John Edwards was a British construction developer from Newcastle upon Tyne. He was arrested in 1974 after he was discovered to have bribed Newcastle City Council leader Austin Donohue to grant him building contracts.
Biography[]
John Edwards was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, England, and he became the owner of Edwards Housing, a renowned construction development company. During the early 1960s, he built skyscrapers in Bordeaux, Stockholm, Holland, Spain, Piraeus, and elsewhere, building a highrise empire. In 1964, he approached Newcastle City Council leader Austin Donohue and offered him a sizeable bribe to have him approve the construction of several low-quality highrise council estates; he bribed the housing committee chair Hugh Connors, who had previously opposed prefabs and skyscrapers, to support the bill. Edwards offered potential partners free vacations to visit his apartment sites across the world, earning him several political allies. As Donohue came under scrutiny, Edwards decided to pursue a new partnership with Conservative Party MP Claude Seabrook, but he and Donohue were arrested on corruption charges in 1974.