Major attacks 'one-sided' documentary

Disgraced British army major Charles Ingram today accused Celador, the makers of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Of being “greedy”.

Speaking from his home in Wiltshire, Ingram said last night’s Tonight With Trevor McDonald documentary on how he cheated his way to the quiz show’s top prize was “an incredibly one-sided affair”.

He told BBC1’s Breakfast: “What the viewers saw last night was one of the greatest TV editing con tricks.”

The British army major said he and his wife Diana had asked to appear on the ITV1 documentary to make it “more even-handed” but had been denied their request.

Ingram, 39, also hit back at reports describing him as “nice but dim”, declaring: “I am not thick. I am a member of Mensa, for goodness sake.

“That was a very, very unfair comment and it is representative of what Celador has done. These people are the greedy people, not us.”

Asked how he could explain the well-timed coughs that guided him to the £1m (€1.43m) prize, Ingram insisted: “I did not notice or hear any coughing on the night.

“The clips that were played last night were wholly unrepresentative of the environment that I was sitting within.

“It is very, very unfair and it is worse, in fact, than what I had to sit through during the trial.”

Ingram said his conviction for cheating was “extremely humiliating” and had been “cataclysmic” for his family.