A 'greedy' airport official who made a million by allowing hundreds of illegal immigrants into the country was hit with a massive confiscation order yesterday.

Judge Timothy Pontius gave corrupt civil servant Guy Emmett a year to pay back £1 million - or go to jail for another six years.

In July this year the judge sentenced Emmett to eight years imprisonment after he was convicted of taking the bungs during his time at Gatwick Airport.

As a trusted Immigration Service employee Emmett, 35, was supposed to detect illegals and stop them entering the country. But Emmett rubber stamped passports for up to 600 grateful 'clients' allowing them to stay in the country for good.

Emmett ran the scam - one of the biggest of its kind - with his lawyer sidekick Christian Jideofo, 40, for nearly five years. Bespectacled father-of-two Jideofo was sentenced to six-and-a-half years imprisonment in July this year.

Yesterday, Judge Pontius made a confiscation order to the sum of £1,060,438 and said the cash must be paid back by the end of 2001. In default of the order he will spend a further six years behind bars on top of the eight year sentence.

Bitter Emmett was said to have plotted revenge on his employers after he was given a series of poor reports at Gatwick Airport and passed by for promotion.

Giving evidence he said he found it 'incredible' he had not been given a better job. By his own admission Emmett, an executive officer, lived a lavish lifestyle far beyond his £25,000 salary.

Emmett owned a fleet of cars including a £50,000 Porsche Carrera, a TVR, a BMW and a Lotus Elise, which he enjoyed racing at Brands Hatch.

The fraud started in 1992 after Emmett was posted to Gatwick's South Terminal and continued until the summer of 1996.

An Internal Immigration Service investigation was not sparked until February 1995 when a solicitor contacted a chief immigration officer to say that he had a client with a stamp in his passport that he was not entitled to.

Emmett was originally arrested in June 1996 but he was not actually charged until October last year due to the painstaking nature of the enquiry.