Games - Charles Ingram

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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 later being convicted of deception, Ingram maintains he did not cheat.

Career Profile

A Bachelor of Science Civil Engineering graduate from Kingston Polytechnic, a Master of Science Corporate Management graduate from Cranfield University, Chartered Member of the Institute of Personnel and Development, 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. Ingram is a novelist and lives with his wife, Diana, and three daughters in Wiltshire.

The Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Affair

The popular ITV1 programme is produced by Celador at Elstree Studios, Borehamwood, Hertfordshire. The show, hosted by Mr 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, 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, and after the prosecution had argued 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 Mrs Ingram's defence costs order to £5,000. On 21 May 2005 Ingram appealed his conviction to the Criminal Cases Review Commission.

Ingram declared bankruptcy on 25 November 2004 and Mrs Ingram declared bankruptcy on 11 November 2005. Ingram is now a self-employed novelist, publishing his first novel, The Network, on 27 April 2006. Mrs Ingram runs her own business, designing and making fine jewellery.

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 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 Criminal Cases Review Commission completed the initial assessment of Ingram's conviction in January 2006. Now they are conducting a more detailed, formal review. Their focus is on the production of tape recordings introduced as evidence, and witness testimony in court.

The Show

Ingram disputes the video soundtracks played in court as being unrepresentative, indeed he continues to assert that they were unfairly 'manipulated'. He claims that some coughs occurred after the host encouraged further banter between themselves and that he neither listened for, encouraged, nor noticed any coughing. The prosecution alledged that nineteen of the thirty-two coughs clearly heard on the video soundtracks, louder than both Ingram's and Tarrant's voices, were 'significant'. Tarrant also denied hearing any coughing, claiming he was too busy to notice. Here are details of the video presented to the court :

Major Ingram was first shown winning the "fastest finger" round by putting in correct order the words from the Agatha Christie novel "Death", "On", "The", "Nile", in 3.97 seconds.

He easily passed through the first questions, guessing that the word "horse" followed the word "clothes", a eurosceptic is against increasing the power of the European Union, butterscotch is a type of toffee, the Black Watch is the nickname of a famous Scottish Army Regiment, and the Normans who conquered England in 1066 spoke French.

But on question six, for £2,000, he had to use the "ask the audience" lifeline when faced with the question: "In Coronation Street, who is Audrey's daughter?" The audience gave an 89% vote for Gail, which he selected as his answer.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Charles Ingram ]

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