Quiz show accused had explanation
Professor Alan Morris said three conditions caused chronic coughs, and Tecwen Whittock had two of them the night it is alleged he helped Major Charles Ingram pocket the top prize on the TV quiz.
Prof Morris, whose evidence was briefly interrupted at one stage by a juror’s persistent coughing, said the college lecturer’s medical history, together with tests he had carried out, showed the father of four suffered from a year-round dust allergy as well as hayfever.
He also tested “very positive” for asthma.
“He had a very convincing story to me of someone who provides a cogent history of what an allergic type person complains of,” he told London’s Southwark Crown Court. “So it is entirely compatible with medical evidence that he would have a chronic cough.”
Whittock, 53, of Heol-y-Gors, Whitchurch, Cardiff, head of business studies at Pontypridd College, South Wales, is in the dock with Ingram and his nursery nurse wife Diana, both 39, of High Street, Easterton, Wiltshire.
Each deny “procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception” on September 10, 2001.
