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"We were duped by it."Mr Loughlin said that the couple took some consolation in the fact that they now know what happened to the children and were relieved that Jodi and Tom's last few minutes of life had been spent joyously on Holme beach. I think that probably is what happened."Ms Thornton said she had no idea how dangerous the calm sea was "It was just so deceptive," she said. We lost them both."The only analogy we can compare it to is this. It is like the opposite end of winning the lottery."Mr Loughlin said he and his partner had remained optimistic that the children were alive until Jodi's body was found last Friday and that they found it hard to believe that the children could have drowned."People will say we were probably optimistic but we honestly did feel that the only way they could have drowned was for them to run straight into the water and for something to happen straight away. Talking to journalists for the first time since they were informed that the children had drowned, Kevin Loughlin and Lynette Thornton, both 37, of Norwood, south London, said losing the children to the sea had been "a chance in a million" and described the feeling as the "opposite end of winning the lottery". Jodi, six, and her four-year-old brother Tom, were last seen running excitedly towards the sea on Holme beach near Hunstanton, Norfolk, on Sunday 18 August. In the past few days both bodies were found washed up about 30 miles eastwards along the Norfolk coast.Mr Loughlin said that a million "if onlys" had gone through the couple's minds over the past two weeks: "If only we had gone straight to the water with them, if only we had not gone to the beach ..." he said."With the best will in the world, I don't think there is a parent in the whole country who can honestly say that they kept their eye on their children at every moment We paid the highest price. At the same time, Amec is making inroads into other areas of government business, recently winning the pounds 150m contract to build offices for 13,000 civil servants in Newcastle.In choosing Annington, though, Mr Portillo did at least avoid another backlash.

If he had chosen another short-listed bidder - a consortium involving John Beckwith, a Tory party fundraiser - the political row would have been enormous.. The distraught parents of Tom and Jodi Loughlin spoke last night about the pain of coming to terms with the death of their two children. That was before the huge gain from the resale of the former PSA arm, Building and Property Management Services. This decision is just another nail in the coffin of conscience."In response to the criticism, Nomura had already taken a lower profile and Sir Tommy stressed that Annington was a British company with predominantly British shareholders.Last year, Amec, chaired by Sir Alan Cockshaw, made profits of pounds 16m - with Sir Alan's pay package soaring from pounds 235,755 to pounds 396,673. The Ministry of Defence will lease back the bulk of the properties from Annington under a 200-year deal. Some pounds 100m will be released from the sale to upgrade those homes, while 2,700 of the empty quarters will be sold off immediately. More properties will be sold over a 25-year period.Most immediate anger was directed at the involvement of Nomura.

Arthur Titherington, secretary of the Japanese Labour Camp Survivors Association, said: "I am almost speechless. Sir Tommy Macpherson, the consortium chairman, said it would be seeking a stock market listing in "five to seven years".He refused to be drawn on the expected size of the profit from the share sale, but, if past experience is anything to go by, it will be considerable and will provoke a political outcry.The Independent yesterday revealed that Amec has made more than pounds 30m from the resale of part of the Government's Property Services Agency.Annington executives will now sit down with defence ministry officials to thrash out the final details on the housing sell-off. The Japanese are succeeding to do with money what they failed to do with arms. It seems to me at times that certain senior members of the Government have no feelings about the past. It is expected to see Annington agree to pay pounds 1.6bn for 57,700 homes. The winning consortium, Annington Homes, includes Nomura, the Japanese bank, Amec, the construction group which has made rich pickings from previous privatisations, and Royal Bank of Scotland and Hambros, two banks with close links with the Conservative Party. Annington made no secret of its intention to profit from the deal.

"The company that is being sold now is a very different company from that sold three years ago," he said. "It has new clients and the whole company has been restructured and streamlined.". Michael Portillo, Secretary of State for Defence, yesterday sparked a welter of allegations about lack of patriotism, sleaze and "Tory fat cats lining their pockets" when the MoD announced the preferred bidder for its pounds 1.6bn married-quarters houses. Dr Frischmann's group has so far paid only pounds 500,000, with the remainder of the purchase price payable by the company's new owners, CVC Capital Partners.The original sale agreement required the Government's approval if the company was re-sold within five years.

A spokesman for the Department of the Environment said: "We are content that the sale will not affect the services the company provides, and that the guarantees given to the Government will be upheld."The company, now called Building and Property Management Services, manages buildings and building projects, mainly for the Ministry of Defence, including its main building in Whitehall.The government spokesman rejected the charge that an excessive profit had been made. The deal, revealed by The Independent yesterday, earned pounds 18m personally for Dr Wilem Frischmann, who led the consortium which bought the company, part of the Property Services Agency, which used to run Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament and government buildings in Whitehall. As Labour denounced the deal as a "scandal" which proved the company had been seriously undervalued, it emerged yesterday that the re-sale had been approved by John Gummer, Secretary of State for the Environment.The company was sold by the Government for pounds 11.4m in 1993, and sold again 10 days ago for pounds 84.6m. Gordon Brown, the shadow Chancellor, has asked the Commons' Public Accounts Committee to investigate the privatisation of a property company which netted more than pounds 70m profit for the consortium which bought it three years ago. Republican and security sources both say that over the years he was involved in innumerable shootings and bombings, including a number of killings.As a prominent member of one INLA faction, he was regarded as a marked man in an organisation which has lost many leading members in a number of vicious feuds.He was charged with murder in a number of "supergrass" cases in the 1980s, but was acquitted when these collapsed.