Gordon Foxley

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Gordon Foxley was head of defence procurement at the Ministry of Defence from 1981 to 1984. He was convicted on 12 counts of corruption in 1993 after he took bribes from arms manufacturers to set up defence contracts.[1] A 1995 MoD report "Ministry of Defence: Fraud in Defence Procurement" concludes that Gordon Foxley's case is one of the worst cases of corruption that has come before the PAC.[2]

Contents

[edit] Personal Life

Foxley was Born in Liverpool. He qualified as an electrical, mechanical and aeronautical engineer at colleges in Salford and Manchester before a career as an ordnance specialist. In 1953 he married Josephine, who would become a consultant haematologist at Reading hospital.

[edit] MoD fraud

[edit] Conviction

In 1993 Mr Foxley, former director of ammunition procurement, was sentenced to four years in prison last May for receiving bribes of £1.3m, with Police estimating he received at least £3.5m in total.[1] In 1995 Jack Straw said: "I have always maintained he was charged only in respect of a small number of the bribes he took."[1] Foxley served only two years of his four year sentence in Ford Open Prison. His sentence had included a further three years in jail if he failed to hand over £1.5m within 18 months, however this was never enforced, he never was sent back to prison.[1]

[edit] Bribes

Foxley received at least £1.3 million, with Police estimating he received at least £3.5m in total in corrupt payments and substantial bribes from overseas arms contractors aiming to influence the allocation of contracts for fuses and ammunition, which he funnelled to Swiss bank accounts through three "front" companies.[3] The exact amount received is not clear, but the National Audit Office report shows that his English bank account received credits to the tune of £3.5 million between 1982 and 1990, but most of it could not be accounted for after his son Paul burnt the records. Paul was jailed for six months for this.[1]

Some 12 contracts worth £33 million were cited in the criminal charges against Foxley, involving companies in Germany, Italy and Norway. There have been no charges, trials or convictions relating to that corruption in any of those countries.[4]

The MoD responded by banning officials from accepting trips to the opera, free tickets to Wimbledon and Ascot, and days' shooting.[5]

A 1994 estimate of the total cost of his corruption included almost £30m in losses to a Blackburn factory could have won the contract, including the loss of hundreds of jobs. Jack Dromey, then deputy general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, called him "an obscene product of his times".[3]

[edit] Recuperation

In 1993 he was ordered by the judge to pay £1.5m back to the MoD that had been used to buy his family eight properties, which excluded his home had been transferred into his wife's name before he was charged. He has got away without paying anything because the Crown Prosecution Service delayed enforcing it for 11 years. The judge ruled a fair trial of the issues was impossible after such a long delay.[1]

The trustee in bankruptcy had got £453,000 for the MoD from Foxley's wife for her husband's share of the house. The MoD also collected £85,000 from a flat in Switzerland, £35,000 from a joint bank account with his wife and £17,000 from the sale of a property in the name of one of Foxley's daughters and her husband.[1] In 1997 the MoD took civil action against the three foreign arms companies, which paid £3.39m in an out of court settlement.[1]

The judge said that from 1997, when the civil action against the foreign companies was settled, until 2005, "nothing whatsoever" had been done to try to make Foxley pay up.[1]

[edit] Major Andrew Foxley

MP Mike Hall stated in a parliamentary debate: “Foxley's son, Major Andrew Foxley--a serving Army officer--was found in possession of documents that he was passing on to his father. They contained information on commercial matters that would have been beneficial to Gordon Foxley's corrupt activities. Major Andrew Foxley was not dismissed from the service.”[4]

[edit] European Court of Human Rights victory

In June 21, 2000 Gordon Foxley, then 75, won a case against the Government at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. The Government was ordered to pay pounds 6,000 in costs and expenses to Mr Foxley for violating article eight of the Convention on Human Rights when 71 of Foxley's letters were opened and copied by a bankruptcy trustee, including letters from Mr Foxley's legal advisers. A county court had granted permission for all Foxley's post to be redirected to the bankruptcy trustee for three months, so his assets and creditors could be determined, however the government breached the 3 month period.[6]

[edit] Media

  • In 1995, Modern Times: Open Prison documented Foxley's genteel conditions in Ford Open Prison.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Corrupt MoD official can keep £1.5m", Guardian. Retrieved on 2008-01-19. 
  2. ^ "Dozens involved in MoD theft and fraud", The Independent. Retrieved on 2008-01-19. 
  3. ^ a b "Another slice of luck for brazen, corrupt civil servant", Guardian. Retrieved on 2008-01-19. 
  4. ^ a b "Mr. Mike Hall (Warrington, South)", Parliament of England. Retrieved on 2008-01-19. 
  5. ^ "Dozens involved in MoD theft and fraud", Independent, Apr 27, 1995. Retrieved on 2008-01-19. 
  6. ^ "MoD fraudster gets payout", Independent. Retrieved on 2008-01-19.