Former army major Charles Ingram insisted today that he did not cheat to win Who Wants to be a Millionaire and has vowed to clear his name – despite being convicted of deception in 2003.
Ingram, his wife Diana and their accomplice Tecwen Whittock were convicted in 2003 of Procuring the Execution of a Valuable Security by Deception, two years after the show was first recorded.
Recordings found that Ingram cheated on the show with his wife and Mr Whittock coughing on certain answers.
Though all three were convicted, they were given suspended sentences.
Last week, Ingram’s lawyer announced he would be appealing the conviction after new ITV drama Quiz shone on a light on the incident.
Taking to Twitter today, Ingram insisted the truth would come out and said: ‘Thank you to all that have sent such warm messages since Quiz last week. It doesn’t matter how often they grandstand or what they’ve done, they cannot make their nasty allegation true.
Charles Ingram has insisted that he did not cheat to win Who Wants to be a Millionaire in 2001
In a passionate tweet, he insisted today that he and his wife would prove their innocence
‘It is complex, consuming & costly, but we will now prove our innocence. We all want answers.’
Criminal defence solicitor Rhona Friedman, who is behind the former army major’s new appeal, claimed last week that new enhanced audio evidence from Ingram’s appearance on the show detected several audience members coughing during filming.
Ms Friedman added that the case is ‘full of holes’ and that it was ‘ludicrous’ to suggest a conspiracy took place on the game show in 2001.
The lawyers claim that the evidence was not considered by the jury during the trial and that it undermines the prosecution case.
They also claim the integrity of the audio evidence could have been compromised because it came from the prosecution and was not referred for independent analysis to the Forensic Science Service.
Ms Friedman added that there were ‘gaps’ in the ‘chain of continuity’ of the audio evidence.
She said: ‘In the Ingrams case, the programme makers were allowed to produce the ‘expert evidence’ with very limited police oversight.
‘What they ended up with at trial was a gentleman’s agreement that nothing had been done to alter the trial exhibits but there is no place for a gentleman’s agreement in a criminal trial.’
Ingram, his wife Diana and their accomplice Tecwen Whittock were convicted in 2003 of Procuring the Execution of a Valuable Security by Deception, two years after the show was first recorded. They were given suspended sentences
Chris Tarrant (pictured in Birmingham, March 2019) said Charles Ingram was ‘a rotter, a cad and a bandit’, adding he has ‘beef’ with TV drama Quiz for casting doubt over his conviction
Ms Friedman also cast doubt on why the Ingrams would rely on Whittock as an accomplice, given that he had longstanding respiratory conditions which made him liable to repeated coughing.
She added that while the show’s producers, Celador, did not ‘deliberately’ set out to deny the Ingrams their prize money, the prosecution ‘fastened on to a theory’ and ‘shoved in everything they could’ to suit it.
The Ingrams, from Wiltshire, were convicted in 2003 alongside their accomplice Tecwen Whittock, who was also a show contestant, of Procuring the Execution of a Valuable Security by Deception.
The successful prosecution case was based on evidence which they said indicated that Major Ingram was directed to the right answers by coughs from Whittock.
Diane Ingram was also alleged to have coughed when her husband struggled with the answers.
But the couple’s lawyers said that scientific and technological advances picked up previously unheard other coughs made by Mr Whittock.
Charles Ingram (left) with Tarrant on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? in 2001
They also allegedly picked up other people coughing in the audience who could have made a noise at significant moments.
The lawyer plans to submit a dossier of legal arguments to the Court of Appeal later this year.
The Ingrams and Whittock were each given two-year suspended prison sentences for the crime.
Ms Friedman told ITV’s This Morning: ‘Charles was career military, that was going to be his life.
‘And so for somebody who thinks they’re going to basically die with their military boots on, to have that taken away in such a spectacular way to lose your reputation when you’re a ranking army officer was devastating.’
She added: ‘I can say to you with complete conviction I think there was a miscarriage of justice in this case.’
Asked what he thought of the show, which was written by James Graham, Who Wants to be a Millionaire host Chris Tarrant told Chris Moyles on Radio X: ‘It was very well made wasn’t it?
‘It was actually very well done but it is a drama, it’s not factual. So most of those conversations were made up because that’s what playwrights do.
‘I mean the bottom line is he’s a rotter and a cad and a bandit and he was guilty. No question in my mind at all that he was guilty.’