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While Strafford's departure was announced on the Official Plusnet Usergroup without comment or explanation, The Independent reports that Strafford, along with financial director Neil Comer, was sacked because they were planning to set up a business 'that would have been to the detriment of Plusnet'.

According

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to the Independent's source, Strafford and Comer wanted to sell Plusnet's software platform to other companies, a proposal that they claim BT was aware of when it was considering its buyout. Strafford described the allegations as 'ludicrous'.

BT commented on the matter as follows: 'Lee Strafford and Neil Comer have left Plusnet. Neil Laycock has now taken up the post of acting CEO. BT is confident that the team have the expertise to drive growth and development for Plusnet in the future. These departures will not have any bearing on the timetable for integration into BT.'

Its £67 million takeover bid for PlusNet was approved by the Office of Fair Trading in January.

Late last month Plusnet announced that it would be refunding a number of broadband subscribers who had suffered 'slower than acceptable speeds' during a reconfiguration of its network during December and January. It also reported that it had activated two additional 155Mbps segments of BT Central capacity to make up the capacity shortfall.