Gordon Foxley
Encyclopedia
Gordon Foxley was head of defence procurement at the Ministry of Defence
Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)
The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....

 from 1981 to 1984. He was convicted on 12 counts of corruption in 1993 after he took bribes from arms manufacturers
Arms industry
The arms industry is a global industry and business which manufactures and sells weapons and military technology and equipment. It comprises government and commercial industry involved in research, development, production, and service of military material, equipment and facilities...

 to set up defence contracts. A 1995 MoD
Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)
The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....

 report "Ministry of Defence: Fraud in Defence Procurement" concludes that Gordun Foxley's case is one of the worst cases of corruption
Political corruption
Political corruption is the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. Misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is not considered political corruption. Neither are illegal acts by...

 that has come before the PAC.

Conviction

Gordon Richmond Foxley had been Director of Ammunition Procurement in the Ministry of Defence for 20 years when he was wrapped up in a corruption case led by the Ministry of Defence Police Fraud Squad. In 1996, Mr Foxley, was sentenced to four years in prison for receiving bribes of £1.3m with Police estimating he received at least £3.5m in total. However, police have always stated that their beliefs were only based on circumstantial evidence based upon the size and location of Foxley's house and the number of cars in the driveway. In 1995 Jack Straw
Jack Straw
Jack Straw , British politician.Jack Straw may also refer to:* Jack Straw , English* "Jack Straw" , 1971 song by the Grateful Dead* Jack Straw by W...

 said: "I have always maintained he was charged only in respect of a small number of the bribes he took. " 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, and Foxley was never sent back to prison. In 1996, the MOD secretly received £4.6M in monies recovered as punitive payments (in place of industrial blacklisting) from the overseas companies cited as paying Foxley, none of which were declared publicly. These payments only came to light when the MOD was forced to disclose them under a successful "Strike Out" action brought in the High Court in 2008.

Bribes

Foxley was charged with receiving 1.6 million pounds, with Police further 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
Ammunition
Ammunition is a generic term derived from the French language la munition which embraced all material used for war , but which in time came to refer specifically to gunpowder and artillery. The collective term for all types of ammunition is munitions...

, which he funnelled to Swiss bank accounts
Banking in Switzerland
All banks in Switzerland are regulated by Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority , which derives its authority from a series of federal statutes...

 through three "front" companies. The exact amount received is not clear, but the National Audit Office
National Audit Office (United Kingdom)
The National Audit Office is an independent Parliamentary body in the United Kingdom which is responsible for auditing central government departments, government agencies and non-departmental public bodies...

 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.

The Chief of Defence Procurement, Dr M McIntosh,admitted to the Committee of Public Accounts, referenced in the proceedings of the Committee of Public Accounts, Forty Sixth Report, dated 1 November 1995, that the MOD had not sustained any loss through the actions of Gordon Foxley, but rather that “ the Department had in their view done well”. The Chief of Defence Procurement (CDP), Ministry of Defence, admitted to the Committee of Public Accounts, referenced in the proceedings of the Committee of Public Accounts, Forty Sixth Report, dated 1 November 1995, that “the Department have taken action against the three companies to recover the corrupt payments”. This resulted in the payments of 4.6M which exceeded the grossest estimation of corrupt payments made to Foxley. Thus, the Ministry of Defence can resonably be stated to have made a handsome profit out of the sorry proceedings.

Some 12 contracts worth £33 million were cited in the criminal charges against Foxley, involving companies in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 and Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 - Fratelli Borletti in Italy, Gebruder Junghans in Germany, and Raufoss
Raufoss
Raufoss is the municipal centre of Vestre Toten, a municipality in the county of Oppland, Norway, 10 kilomenters south of the larger town Gjøvik. It has approximately 6,000 inhabitants. The largest employer is what was earlier Raufoss Ammunitions factory, now split into several sub companies...

 of Norway. There have been no charges, trials or convictions relating to that corruption in any of those countries.

The MoD
Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)
The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....

 responded by banning officials from accepting trips to the opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

, free tickets to Wimbledon and Ascot
Ascot Racecourse
Ascot Racecourse is a famous English racecourse, located in the small town of Ascot, Berkshire, used for thoroughbred horse racing. It is one of the leading racecourses in the United Kingdom, hosting 9 of the UK's 32 annual Group 1 races...

, and days' shooting.

A 1994 estimate of the total cost of his corruption included almost £30m in losses to a Blackburn factory
Factory
A factory or manufacturing plant is an industrial building where laborers manufacture goods or supervise machines processing one product into another. Most modern factories have large warehouses or warehouse-like facilities that contain heavy equipment used for assembly line production...

 that could have won the contract, including the loss of hundreds of jobs. Jack Dromey
Jack Dromey
Jack Dromey MP is a British Labour Party politician and trade unionist, who has been the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Erdington since 2010...

, then deputy general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, called him "an obscene product of his times"..

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 which had been transferred into his wife's name before he was charged. The CPS Crown Prosecution Service
Crown Prosecution Service
The Crown Prosecution Service, or CPS, is a non-ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for public prosecutions of people charged with criminal offences in England and Wales. Its role is similar to that of the longer-established Crown Office in Scotland, and the...

 delayed enforcing it for 11 years through utter incompetence and a lack of commitment, derived from the satisfaction of the Treasury at the receipt of £4.6M which far exceeded th original estimates claimed. The judge ruled a fair trial of the issues was impossible after such a long delay. and stated that "His Honour Justice McCombe, and the MOD, believe that the claim was fulfilled with the payments by the arms companies in 1996 and 1997".

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. In 1997 the MoD took civil action against the three foreign arms companies, which paid £3.39m in an out of court settlement. The Trustee in bankruptcy seized all banks accounts at the time of Foxley's arrest and has subsequently admitted that the seizure of Joint Bank Accounts in the name and use of Foxley and his wife was a illegal and unjustifiable act for which a payment in recompense has been made.

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. His Honour Justice McCombe was also most dismissive of the actons of the MOD and CPS in following up the case over he intervening years: “I also take with a pinch of salt protestations of “public interest” in a case when those charged with guarding that interest have shown as little enthusiasm in their duties in that regard as the CPS and MOD have done in this case. I think that it is clear that in reality the Crown (as custodians of the public interest) lost interest in these cases after the settlement with the arms companies and the other recoveries that I have mentioned. Interest only revived when the “task force” referred to by Mr Grist, resolved that something should be done to resuscitate the dead, amongst cases of this type generally.”All further actions against Mr Foxley which were requested by MOD and CPS,some 20 years following Foxley's initial arrest, were ordered to be struck off forthwith.

Captain Andrew Foxley

MP Mike Hall
Mike Hall (politician)
Michael Thomas Hall is a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament for Weaver Vale from 1997 to 2010.-Early life:...

 stated in a parliamentary debate: “Foxley's son, Captain 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. Captain Foxley was not dismissed from the service.”
In fact MP Mike Hall
Mike Hall (politician)
Michael Thomas Hall is a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament for Weaver Vale from 1997 to 2010.-Early life:...

 was erroneous in his statement and it transpired that Captain Foxley had passed a humorous note to his father which was found during the search of Foxley's home office, but because it was written on an MOD memorandum sheet, and because Captain Foxley had been Aide de Camp (ADC) to the Master General of the Ordnance, it was assumed that he had been passing inside commercial information to his father. Note: An ADC is an administrative appointment filled by a junior officer to relieve a senior officer of the burden of arranging social / adminsitrative arrangements. A Military Assistant (MA) assists with operational matters. An Army Board of Inquiry cleared Captain Foxley of these accusations and he subsequently went on to serve with distinction on active service, sustaining wounds on operations in Northern Ireland.

European Court of Human Rights victory

On June 21, 2000, Gordon Foxley, then 75, won a case against the Government at the European Court of Human Rights
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...

 in Strasbourg. The Government was ordered to pay £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. Foxley's mail and other communications were 'intercepted' during the investigation - although details were not made public and a copy of the Home Office order authorising such actions has never been admitted or made public. However, an investigation into the actions of the MODPLOD and supporting Government agencies in intercepting his communications and those of the other members of his family was conducted by the Police Complaints Authority in 1989 and declared to be of 'operational interest' and thus not for public exposure at the time. 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.

Media

  • In 1995, Modern Times: Open Prison documented Foxley's genteel conditions in Ford Open Prison
    Ford (HM Prison)
    HM Prison Ford is a Category D men's prison, located at Ford, in West Sussex, England, near Arundel and Littlehampton. The prison is operated by Her Majesty's Prison Service.-History:...

    .
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