UNION leaders today welcomed plans to seize the house of crooked civil servant Gordon Foxley -- and said some of the money should be used to help workers affected by his crimes.

The corrupt civil servant was jailed in May, 1994, for taking bribes from foreign companies which then got contracts, which led to 300 people losing their jobs at Blackburn's Royal Ordnance Factory.

Senior defence officials described his actions as 'the largest individual case of fraud in government circles ever.'

The home in Henley-on-Thames comes complete with swimming pool and riverbank setting.

Now the leader of the Transport and General Workers' Union, Jack Dromey, plans to make sure the £1.5million the Government is chasing will, at least in part, be given to the workers who lost their jobs. A court case is expected to rule on the application later in the year.

When Foxley was jailed in 1994, he was ordered to pay £1.5million in compensation. He never has.

Mr Dromey said: "It is obscene that he can live a life of luxury on his ill-gotten gains while those Royal Ordnance workers who lost their jobs try and scrape by.

"I am planning to meet with defence ministers to find out how the compensation money will be used. Taxpayers should benefit but so too should the victims of Foxley's corruption, the honest men and women of Royal Ordnance who lost their jobs."

Foxley's job of awarding the military contracts had a salary of around £25,000 and he has since claimed he has no assets.

At the time of his jailing a ruling stated that his house would not be seized because Foxley had put it in his wife's name. But the trustee in bankruptcy -- who is appointed by the creditors -- is now asking the High Court to rule that at least part of the house is his so it can be sold off.