Charles Ingram

Charles William Ingram (born 6 August 1963) is an English novelist and former British Army major who gained notoriety for his appearance on the ITV television game show ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?''. In episodes recorded in September 2001, Ingram correctly answered fifteen questions to win the show's maximum prize of £1 million, becoming the third recorded contestant to ever do so. However, he was denied the winnings due to suspicion of cheating.

Following a lengthy trial at Southwark Crown Court, Ingram was convicted on a single count of procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception. He was subsequently convicted of an unrelated offence involving insurance fraud in 2003 and ordered to resign his commission as a major by the Army Board.

Early life

Charles Ingram was born on 6 August 1963 in Shardlow, Derbyshire, the son of retired RAF wing commander John Ingram and his wife, theatre set designer Susan Ingram. His father's Wellington bomber, operating with 103 Squadron from RAF Elsham Wolds, had been shot down in late September 1941; he was taken as a prisoner of war while two of his crew were killed.

Ingram's parents divorced when he was young and he spent most of his education years boarding privately at Oswestry School in Oswestry, Shropshire. There he was a member of the Combined Cadet Force and completed the Duke of Edinburgh Silver Award. He went on to obtain a BSc in civil engineering from Kingston University.

Military career

In 1987, Ingram trained for the British Army at Sandhurst and was commissioned as an officer in the Royal Engineers. He was promoted to the rank of captain in 1990 and major in 1996. In 1999, Ingram was sent to Banja Luka in Bosnia for six months on United Nations peacekeeping duties. He graduated from Cranfield University with a master's degree in corporate management in August 2000. He was ordered by the Army Board via letter to resign his commission on 20 August 2003 and to give up his rank of major. It is widely disputed whether or not he was dishonourably discharged.

''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'' scandal

On 9 September 2001, Ingram became a contestant on the ITV game show ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?'', following his wife Diana and her brother Adrian Pollock, each of whom had won £32,000 as contestants on the show. To prepare, Ingram practised for about twenty minutes per day on a homemade " Fastest Finger First" machine. Ingram got into the "hot seat" but used two lifelines early, ending the day at £4,000 and with only the 50/50 lifeline remaining. The production team doubted he would proceed much further, but he ended up making it to the £1 million jackpot on the second day of recording.

On three questions, including the final two, Ingram initially favored a wrong answer only to eventually lock in the correct answer. His £32,000 question was "Who had a hit UK album with 'Born To Do It' released in 2000?" After using his 50/50, he was left with A1, which he had already said he thought was correct, and Craig David, who he said he had never heard of. After nearly locking in A1 as his final answer, he backed off and said "Eighty percent of the time I'm wrong when I guess ... I’ll go Craig David." He then locked in Craig David as his final answer, which was correct. The penultimate question worth £500,000 was “ Baron Haussmann is best known for his planning of which city?" Ingram immediately said he thought it was Berlin, due to the name Baron Haussmann. However, he eventually locked in Paris as his final answer. This got Ingram to the million pound question, "A number one followed by one hundred zeros is known by what name?" He initially thought the answer was Nanomole and said he had never heard of Googol. However, "by process of elimination" he eventually decided on Googol, winning him the million pound jackpot.

By the time Ingram had finished his run, producers were suspicious enough that a search was performed on him. Ingram’s hair, clothing and shoes were searched, but nothing incriminating was found. After he left the set, the show's production company, Celador, were tipped off by the show's producers of the assumed irregularities occurring within the quiz and suspended the jackpot payout to investigate the matter. At the same time, the show's presenter, Chris Tarrant, overheard that the Ingrams had been arguing, despite Ingram's success, moments before Tarrant joined them in their dressing room for champagne; another member of the production team also noted a similar thought about the couple's behaviour. While reviewing the recording, the production team made a connection between Ingram's answers and coughs coming from one of the waiting contestants, lecturer Tecwen Whittock; in another instance, the coughing came from Ingram's wife while she was in the audience. Based on this evidence, all three were accused of cheating, and the matter was handed over to police to investigate further. Whittock and the Ingrams were eventually charged with " procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception".

Trial

Following a trial at Southwark Crown Court lasting four weeks (including jury deliberation for three and a half days), the Ingrams and Whittock were convicted by a 10-1 verdict of their offences on 7 April 2003. Both of the Ingrams and Whittock were given prison sentences, suspended for two years—the Ingrams were sentenced to eighteen months; Whittock was sentenced to twelve months—and each fined £15,000 and ordered to pay £10,000 towards prosecution costs. Within two months of the verdict and sentence, the trial's judge ordered the Ingrams to pay additional defence costs, which left them repaying a total of £115,000.

On 19 August 2003, the Army Board ordered Ingram to resign his commission as a major after sixteen years of service, but stated that this would not affect his pension entitlements.

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, the House of Lords denied Ingram leave to appeal against his fine and prosecution costs, and he appealed to the European Court of Human Rights. On 20 October, the original trial judge reduced Ingram's defence costs order to £25,000 and Diana's defence costs order to £5,000. Ingram's defence costs were later further reduced to £5,000 on appeal.

In 2006, journalist Jon Ronson, who covered the case at the time for ''The Guardian'', wrote that he believed the Ingrams might be innocent. Ronson, who attended every day of the trial, had observed that when the word "cough" was mentioned, pensioners in the public gallery had coughed. Chess grandmaster James Plaskett, who had appeared in the Fastest Finger First round several times before winning £250,000 in January 2006, argued this was an example of coughs caused by unconscious triggers; Whittock or others had simply coughed involuntarily upon hearing the correct answer. Whittock was also accused of having coughed after Ingram mentioned an incorrect option to his penultimate question and swiftly following that up with a smothered "No". However, Plaskett, who had sat in that very same seat, argued that someone might have audibly said it in response to an incorrect option in the same way that other waiting contestants have been known to whisper "No".

Recorded evidence

In court, Ingram claimed the videotape of his appearance on ''Millionaire'' was "unrepresentative of what I heard", and he continues to assert that it was "unfairly manipulated". A video recording, with coughing amplified relative to other sounds, including Ingram's and Tarrant's voices, was prepared by Celador's editors (Editworks) for the prosecution and "for the benefit of the jury" during the trial (and later for viewers in television broadcasts). Ingram 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 heard on the video tape were "significant". The prosecution asserted that these "significant" coughs were by Whittock when the correct answer had been spoken. During the trial, Tarrant also denied hearing any coughing throughout the episode, claiming he was too busy to notice.

Testimony of Larry Whitehurst

Larry Whitehurst, another contestant who had appeared on the show as a Fastest Finger First contestant on four occasions, was adamant that he had known the answers to Ingram's questions. He told the court that he had been able to detect a pattern of coughing, and that he was entirely convinced that coughing had helped Ingram.

Testimony of Tecwen Whittock

Whittock claims to have suffered a persistent cough for his entire life, insisted that he had a genuine cough caused by a combination of hay fever and a dust allergy, and that it was only coincidence that his throat problem coincided with the right answers. During the trial, however, the jury heard evidence that once Whittock himself earned the right to sit in the hot seat, his throat problems disappeared. Whittock later testified that he drank several glasses of water before he went in front of the cameras. Whittock also insisted that he had not known the answers to three of the questions he allegedly helped with. However, the police found the answer to the twelfth question, regarding the artist who painted ''The Ambassadors'', in a hand-written general knowledge book at Whittock's home.

Davies, the floor manager on ''Millionaire'', 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 said. "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 remarked during the trial that "you do not cough into someone's face".

During the trial, Whittock portrayed himself as a "serial quiz show loser" because he had been eliminated in round one of Channel 4's ''Fifteen to One'', had also failed on ITV's ''The People Versus'' and had been able to win only an atlas on his appearance on ITV's ''Sale of the Century''. He had also done poorly on Beat the Bong, although he did reach the semi-final stage of the BBC
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