A HEAD chef who says he was fired from a pub for asking for Christmas Day off took to the restaurant’s Twitter account to rant about the actions.

Jim Knight, head chef at the Plough in Great Haseley, took to the pub’s official Twitter account last night - which he set up - to claim he was sacked for asking for time off to spend with his newborn daughter.

Tweeting as @ploughpub, he said: “We’d like to inform you that we’ve just fired our head chef.

“Unfortunately he wanted to have a weekend off this month and Christmas Day this year for family commitments so we thought we'd sack him.

"Yeah a week before Christmas! We don’t care that he has a 7 ½ month old baby daughter.”

His posts were re-tweeted by hundred of Twitter users in a matter of hours.

This afternoon, landlord of the pub Steve Potts, said: “When Jim, as head chef, informed me that he would not be working on Christmas Day, and other Sundays in the near future, I was left with little choice but to end our arrangement. I had been quite clear with him when he started here in October that Sundays are our busiest days of the week, and that all our chefs have to work that day.”

Mr Potts says he is now recruiting another head chef and added: "I've been in this business 25 years and have a lot of contacts who have been asking me on an ongoing basis if there is a position available, as this is a fantastic pub to work for.

"Since the villagers bought it out two years ago, it’s been renovated to a wonderful standard, the kitchen facilities are second to none and it must be one of the most beautiful villages in the country."

The Plough was purchased by the Great Haseley community last year after they raised £400,000.