Charles Ingram - Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? - Cheating

Cheating

The ITV programme was produced by Celador at Elstree Studios, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire. The show, hosted by Chris Tarrant, was recorded on 9 September 2001 and 10 September 2001. After winning £1,000,000, the payout was suspended when Ingram was accused of cheating by having his wife, Diana, and an accomplice, Tecwen Whittock, cough as Ingram announced the correct answer from the available choices. Following a trial at Southwark Crown Court lasting four weeks (including jury deliberation for three-and-a-half days), which ended soon after a jury member was evicted for discussing the case in public, Charles and Diana Ingram and Whittock were convicted by a majority verdict of "procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception" on 7 April 2003.

Diana Ingram had previously been a contestant and won £32,000. Her brother Adrian Pollock had also previously won the same amount. Both Diana Ingram and her brother had missed their £64,000 questions (the latter had used his 50:50 lifeline on his question).

On 7 April 2003 the Ingrams and Tecwen Whittock were each given prison sentences suspended for two years (the Ingrams were sentenced for 18-months and Tecwen Whittock was sentenced for 12 months, also suspended), 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, Ingram £40,000 and Diana Ingram £25,000. Altogether with legal fees, the Ingrams had to pay £115,000.

This particular episode was not only aired in the UK but also in many other countries, including the United States (where John Carpenter and Kevin Olmstead were big winners) and Australia (whose second jackpot winner was also subject to allegations of cheating but was later exonerated).

On 19 August 2003, the Army Board ordered Ingram to resign his commission as a major, with his state-earned pension of 17 years.

On 19 May 2004 the Court of Appeal denied Ingram leave to appeal against his conviction and upheld his sentence but agreed to quash his wife's fine and prosecution costs. On 5 October 2004 the House of Lords denied Ingram his leave to appeal against 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 £25,000 and Diana Ingram's defence costs order to £5,000. On 21 May 2005, Ingram appealed against his conviction to the Criminal Cases Review Commission. The CCRC completed its review in autumn 2006 concluding that "there was insufficient prospect of overturning the conviction".

An essay written by James Plaskett in favour of the innocence of Ingram, his wife and Whittock led to the journalist Bob Woffinden, who had a longtime 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?" Plaskett's essay also prompted a reconsideration of the case in The Guardian Comment Is Free blog on 17 July 2006 from an initially skeptical Jon Ronson. Plaskett may also be heard at Episode 29 of The Pod Delusion podcast being interviewed by political blogger, Mark Thompson, who was himself led by Plaskett's essay to take an interest in the case of The Millionaire Three.

Ingram and his wife declared bankruptcy in October 2004. Having written two novels, The Network, published through a vanity publisher on 27 April 2006 and Deep Siege, published on 8 October 2007, Ingram now repairs computers for a living at PC World, Delhi.