TOP executives have been criticised for rocketing pay rises over the past year.

Research published yesterday showed 470 directors are paid at least £500,000 a year, including 138 on £1m or more and ten cashing pay cheques greater than £5m.

The directors of three companies with business interests in the North-East are on the 'fat cats' rich list.

Martin Broughton of British American Tobacco, which has factories in Darlington and Peterlee, netted £1,355,701, an increase of 33.3 per cent on his last pay packet.

Glaxo Wellcome, which operates a site in Barnard Castle, pays one of its directors, Sir Richard Sykes, £1,182,300.

And Moorfield Group, which has expressed an interest in Teeside Airport development, bumped Graham Stanley's pay up by 339.7 per cent to £1,074,913.

On the whole, executives' pay jumped by 21 per cent in the past year, four times as much as other workers have received.

Much of the increase was performance related bonuses.

Rodney Bickerstaffe, general secretary of the UK's largest union Unison, condemned the pay rises as "obscene".

He said: "Some of these wages look more like the winnings from a rollover National Lottery. One hundred and thirty eight directors on £1m or more - it's obscene. A hospital porter or a street cleaner would have to work 120 years to earn that.

"The worst thing is that most of these fat cats would be the very ones who would argue against increasing the national minimum wage from its current £3.60 an hour, or £3 if you are under 22, to £5 an hour.

"These fat cats pocket more than £4 a minute.