A UNION chief today launched a scathing attack on the judicial system following the early release of crooked civil servant Gordon Foxley.

The 71-year-old fraudster, who pocketed £3.5 million in backhanders from foreign companies, costing Blackburn's Royal Ordnance Factory hundreds of jobs, is now back living in the lap of luxury.

He has been freed from Ford Open Prison - where he was chairman of the jail's Debating Society - halfway through a four-year sentence.

But his release has angered workers at Royal Ordnance and Blackburn MP Jack Straw who has been campaigning for the missing money, most of which is thought to be stored in Swiss bank accounts, to be traced.

A spokesman for the AEEU (Amalgamated Electrical Engineering Union) at ROF said today: "It is a national scandal he has been freed.

"You have got to stand back in amazement at how legal decisions are made.

"In the old days he would have been stood against a wall and shot. He has sold the country down the drain. What he did was utterly wrong and he has got to keep his ill-gotten gains.

"Workers were thrown onto the scrapheap and this man is now sitting in his mansion after serving a sentence at a place which sounds more like a gentlemen's club."

Mr Straw said it should have been made clear to the public what Foxley's earliest release date would be.

He said: "We have been pressing the authorities in Switzerland for access to the funds, but the Swiss banking laws tend to be a great advantage to crooks."

The former director of munitions procurement at the Ministry of Defence was given a four-year sentence in May 1994, but is now living at his £750,000 mansion on the outskirts of Henley-on-Thames.

More than £3.5 million passed through bank accounts used to launder huge bribes from three overseas firms given in return for defence Contracts.

Foxley's greed cost Royal Ordnance hundreds of jobs after it missed out on the work.

He was also ordered to serve a further three years if he did not surrender assets worth £1.5 million for confiscation.

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