Scargill forced off charities' boards

ARTHUR SCARGILL lost an appeal yesterday against his removal as trustee of two pitmen's charities.

At the High Court in London, Mr Justice Neuberger ruled that the 60-year- old president of the National Union of Mineworkers and his vice- president, Frank Cave, were guilty of "misconduct and mismanagement" in transferring pounds 800,000 from one charity to the other without higher authority.

The judge stressed, however, that neither man had acted for personal gain. While they knew they were acting wrongly, they genuinely believed what they were doing was for what they regarded as a more important overriding principle - the welfare of miners.

The judge upheld a ruling by the Charity Commissioners removing Mr Scargill and Mr Cave as trustees of the Yorkshire Miners' Welfare Trust Fund and the Yorkshire Miners' Welfare Convalescent Homes.

The commissioners acted after the trustees made a grant of pounds 800,000 from the trust fund charity to the convalescent homes charity without approval from their central governing body, the Coal Industry Social Welfare Organisation (CISWO).

The judge said he "regretfully" concluded that Mr Scargill was not telling the truth when he said he had been advised that the grant did not require CISWO's consent.

Mr Scargill had insisted his motive for the grant was to ensure that the homes charity, which was operating at a loss, could continue its job of running two convalescent homes at Scalby and Lynwood.

The judge accepted that the two men's genuine concern for the miners' homes was one of their reasons.But another motive was to put substantial Yorkshire miners' funds out of reach of new nationwide proposals on welfare funding, to which they were bitterly opposed.