DAVID Mabey, former sales director of Lydney bridge builders Mabey & Johnson Ltd, has been jailed for eight months for sanctioning a £350,000 'kickback' to Saddam Hussein's regime.

The 'shady deal' allowed his company to bypass the UN 'Oil for Food' programme, designed to stop the dictator re-arming.

Former Mabey & Johnson managing director Richard Charles Forsyth, 62, was jailed for 21 months.

Richard Gledhill, 64, the company's Middle East repres-in 2001, who helped secure the conviction of his former employers, was sentenced to eight months' jail suspended for two years.

The trio were the first to be convicted of breaching UN sanctions following a Serious Fraud Office prosecution.

The Mabey Group was almost entirely owned and controlled by the Mabey family which has made an estimated £200 million fortune from selling steel bridges around the globe.

David Mabey took on more responsibility for the running of the business on the retirement of his father, instituting wide-ranging changes in its structure in 2002.

His barrister Nicholas Purnell, QC, said: "He was someone who had in a sense his career set out for him, not only by his father's ambition for him, but by the fact that he was the only male member of a large number of siblings."

None of the Mabey sisters wanted to play an active role in the running of the business and David Mabey saw himself as 'very much a guardian of his sisters' interests', the court heard.

In 2008, following the investigation of the company in relation to the kickback allegations, Mabey went on gardening leave, and was subsequently suspended before resigning his post.

"It's had a devastating effect on him and his family," Mr Purnell said.

John Kelsey-Fry, QC, for Forsyth, said he had worked for Mabey and Johnson since 1972, initially as an engineer, and became managing director in 1989. Mr Kelsey-Fry said his earnings for his work for the firm were 'relatively modest.'

Passing sentence, Recorder Geoffrey Rivlin QC said: "It hardly needs saying that for whatever motive, unlawfully helping to fund the Republic of Iraq during the Saddam Hussain years must be regarded as a serious matter."