A building engineering services contractor whose life was destroyed by a bribery and corruption scandal has issued a blunt wake up call to other business leaders who he fears could fall into the same trap.
Speaking to Building Engineering Services Association CEO David Frise on the Behind the Built Environment podcast, Andrew Blunsdon admitted to being naïve and acting under client pressure when he provided “favours” that eventually led to him pleading guilty in court to two counts of bribery.
He was sentenced to 12 months in prison, suspended for two years, and ordered to do 150 hours of community service. Being forced to pay for his own legal defence has left him financially ruined but he said the wider emotional impact on him and his family was even worse.
The managing director of the now defunct firm Priddy Engineering found himself caught up in a major fraud investigation into how contracts were awarded on E.ON energy projects between 2011 and 2015. He was accused of doing favours for key figures at the energy giant to win work including providing a free-of-charge air conditioning unit, and making payments to a sub-contractor that were redirected to a business connected to one of E.ON’s senior directors.
Good faith
In his defence, Blunsdon said he was unaware of any criminal conduct at the time and carried out these favours in good faith. Looking back, he admitted to Frise that he was naïve and failed to carry out in-depth background checks that could have saved him years of distress and financial ruin.
“While he made serious errors of judgement, Andrew never set out to commit a crime,” Frise told his podcast audience. If you've ever thought, just help a client out and ask questions later. This is the story you need to hear.”
Eventually charged under the Bribery Act, Blunsdon pleaded guilty, but by then his business had collapsed and his pension savings had been used up to pay his legal costs.
He admitted to being caught up in the excitement of his two-year-old firm becoming a supply chain partner for such a major client. This meant he was eager to please influential figures at E.ON.
“The opportunity to become a supply chain partner to an energy giant was just amazing,” he told the podcast. “It was incredible the due diligence we had to go through…and that just added to that excitement really to be part of that journey to work on the statutory side of a building as opposed to the muck and bullets of contracting.
“So, we threw everything at it. And the people that you are dealing with…you just don't expect them to have a sinister motive. My failing as a person is I am always too trusting. I wish I was tougher. I think my business would have been saved if I was a tougher individual,” said Blunsdon.
He urged contractors to learn from his mistakes and ensure they have bribery and corruption policies in place. “The key thing is to take your quality systems seriously,” he told Frise. “They are documents that are really, really important and you never know how important until something happens to you.
“Health and safety is quite easy to understand…but anti-corruption and bribery was really new at the time…but you still should know the difference between right and wrong. And you should have a culture within a business that you know is able to differentiate those things.”
Blunsdon said he still believed he was a good person who “did something bad” and he took full responsibility for it. “I accepted what happened to me pretty quickly once the law was explained to me. I should have done better, should have been stronger as a person” and he urged other business leaders put in a similar position to “just say no”.
“This doesn't smell right. Sound right, can’t be right….get them to explain more. Be stronger, be tougher and not be worried about losing the work as a consequence. Stick to your own values…be an honest trader.”
Andrew’s wife Tina also appeared on the podcast to explain the huge impact on the couple’s family, friends and the wider community as well as her own working life.
Destroyed
“When that [legal] letter came, it just destroyed our lives,” she said. “Even I had to get my own barrister team to defend myself against Andrew because of the property and my pension, which cost an awful lot of money.”
She said telling their parents was extremely difficult and their children were also deeply affected. “It was awful. Our children had to help, and they made choices in case Andrew went to prison because we were told to prepare for the worst.
“So, for me to come here today has been massive, but I think it's a story that men need to hear about what they can do to their partners and their families, because [those] decisions to be helpful have cost us dearly.”
Frise urged all contractors to heed Andrew’s warning: “We talk a lot in this industry about risk, technical risk, commercial risk, reputational risk, but the human risk of just going along with what a client asks without checking, without challenging, without protecting yourself is enormous.”
He added that, while this was an instance where a contractor fell foul of the Bribery Act, this could have been any breach of the law including anti-money laundering or the Building Safety Act.
“Andrew’s case shows how quickly trust can be exploited, how slowly justice can move and how devastating the fallout can be, not just for individuals, but for their families and businesses. So, if you are listening and thinking, this could never happen to me, stop and think again.”
BESA members have access to a team of expert lawyers able to advise on all aspects of contractual law including bribery and corruption. If you need advice or support email the team: legal@thebesa.com
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