A headteacher who earned more than £3,000 by renting out space in his school's playground to an ice-cream van has been struck off the teaching register.

Donald Matheson, who was head of Hermitage Academy in Helensburgh, charged the van's operators a weekly fee over an 18-month period.

They delivered the cash to the school's office - and Matheson told staff that it was going into school funds. But he was actually keeping it for himself.

Matheson, who took early retirement when facing prosecution, was removed from the teaching register by the General Teaching Council for Scotland's disciplinary sub-committee after they found an embezzlement charge against him proved.

Convener Carole Ford said that his behaviour had fallen short of what was expected of a registered teacher. He was struck off and barred from reapplying to be registered as a teacher for 12 months.

Matheson, 60, from Glasgow, was not present at the hearing. His solicitor, Andrew Gibb, said that he had no explanation for the embezzlement other than "human frailty".

Mr Gibb said: "He had a long and distinguished career in the profession and attained high office. I have to say that it is very difficult to explain when people do stupid things to the peril of their career.

"I think this is human frailty - I don't know why this man did what he did."

Ronald Gould was head of secondary services at Argyll and Bute Council as the so-called "cash for cones" scandal unravelled.

Mr Gould, 62, was Matheson's boss. In October 2003, he approved plans for the ice-cream van to trade from the school's grounds on the basis of child safety and keeping the streets tidy.

But Mr Gould, now retired, told the tribunal how he launched an immediate investigation after he heard that money was exchanging hands for the siting of the van on May 24, 2005.

Mr Gould said: "My accounting manager brought to my attention that money was being handed into the school as a result of the ice cream van being in the school premises. It really placed it in a different context."

Auditors were later called in and it was revealed that, the day after Mr Gould asked Matheson about the ice-cream cash, the headteacher handed an office worker £1,650 and ordered her to pay it into the general purpose fund.

Mr Gould led the council's disciplinary investigation into Matheson, who was suspended on full pay. He claimed he had been keeping the cash in an envelope in the school's safe and had simply not banked it, but office staff insisted the envelope was not in the safe and it emerged that no proper accounts for the school's account had been kept since Matheson took over.

With regular payments of £10 per school day for the siting of the van, the real income for the school from the van's owners should have been over £3,200.

Mr Gould said: "My view was that this was not a simple error of judgement on a one-off basis. This was a sustained failure and it amounted to deceit."

Matheson appeared in court in relation to the allegations in January 2006 but prosecutors dropped the charges, in part, because of witness problems. On the day he appeared in court, Matheson accepted early retirement from his position and left with a full pension.