John Poulson
John Garlick Llewellyn Poulson (14 April 1910 – 31 January 1993)[1] was a British architectural designer and businessman who caused a major political scandal when his use of bribery was disclosed in 1972.
He later admitted that the practice expanded "beyond my wildest dreams" and offices were opened in London, Middlesbrough, Newcastle upon Tyne, Edinburgh, Beirut, and Lagos, Nigeria.
[7] In 1958, the National Liberal MP Sir Herbert Butcher advised his friend Poulson to set up a servicing company to win business for his architect's practice.
[10] Poulson also found a useful contact in Andrew Cunningham, a senior figure in both the General and Municipal Workers Union and the Labour Party in North East England.
[13] Poulson was in a good position to gain commissions from the nationalised industries, partly due to his having offered gifts to many civil servants when they were relatively junior and calling upon them for a return of gratitude years later.
After the nationalisation of British Rail, Tunbridge became estates surveyor for its Eastern Region and sent Poulson several contracts for modernisation of stationmasters' homes.
[14] Another beneficial contact was Scottish Office civil servant George Pottinger, who in the late 1950s was put in charge of a £3 million redevelopment of Aviemore as a winter sports complex.
The Conservative MP John Cordle had extensive contacts in West Africa and after helping on several small contracts, in 1965 became a consultant to Poulson.
Maudling was anxious to build up a business career to keep up his income and Poulson needed a big name as chairman of one of his companies, Construction Promotion.
In return, Maudling helped to bring pressure on the government of Malta to award a £1.5 million contract for the new Victoria Hospital on Gozo to Poulson.
[17][18] Poulson's business model was initially highly successful and, at its apogee, had an annual turnover of £1 million;[15] he himself admitted to being a millionaire.
[3] The bankruptcy hearing also revealed Poulson's love for a lavish lifestyle and his penchant for rubbing shoulders with senior figures in the establishment.
[3] It swiftly became apparent that Poulson was at the centre of a massive corruption scandal, and in July 1972, the Metropolitan Police began an investigation for fraud.
Defending Poulson, Donald Herrod QC , said: "He has nothing to live for and his abiding fear is that he will never complete his sentence because of ill health".
[3] Many of his contacts, in particular T. Dan Smith[15] and George Pottinger, were similarly convicted and gaoled, though not the three MPs: it was found that there was a legal loophole through which members of parliament could not be considered as in charge of public funds.
A subsequent Select Committee inquiry which reported in 1977 found that all three had indulged in "conduct inconsistent with the standards which the House is entitled to expect from its Members".
A condition of the discharge was that half the proceeds of his autobiography would go to his creditors; the resulting book, The Price, gives his side of the corruption scandal and maintains his innocence.
A special edition of the investigative ITV series World in Action, The Friends and Influence of John L Poulson, became a cause célèbre in the debate about the power of Britain's television regulators to interfere with broadcast journalism.
Eventually, after the film was shown to the ITA, it was transmitted on 30 April 1973, three months late, and under a different title, The Rise and Fall of John Poulson.
[27] The 1996 BBC television drama serial Our Friends in the North, written by Peter Flannery, contains a character, John Edwards (played by Geoffrey Hutchings), who is closely based on Poulson.
One of the reasons the production took so long to reach the screen—Flannery had originally written it for the stage in 1982—was the fear of the BBC that Poulson and others fictionalised in the drama might take legal action.
