Aslef 'is ignoring cash crisis'
TRAIN drivers' union Aslef has ignored warnings over its finances and used an investigation into its accounts to 'vilify' sacked general secretary Shaun Brady, it is claimed.
Brady was fired on Friday after a disciplinary hearing found him guilty of 'gross misconduct'.
But the union's executive still faces allegations by Paul Blagbrough, a former Labour party finance chief and an ally of moderate Brady, that its finances are 'a shambles'.
Earlier this year, Financial Mail on Sunday revealed that Blagbrough had branded the union's finances as 'shambolic' and subject to inadequate financial record keeping.
But the report was rejected by the union's left-wing dominated executive committee, which launched a separate investigation under Matthias Kelly QC.
In June, Kelly concluded that the union's finances were 'sound' and said Brady's abrasive style had fuelled a power struggle inside the union.
Those tensions exploded at a barbecue in May held in the garden of the union's head office in Hampstead, north-west London, where Brady came to blows with union president Martin Samways.
Samways and Brady were both suspended. Samways resigned soon after. The disciplinary committee found no fault with Brady.
On Friday, Aslef said it fired Brady because he had failed to co-operate with the Kelly inquiry.
But in a lengthy response delivered to the union's executive this month, Blagbrough rode to the defence of Brady, as well as his own damning report into the union's finances.
He slammed the Kelly investigation, saying it had been designed 'to rubbish my draft report in order to undermine its conclusions' and 'to vilify Shaun Brady and those within the union who have assisted him'.
Blagbrough told union officials that Kelly had gone 'over the top' and 'undermined his credibility'.
In particular, Blagbrough dismissed Kelly's conclusion that the union finances had been in surplus last year. Blagbrough insists that union spending is outstripping income.
'For several years, only by selling the family silver has the union been able to present an improved financial performance,' Blagbrough said in his letter to the executive committee.
