A corrupt civil servant behind one of the biggest frauds in Whitehall history has managed to avoid paying anything towards a £1.5m confiscation order because the Crown Prosecution Service delayed enforcing it for 11 years, the Guardian has learned.
Gordon Foxley, who was head of defence procurement at the Ministry of Defence from 1981 to 1984, was given a four-year jail sentence in 1994 for taking bribes from foreign arms manufacturers. The trial judge ordered him to hand back £1.5m that had been used to buy his family eight properties. But the high court has now struck out a legal attempt by the CPS to enforce the order because the judge ruled a fair trial of the issues was impossible after such a long delay.
So someone actually convicted of a crime does not pay the money back, while those who have never been convicted of a crime can be forced to pay under new laws.
How excellent a system they\’ve built for us.