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The BBC “seems to be treating very senior people completely differently from the way it’s treating junior people”, Bectu’s Luke Crawley said.

The BBC has refused to comment, but an executive on radio station 6 Music has quit over faked competition winners.

The corporation would not confirm reports that an ex-Blue Peter editor was sacked over a poll to name a cat.

Richard Marson was in charge of the children’s programme when Cookie came top in an online poll to choose a name for the pet.

But staff changed the result and called it Socks instead.

It follows a previous scandal involving a phone-in competition where Blue Peter staff asked a studio visitor to pose as the winner.

Mr Marson left the show soon afterwards, but stayed with the BBC. The deception led to the corporation being fined ?50,000 by regulator Ofcom.

On Thursday, it emerged that 6 Music’s head of programmes Ric Blaxill had resigned after competition winners were fabricated on three of the digital network’s shows.

But Bectu has claimed other employees who have been disciplined are more junior, such as a 6 Music producer who the union said was sacked for gross misconduct.

Mr Crawley said his union was representing 10 staff who had been given “some kind of disciplinary penalty” for deceiving audiences.

“There’s been one [senior] person, it is alleged, who has been sacked - the editor of Blue Peter - and that’s it,” Mr Crawley said.

“The other person whom you could reasonably call somewhat senior is Ric Blaxill, who has not been disciplined and who has been allowed to resign. It seems to me a slightly unusual position.”

He went on: “Where are the senior people - aren’t they responsible editorially? The answer is yes they are - so why aren’t they in the dock?”

Mr Crawley also questioned why BBC creative director Alan Yentob had not been disciplined over his Imagine arts series.

It emerged some of the interviews Mr Yentob supposedly conducted were actually recorded by colleagues - with Mr Yentob’s questions and reactions added later to make it look like he was present.

The BBC has introduced a number of measures in response to the issue of deception, including “unprecedented” training for all 16,500 production staff on “editorial trust”.

A spokeswoman said the BBC would not comment on any of the issues raised by Mr Crawley.