Officials bribed for contracts

Two corrupt council officials and two businessmen who supplied them with cash and hospitality were sent to jail yesterday and warned they faced “significant” sentences.

Former local authority employees Charles Owenson, 62, and James Costello, 44, were treated to dances and drinks in lap dancing bars as valuable Edinburgh City Council contracts were secured through bribery.

Ex-directors of Action Building Contracts Ltd (ABC Ltd) Kevin Balmer, 52, and Brendan Cantwell, 44, both of Livingston, provided the rewards over the allocation of work for public buildings including schools, care homes and cemeteries.

After their earlier guilty pleas, a sheriff told them that he would continue their case until tomorrow for sentencing at Edinburgh Sheriff Court, to consider the information he had been given.

But Sheriff Michael O’Grady QC told the four men: “Having regard to the gravity of the offences, it is clear to me the sentences will require to be custodial and require to be significant.”

The contractors submitted inflated invoices to the council for work carried out to cover the costs of the bribes they were paying. Invoices were found that were falsely inflated to the value of more than £67,000.

Owenson and Costello, both of Edinburgh, allocated work orders to the firm valued at a total of almost £1.5 million.