibration white finger.
The trustees disputed Mr Scargill’s claim that he was entitled to an allowance towards a new car.
The court heard that he understood this was a benefit which carried over after he changed jobs in 2002 and was calculated using a complex formula but amounted to 80% of the cost of a Ford Mondeo over a four-year period.
This amounted to about £14,500.
The judge was told that Mr Scargill was paid this allowance in 2005 when he last changed his car.
But five years later, when he inquired again, the trustees began to question the very basis of his employment contract with YATF.
Mr Scargill, wearing a dark suit with a red tie, sat behind his QC in court.
The case continues this afternoon when the judge will resume his assessment of costs.
Speaking outside court, Mr Scargill said: “I’m very pleased that justice has been done.
“I’ve demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt that the action taken against me to declare my contract was not valid, my membership of the NUM was not valid and my allowances were not valid has been dispensed with by the court.”
He said: “I’m very pleased with the result.
“I feel it’s a sad day that the leadership of the NUM in the Yorkshire area have taken what can only be described as a vindictive action against me after 58 years membership of this union.”
• More details and video soon
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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Comments
There are 4 comments to this article
Page 1 of 1
wkenc11
Wednesday, February 22, 2012 at 10:18 PMSo let’s think about it, the Judge did not believe the trustees who came and gave evidence but believed Scargill who could not get Steve Kemp or Mrs Riley to give evidence. Why did Steve Kemp not take the stand he was a trustee and signed the contract for Scargill, sounds like a fear of contempt of court to me. One thing doing it another to say it in open court hay. Think there is more to this story.
Cosmo
Tuesday, February 21, 2012 at 06:35 PMI feel your pain brother !!!!!!!!!!!!!! They don't sell Lada's anymore.
pockman
Tuesday, February 21, 2012 at 05:56 PMOr rather "bourgeois" !!!!!
pockman
Tuesday, February 21, 2012 at 05:54 PMSensibly settled in the spirit of fraternal brotherhood and solidarity that always prevails when "the comrades" have a teeny tiff. PS. Like yer 'ouse Arthur ! Very bourgeios.
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