THE two British nurses pardoned for their roles in the murder of an Australian colleague faced mounting criticism yesterday for selling their stories.

They arrived home vowing to clear their names after their ''devastating'' Saudi Arabian jail ordeal.

Lucille McLauchlan, from Dundee, and Deborah Parry, whose sentences were commuted by King Fahd, were accused by the victim's brother of dealing in blood money by selling their stories to two tabloids.

Frank Gilford, whose sister Yvonne was murdered, said in Australia: ''The British media are paying them money for the story of her death, so I'd class that as blood money, if anything.''

Australian newspapers claimed the pardon came in exchange for Saudi Arabia playing England in tomorrow's friendly at Wembley. FA officials insist the match was arranged because the Arabs play the same style of football as the Tunisians facing England in the World Cup. However, a Sydney Daily Telegraph headline said: ''King Fahd's free kick - soccer deal revealed as nurses fly to freedom.''

Labour MP George Galloway has also denounced the cash agreements - both said to be worth more than #100,000 - as ''blood money'' and has complained to the Press Complaints Commission that the women are effectively profiting from their crimes.

Dundee Lord Provost Mervyn Rolfe said he was not sure if McLauchlan deserved any sympathy. ''I'm not convinced anyone has done anything to earn that kind of money. I think this kind of cheque book journalism is obscene.''

Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell said it would seem extremely strange to the Saudi Arabian government that the women were now profiting financially from their experiences. ''Exploitation like this will simply make it much less likely that similar clemency would be extended by the Saudis in the future,'' he said.

Lawyers for Parry, 39, and McLauchlan, 32, said the pair were ''delighted and relieved to be home'' after they flew into Gatwick. Scuffles broke out as minders from the Daily Express tried to bundle Parry into a waiting Range Rover. A moment of farce followed as the driver searched for the car keys, which had been taken from the ignition by rival journalists. Parry's mother covered her face with her hands as the vehicle later sped away. Representatives of the Mirror ushered McLauchlan into a waiting helicopter.

Peter Watson, legally representing McLauchlan, who faces another trial in Dundee next month on charges of stealing #1740 from a dying Aids patient, said: ''It has been an extremely difficult time. I was brought in at the outset to bring the girls home and now we are signing off, mission accomplished.''

McLauchlan's Dundee lawyer William Boyle defended her, saying she was using the newspapers to ''defend her innocence''.

Mr Boyle defended the deal he struck with the Mirror, saying she knew nothing about it when she arrived back in Britain. ''Her family have spent a fortune in flights and legal fees and both Lucille and her husband (Grant Ferrie, whom she married in jail last November) have lost a fortune in salaries.

''She's no different from people who have been wrongly imprisoned and who have published books about it. People should have more sympathy and understanding.

''Lucille is not like some terrible murderess who is profiting from her crimes. When the people read her diary and her story they will know why she is so vehement about her innocence.''

Parry's lawyer, Rodger Pannone, said his client was physically and emotionally exhausted and that her 17 months in jail had been devastating.

''She maintains her total and absolute innocence of the charge. She does have an abhorrence of the treatment she and Lucille McLauchlan received at the hands of the Saudi Arabian police and her inability to have a full and open trial.

''It is not an attack on Saudi Arabia nor Islam to say that there are police officers who have behaved abominably.''

The Saudi ambassador to Britain said the nurses had been treated fairly by the court. ''The trial was fair,'' he told British newspapers.

''There was a victim and the victim was murdered in a most brutal way.''

On Panorama on BBC1 last night, the nurses said they were beaten into falsely confessing to the murder and feared they would be raped.

McLauchlan said the head investigator, named as Major Hammed, kept ''pulling my hair and saying I will co-operate. He's such a smug, vicious bastard. He says it is only a matter of time before I write what they want me to write''.