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Charles Ingram is a former British Army Major who made headlines in the United Kingdom when he was accused of cheating on the television show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. Despite being convicted of deception, Ingram maintains that he did not cheat.

Education and Army career

Ingram is a BSc Civil Engineering graduate from Kingston Polytechnic, a MSc Corporate Management graduate from Cranfield University, Chartered Member of the Institute of Personnel and Development, Member of The Society of Authors, and member of Mensa. In 1986 he trained for the Army at Sandhurst and was commissioned as an officer in the Royal Engineers. Ingram was promoted to the rank of Major in 1995, and in 2000 he served in Bosnia for six months on NATO peacekeeping duties.

The Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? affair

The ITV1 programme is produced by Celador at Elstree Studios, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire. The show, hosted by Chris Tarrant, was recorded on 9 & 10 September, 2001. Ingram won the £1,000,000 prize but the payout was suspended when he was accused of cheating by having an accomplice cough when he read out the correct answers. Following a trial at Southwark Crown Court lasting five weeks, and jury deliberation for three-and-a-half days which ended soon after a jury member was evicted for discussing the case in public, Charles Ingram, his wife Diana Ingram and Tecwen Whittock were convicted by a majority verdict of "procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception" on 7 April 2003.

On the day of the verdict, after the prosecution had argued that the motive was that they were in debt, the Ingrams were each given 18-month prison sentences suspended for two years, each fined £15,000, and each ordered to pay £10,000 towards prosecution costs. Within two months of the verdict and sentence, the trial judge ordered the Ingrams to pay additional defence costs orders, Charles £40,000 and Diana £25,000.

The Army Board invited Major Ingram to resign his commission. He retired on 19 August 2003 with his state-earned pension of seventeen years.

On 19 May 2004 the Court of Appeal denied Ingram leave to appeal his conviction and upheld his sentence. The same court quashed his wife's fine and prosecution costs. On 5 October 2004 the House of Lords denied Ingram his leave to appeal his fine and prosecution costs, and he appealed to the European Court of Human Rights. On 20 October 2004 the original trial judge reduced Ingram's defence costs order to £20,000 and Diana Ingram's defence costs order to £5,000. On 21 May 2005 Ingram appealed his conviction to the Criminal Cases Review Commission. The Criminal Cases Review Commission is due to complete its review in August 2006.

Charles Ingram declared bankruptcy on 25 November 2004 and Diana Ingram declared bankruptcy on 11 November 2005. Charles Ingram is now a novelist and his first novel, The Network, was published on 27 April 2006.

An essay * written by James Plaskett in favour of the innocence of Charles Ingram, his wife, and Whittock led to the journalist Bob Woffinden, who had a long time interest in miscarriages of justice, publishing a two-page article in the 9 October, 2004 edition of the British newspaper the Daily Mail, entitled "Is The Coughing Major Innocent?"

The Evidence

The Tapes

A description of the video tape played in court is at In court, Ingram claimed the video tape was "unrepresentative of what I heard," indeed he continues to assert that it was "unfairly manipulated." He claims that he neither listened for, encouraged, nor noticed any coughing. The prosecution alleged that of the 192 coughs recorded during his second-night performance, 32 were recorded from the ten Fastest Finger First contestants, and that 19 of the 32 coughs clearly heard on the video tape, recorded louder than both Ingram's and Tarrant's voices, were "significant." Tarrant also denied hearing any coughing, claiming he was too busy to notice.[http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=788&id=302972003

Graham (aka Larry) Whitehurst

Whitehurst, another contestant who has appeared on the show as a FFF contestant on four occasions, contacted Celador a week after the show, to share with them his concerns about Ingram's peculiar performance. Celador told him they were already investigating concerns about cheating, and that they were considering the possibility of coughing as a source of assistance. Whitehurst told Celador he saw Whittock coughing. Celador's MD, Paul Smith, advised Whitehurst to contact the police if he had concerns. Instead, Whitehurst contacted The Sun newspaper. Three days later, after The Sun had printed the exclusive about the allegation, Whitehurst, who had by now approached the police as "Horace" via email, spoke to them for the first time. Graham Larry Whitehurst told police during interview that he saw another contestant, Whittock, cough once during the last question and that he thought it might have helped Ingram. He also said that what he saw could have been a 'complete coincidence'.

Over the next eighteen months, it transpired that Whitehurst had met face-to-face with Celador on at least four separate occasions between September 2001 and the trial in March 2003, including on one occasion with their solicitors. In court, Whitehurst was adamant that he had known the answers to Ingram's questions, and that he had been able to anticipate coughing from an early stage on the night, and that he was entirely convinced coughing had helped Ingram. It seems strange that Whitehurst did not immediately mention the cheating that evening in the studio, bar, or elsewhere, for he described himself in court as "extremely angry". It also seems strange that, when "watching Mr Whittock intently from early on", as he described his focus during the recording on Whittock in court, he did not notice Whittock cough more than once during the £1M question when five of nineteen "significant coughs" were alleged by the prosecutor to have been made by Whittock.

Tecwen Whittock

Whittock has suffered from a persistent cough for his entire life *. This could either explain his coughs during the show, or be a cover for cough signals.

Whittock had insisted he had had a genuine cough caused by a combination of hay fever and a dust allergy. It was nothing more than "coincidence" if his throat problem had coincided with the right answer. He also insisted that he had not known the answers to three of the questions he allegedly helped with. Police, however, found the answer to one of them in a hand-written general knowledge book at his home, along with the answer to another question he said he had not known but was not said to have helped with *.

Davis, the floor manager, said that as soon as the coughing came to his notice during the recording, he decided to find out who was responsible. "The loudest coughing was coming from Tecwen in seat number three," he claimed. "He was talking to the person to his left when I was observing him, and then he turned towards the set and the hot seat to cough." Whittock said in court that you do not cough into someone's face *. Despite searching for any form of assistance during the recording, Davis did not deduce that coughing was assisting Ingram.

After The Show

Tarrant, who drank champagne with the Ingrams in their dressing room, said he was convinced the major was genuine when he signed the £1 million cheque. "If I thought there was anything wrong, I certainly would not have signed it." When asked whether the atmosphere in the dressing room was tense after the show as had been alledged by an employee, Ms Wynstanley, Tarrant replied: "No, not at all. They seemed as normal as people who have just won a million pounds would be in the situation."

Celador employees produced reviewed various compilation tapes, before and after contacting the police. Celador and their editing company, Editworks, retained all the tapes during the case and reproduced all tapes for court.

In court, Smith confirmed that his company had previously produced a television programme involving witnesses about the case, for broadcast on ITV after the trial. This was subsequently broadcast on ITV1 a month after the trial as "Tonight With Trevor MacDonald - Major Fraud", which was credited with over 17 million viewers. Two weeks later the same programme broadcast another show entilted "Final Act", which was credited with over 5 million viewers.

Summing Up

The trial judge summed up the case by stating to the jury that the tapes and Mr Whitehurst were the two pieces of "direct evidence" before describing the act as a "schoolboy prank".

On the day the verdicts were announced, the trial judge sentenced the Ingrams with £50k fines and prosecution costs, followed by £65k defence costs.

Other Details

Ingram said his discursive and apparently indecisive manner when answering questions was partly for effect and partly due to nervousness. "There was a degree of wishing to be good on television and be a bit dramatic. What I said, thinking outloud, and what I actually meant were not the same thing. It was a very stressful period."

The producer and decision-maker on the night, David Briggs, maintained a low profile throughout the case and did not testify in court. Almost all Celador employees present on the night, who made up most of the prosecution witnesses, said they became suspicious early on during the second night as Ingram's performance on the first night had confirmed their pre-show beliefs that he was unintelligent and would not last long. In court, Tarrant described him as "Tim nice, but dim". To refute the allegations, Ingram took an invigilated IQ test shortly before the trial, and was found to have an IQ that lies within the top two per cent of the population (it allowed him to join Mensa). Ingram, who is highly qualified, has repeatedly suggested success on the show is more about knowledge than intelligence.

It was suggested in the media that Ingram took a considerable amount of time on the second night - on one question almost 15 minutes - to answer each of the questions. Such was the rumour-mill, The Sun reported he had been in the hot seat for three hours on the second night. Police investigators were reportedly keen to learn whether this may have been a delaying tactic to allow someone outside the studio to look up the questions on a computer or the internet, before sending a text message to a mobile phone held by an audience member. The audience member would then cough corresponding to one of the four options.

In fact, and including any delay caused by the host who does much of the talking and controls the situation, the time between the questions given (flashed-up on screen) and answers accepted (green light highlighting correct answer) on the second night were as follows:

  • Q8. 1 minute 1 second.
  • Q9. 48 seconds.
  • Q10. 4 minutes 11 seconds (Used 50:50 lifeline).
  • Q11. 2 minutes 6 seconds.
  • Q12. 1 minute 47 seconds.
  • Q13. 1 minute 4 seconds.
  • Q14. 4 minutes 6 seconds.
  • Q15. 5 minutes 21 seconds.

A subjective analysis of the uncut recording broadcast on ITV2 shows that of the above time, Ingram was responsible for considerably less than ten minutes. On the first night Ingram played, an earlier contestant took 24 minutes to give an answer *.

From the beginning, Celador has been concerned about the possibility of someone cheating all the way to the top prize, and introduced elaborate security measures from the start. During recording, one camera is permanently trained on the contestants' faces to check that they don't look away for signals from the audience. Another camera watches friends or relatives in the audience to ensure they are not sending signals. As an additional precaution, players are always positioned with their backs to any supporters in the audience. *

Television Appearances

The Ingrams have featured on numerous television shows in the UK and overseas including:

External links

British Army officers | Game show contestants | Show business scandals | Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Charles Ingram".

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