JAILED civil servant Gordon Foxley robbed hundreds of East Lancashire defence workers of their jobs when he took huge bribes from foreign firms in exchange for UK ammunition orders.

Now one of those firms is back on the approved list, having paid "substantial" compensation money to the government.

Similar deals are in the offing with two other European arms companies who gave Foxley enormous bungs.

But right as it is that these firms should be made to pay for their corruption, it is not the government which deserves compensating, but the workers at Blackburn's Royal Ordnance factory who lost their jobs because of the Foxley fiddles.

If justice is to be done, this long-time-coming conscience money should go not into the Treasury, but into schemes to create new jobs in East Lancashire.

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