THE former boss of Grim's Dyke Hotel has won nearly £70,000 compensation after a tribunal ruled he was unfairly sacked over bogus allegations.

Paul Follows, 58, was summarily dismissed from his job as general manager last year after a 11-year tenure that saw the venue, in Old Redding, Harrow Weald, named as the capital's best small hotel four years ago by London's tourist board.

His employer, the manufacturing giant F G Skerritt, claimed he had misused a company credit card and that he had ignored an order to quit a professional association for travel and tourism executives of which he was a member in a personal capacity.

Mr Follows disproved these false accusations at a two-day hearing at an employment tribunal in Watford, Herts, last month, and was delighted to learn on Monday that he had won his case and been awarded a total of £68,115 compensation.

A relieved Mr Follows said: "I loved my job and I would quite honestly have been happy to stay there until the end of my hotel career.

"My dismissal was shocking. It was terrible that it ended as it did. I got on so well with all the other staff and the original chairman.

"The new chairman and myself didn't see eye-to-eye and he didn't seem to want to listen to a voice of experience.

"He said I was paying myself bonuses that had not been authorised by the company, but this was quashed."

Mr Follows added: "It was important to me, after being in the industry for nearly 40 years, to restore my reputation because I was worried about what my staff thought of me in my absence. I wanted them to know I had done nothing wrong."

After eight months out of work, Mr Follows, of Crowborough, East Sussex, was hired as manager of an international students' college in Kent.

A spokeswoman for the Purico Group, the subsiduary of Nottingham-based F G Skerritt that runs the hotel, said the firm would not comment as it had not yet received the tribunal's judgment in writing.