A UNION boss has been sacked following a probe into the alleged misuse of a credit card for a spending spree.

Mick McGlasham, the national general secretary of the Club and Institute Union (CIU) has been dismissed from his £60,000 a year post in London along with his deputy Maxine Murphy.

A third CIU employee has also been sacked.

Mr McGlasham, who was appointed national secretary two years ago, was suspended from his role in October this year.

The National Executive Committee (NEC) took the decision to sack both Mr McGlasham and Miss Murphy - despite the recommendations of a barrister that they be re-instated.

The probe centres on the alleged misuse of a CIU credit card in Oxford.

There is no suggestion that Mr McGlasham, who said he was in Rome at the time, nor Miss Murphy misused the card.

Mr McGlasham, 62, is a former secretary of Horden Labour Club in County Durham, and was Durham branch secretary of the CIU for seven years.

He moved from his home in Horden, near Peterlee, County Durham, to London following his appointment CIU general secretary.

Yesterday a letter to all club secretaries - authorised by the organisation's president George Dawson - confirmed the dismissal of the three employees.

The letter from Mr Dawson said: "Certain decisions the union has recently reached concerning the general secretary, assistant general secretary and a third staff member were based on allegations contained in a grievance lodged with the CIU that resulted in disciplinary proceedings involving all three employees.

"The grievance contained serious allegations.

"The decision of a panel of NEC members was reluctantly taken to dismiss all three."

The letter goes on to say that an appeal process was "put in the hands of a specialist independent barrister, a former police officer, who was viewed to be in the best position to get to the truth.

"We believe the independent barrister has unearthed the truth, not given to either the investigatory or disciplinary panels and by recommending the dismissal of one of the group as being guilty of the offence on the balance of probabilities, has cleared the others of any suspected impropriety whatsoever again on the balance of probabilities.

“Regarding the others and for separate reasons he has recommended reinstatement subject to certain onerous conditions.

"The NEC has considered whether to accept the recommendations in full.

“It considered that both members of the group recommended for reinstatement have breached a fundamental implied term of their contracts and that the original decision to dismiss all three must stand.”

Mr McGlasham’s mobile phone was switched off yesterday.

He had previously said: “I will tell the whole truth when the time is right.

"Mick McGlasham is a man of his word. I will have plenty to say when this is all over.”

The scandal has rocked the organisation which was founded in 1862 and which now represents 2,100 social clubs and two million members.