Arthur Scargill Faces £100,000 Legal Claim From NUM for Misusing Funds

Arthur Scargill is facing a potential £100,000 legal action by the National Union of Miners allegeing that he misused funds while head of the union.

According to a BBC Inside Out investigation, money was used to pay legal bills run up by a mysterious Paris based organisation called the International Energy and Miners Organisation (IEMO).

Scargill is president of the IEMO, and ran it during the time he headed up the NUM.

Some of the £100,000 in question was spent on recovering a loan to a former chief executive Roger Windsor of NUM of £29,500 (€35,482, $48, 530).

This money was later recovered by the IEMO and given back to NUM, according to a statement Scargill gave the BBC on the matter.

Scargill said that the NUM agreed in 1990 to pay legal costs for the IEMO's action against Windsor, who still had to pay back the IEMO's total debt said Scargill.

Legal action could also be taken against IEMO and its secretary Alan Simon. The BBC investigation found that little is known about the IEMO: none of its accounts have been published since 1993, for instance.

There appears to be controversy over a one off payment of £145,000 that was made to the IEMO shortly after Scargill retired from the NUM in 2002.

According to Scargill, the payment was made by an NUM trust fund and therefore did not have to be reported to the national executive committee of the union.

Scargill stepped down from the NUM 12 years ago. He later became embroiled in a dispute with the NUM after it was discovered that the union was still paying £30,000 for a year him to rent a flat in London.

The resultant High Court squabble, which Scragill lost in 2011, was widely publicised.

IBTimes UK contacted both the NUM and IEMO for comment, but no one was available at the time of publication.