THE accusations of sexist bullying surfaced at the end of talks between rail bosses and union officials about a dispute that came close to leading to a strike this bank holiday weekend.

ScotRail Managing Director Alex Hynes met unions to try to resolve a row over ScotRail CCTV-monitoring staff.

The dispute centres around union claims that CCTV staff are "overstretched" following the acceptance of 17 applications for voluntary redundancy from 22 specialist staff.

The TSSA union criticised plans to impose new compulsory night shifts on employees whose family and child care commitments meant they could not work nights.

However, it has now called off its planned strike for this weekend, and ScotRail says its policy of no compulsory redundancies remains in place.