Council officer cleared of bribery

A COUNCIL officer accused of taking bribes from his friend in exchange for a £500,000 contract to fit solar panels on a run-down council estate has been cleared by a jury.

Colin Monk, 64, of Upton Road, Poole, was said to have convinced bosses at Lambeth council to give Phillip Tadd, 54, the work to make a block of flats more 'energy efficient.'

The 'energy strategy officer' of the London Borough of Lambeth accepted payments of £4,404 from Tadd of Woolwich Road, Upper Abbey Road, Abbey Wood, as a reward for getting him the deal, it was claimed.

However, a jury at Southwark Crown Court acquitted both Monk and Tadd of four corruption charges. Monk insisted one payment was for 'consultancy advice' and another was for a Caribbean holiday.

The payments did not come to light until two years later, in 2004, but both men insisted they had done nothing wrong.

Monk told jurors: "I had been to the Caribbean on a few occasions and during a conversation with Mr Tadd it crept up that he was thinking of going there.

The former council's officer claimed he took a cheque from Tadd and was going to pass it over to his friend.

They were both cleared of four charges of corruption.