Millionaire three cough up after jury gives final answer in probe

AN ARMY major, his wife and a college lecturer were yesterday found guilty of cheating their way to the top prize on the British TV quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

Disgraced Charles Ingram, 39, tricked game show host Chris Tarrant into signing the million-pound cheque (€1.46m) after using an accomplice’s coded coughs to help select the answers.

His wife Diana and college lecturer Tecwen Whittock, 53, who did the coughing, were also convicted at London’s Southwark Crown Court after almost 14 hours of deliberations over three days.

Diana Ingram, also 39, was found guilty of helping to “set up” the scam. All three escaped jail but were handed hefty fines.

Major Ingram and his wife were sentenced to 18 months in prison, suspended for two years, and each fined €22,000 and ordered to pay €14,500 in costs.

Whittock was sentenced to 12 months in prison, also suspended for two years, and was fined €14,500 and ordered to pay €11,000 in costs.

The Ingrams, of High Street, Easterton, Wiltshire, and Whittock, who lives at Heol-y-Gors, Whitchurch, Cardiff, and is head of business studies at Pontypridd College, south Wales, were each found guilty of one count of “procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception” on September 10, 2001.

The verdicts came after Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC told the eight women and three men of the jury he would accept majority decisions.

Ingram, a father of three, scooped the top prize on the game show hosted by Mr Tarrant.

But just hours after walking away with the cheque, studio chiefs became suspicious of his success.

They thought a system of coughs, heard to come from the direction of Whittock, a contestant in the “fastest finger first” seats, was signalling the correct answers.

Nicholas Hilliard, prosecuting, told the jury that it was only by “cheating his way” through the 15 questions he was asked that Ingram was able to win the fortune.

“To state the obvious, you are not allowed to get the prize money... if you are using a scheme which no one knows about to get help from someone else in answering questions.

“You may think it inevitable, human nature being what it is, that where £1 million is regularly on offer, someone somewhere will have thought how it might be possible to improve their chances in getting their hands on the money by cheating.”

Police arrested the Ingrams and Whittock, in dawn raids on their homes a few months after the show.

They were charged with “procuring a valuable security by deception”.

Ingram frequently changed his mind as he decided which was the right answer on the show. On several occasions his answers changed after coughs were heard from Whittock.

Mr Hilliard said: “He got the cheque by pretending he had done it on his own by playing by the rules when the film shows he did nothing of the sort.”

When the jury revealed its verdict on Ingram, he made no response other than pursing his lips and slightly shaking his head.

But his wife reached down and took her husband’s hand.

Whittock also made no response when he too was found guilty but kept his hands clasped on the table in front of him. Later when the jury returned with its verdict on Mrs Ingram her appearance remained the same but Ingram once again slightly shook his head.