Plaskett and Woffinden's book on the "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Fraud

[James Plaskett]

For the last time, he was NOT found guilty of any Insurance Fraud.

I agree that Tarrant´s SHOCKING LIE does not render Ingram innocent.

I´m arguing that it simply meant that Celador were in no position afterwards to not pay the guy nor to prosecute him.

Hence my stipulation that one of the three things that ought to occur tomorrow is for every host to sign a statement that they also acknowledge Tarrant´s SHOCKING LIE and they will do no such thing.

[NickFaulks]

Anyway, Chris Tarrant's SHOCKING LIE doesn't mean Ingram was innocent, any more than hearing an audience gasp does.

No, but it does mean that the conviction was a miscarriage of justice, something which does not surprise me in the least.

[James Plaskett]

ABSOLUTELY!!!

As Señor Faulks says, it, of itself, means the conviction was a miscarriage of justice.

Irrespective of how Ingram managed to win his million.

[Chris Goodall]

That's ridiculous. You don't get a de novo review of your client's case every time you discover an inconsistency in a witness's testimony that you didn't pick up on cross-examination. Defence lawyers would then have an incentive not to pick these incidents up on cross, but save them for the appeal.

[James Plaskett]

Eh?
Indeed it might well NOT qualify as ´new evidence´ for it could have been picked up on at trial.
I´m just agreeing with Nick Faulks: it means that, whether or not Ingram got help, it constitutes an entirely separate reason for the trial being an absolute miscarriage of justice.
(I note, en passant, had Youtube been active in 2003 then the defence might very well have spotted that.)

Yet this was just one of several examples of, how to say, a lax maintenance of proper invigilation by Celador. With other big money TV opportunities like Deal or no Deal or the National Lottery there was independent invigilation, i.e. of the set of balls being used or that the prizes had been ´properly´ inserted into the boxes beforehand.

Celador ran the gig themselves. And that continued beyond the precincts of the studio to the very trial itself.

For they also permitted Tarrant to let Gen Broadbent retract his answer to a 250K Question after he had committed himself with, "Final answer". That was in 2000, before Ingram played. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJcVSg3CRtw

They allowed gangs of syndicates to acquire audience tickets and penetrate the studio in considerable numbers, sometimes after traveling hundreds of miles. In 2000, Trevor Montague, was playing for charities (a fact Tarrant repeatedly announced). When he asked the audience the cheats helped their waiting man in the FFF line up - Ingram Wilcox - by deliberately instructing the audience to give the wrong answer. So as to oust Montague and hence clear the path for Wilcox. Montague followed their wrong tip and left with only 1K. The head of the syndicate rang Montague up two days later to confess, But Montague plays quizzes only for charities because he is a Christian and, following Christ´s precepts, forgave his enemy. He did, however, contact the producer of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, Colman Hutchinson, to tell him what had happened and asked for another go. Which Hutchinson refused. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt6KVyRhiAo&t=855s
To verify that story you may consult any of the following four people :-

a) Trevor Montague
b) Colman Hutchinson
c) Ingram Wilcox and, last but certainly not least, the chief patron of one of the charities for which Montague was playing: Children with Leukemia.
His name is Chris Tarrant.

They also, instead of agreeing to have the tapes of Ingram´s win promptly sequestered, hung on to them. Twice Oscar nominated director of QUIZ, Stephen Frears, was astounded by that. So am I.
As I detail on page 6 of this thread, this permitted some, er, useful adjustments to the rather important evidence of a "No!" -

Ingram HAD initiated proceedings Vs Celador for his justly acquired million pounds.
Celador deferred and deferred acceptance of his suit Vs them until the CPS announced they would prosecute TWO days before the final, FINAL deadline for the Civil case.
Indeed Bob reasoned that the only reason Celador strung things out so long was they thought they would lose Ingram´s Civil suit.
(We go into this in some depth in Bad Show and provide detailed analysis of the Civil and Criminal case tapes.)
btw guys, on their tape for the Civil suit no "No!" is audible after Ingram´s mentioning of the incorrect option of "Berlin" to his 500K Question.
It is on the tape Celador subsequently provided for the Criminal case.
Woffinden argued to me that if at any point a cough comes from behind Ingram after his mentioning of an incorrect option "The prosecution case collapses".
So they had to come up with something.
Their tape for the Criminal case they provided to Ingram´s solicitors THREE days before trial.
Ingram´s solicitor, Stephen Gentle, told Bob that only then did he begin to fear for his client.
I have sat in seat three, where Whittock sat.
Do not forget that the floor manager, Phil Davies stood only some twelve to fifteen feet away from Whittock and was intently scrutinising him. He heard no "No!". Neither did the people at Whittock´s elbows in seats two and four. The front row of the audience is so near that I once accepted a proffered sweet from a lady. None of them heard it.
Nobody heard it.
Go figure, guys.

And, I say again: that these tapes were not promptly seized by Police but were allowed to remain with Celador throughout could, of itself, constitute a valid reason to invalidate the trial.

But then so are they all
All honourable men.

(My arse.)

btw, Stephen Gentle also said after the verdict that he thought there to be certain people associated with this prosecution who "... ought to be ashamed of themselves".
I agree

[Chris Goodall]

You admit that the issue has no bearing on whether or not Ingram cheated. That means it's not a miscarriage of justice, doesn't it? In chess terms, if the defence play differently, they will lose differently.

[NickFaulks]

You admit that the issue has no bearing on whether or not Ingram cheated. That means it's not a miscarriage of justice, doesn't it? In chess terms, if the defence play differently, they will lose differently.

We are left with no meaningful evidence that he didn't cheat, and no meaningful evidence that he did. That would normally lead to acquittal? Or, better still, no prosecution being brought in the first place, since it was evidently just a waste of everyone's time?

[Chris Goodall]

You admit that the issue has no bearing on whether or not Ingram cheated. That means it's not a miscarriage of justice, doesn't it? In chess terms, if the defence play differently, they will lose differently.

We are left with no meaningful evidence that he didn't cheat, and no meaningful evidence that he did. That would normally lead to acquittal? Or, better still, no prosecution being brought in the first place, since it was evidently just a waste of everyone's time?

For certain values of "meaningful" that are clearly not shared by everyone involved.

[James Plaskett]

Nick, many people wondered what the heck the point of a criminal prosecution to be! The chief prosecution witness, Larry Whitehurst, thought Celador should just have withheld the money.
That was echoed in The Northern Echo by the Mayor of Middlesborough, Ray Mallon. He also thought him guilty but since he had himself previously headed Middlesborough CID thought court time and Police resources ought to have been spent on stuff like catching car thieves or burglars. He said it was a private prosecution using public money, compared it to prosecuting a soccer player for diving in the penalty area and repeatedly called for a donation to be made to cover the millions the trial cost us.

If you want the explanation for it all, Sñr Faulks, you may here me recount it at 45:30 here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbBSDREP6f8

And, as I wrote on page 5 of this thread -

In 53 minutes Tarrant said he´d noticed nothing suspicious of any kind.
As a result the defence lawyers had to resort to questions like, "Has anybody ever got the first question wrong?"
Which generated laughter. Even the judge himself was wont to join in with interjections such as, "Is that your final answer?"
But then this was truly - and in every sense of the term - a SHOW trial.

The prosecutor, Nicholas Hilliard, attended the West End performance of QUIZ where he was photographed with the actor portraying him, Paul Bazeley.
In 2015 Hilliard became the senior judge at the Old Bailey.
Atop that court stands F. W. Pomeroy´s golden statue of the Roman goddess Iustitia.
She holds aloft in one hand the sword of truth and in the other carries the scales of justice.

She sports no clown´s mask.

But the people want bread and the circus.
Don´t they?

[Chris Goodall]

I went to a comprehensive school; classical allegories just sound like goalposts being moved.

[James Plaskett]

Then permit me to assist - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses

It applied in Ancient Rome and still is news.
In a Space Age.

This trial was about entertainment.
And not justice.

[Chris Goodall]

Some people are entertained by seeing justice done. How many people must declare themselves entertained before counsel can move for a mistrial on the grounds that the trial is "about" entertainment and not "about" justice? Can that number be attained during the trial, or must all the entertainees be present at the beginning? I'm sure Colleen Rooney would love to have known

[James Plaskett]

Here´s my take on the show, the Ingram case and my involvement with each -
https://www.amazon.com/Bread-Circus-Jam ... B09N9SJLWG

[James Plaskett]

Okay guys, enough of the bull**it. I´ll own up now.
The truth, as many of you will have suspected all along, is I know that the guy called Ingram who became a millionaire by winning the top prize on that show really DID cheat.

Ingram WILCOX, that is.

He was a member of a syndicate who paid for his calls and took a healthy cut of his winnings. But they were more conscientious still in their assistance.
WATCH here how the syndicate, having penetrated the studio en masse, introduced themselves to sections of the audience beforehand and said that since they were quizzers of stature (many had appeared on the show before and been seen to do well) they would help out if people weren´t sure of an "Ask the Audience" question.
And they did indeed help - THEMSELVES!
For when Trevor Montague asked the audience the syndicate urged them to vote for a WRONG ANSWER. Why? To oust the man whose presence in the Hot Seat prevented their big gun, Ingram Wilcox, getting his arse in there, that´s why. Wilcox did win the million on a later show, though.
The syndicate head rang Trevor up a day or two later to confess. But Montague is a Christian who follows the precepts of Christ in loving one´s enemies and forgave him. But he did contact the producer of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, Colman Hutchinson, to tell him of the cheating and, since he was playing only for charities and Tarrant had already several times referred to that, might he have another go, please? Colman Hutchinson said "No".

If you want the veracity of this story affirmed ask any of these people -
a) Colman Hutchinson
b) Trevor Montague
c) INGRAM Wilcox and, lastly, the chief patron of Children with Leukemia - one of the charities for which Trevor was playing. His name is
d) Chris Tarrant.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=nt6KVyRhiAo&t=838s

[Nick Ivell]

This gets me thinking: how much cheating actually went on with Millionaire?

The incentive was clearly there: a million notes.

Very few people are going to know the answers to all the questions. A nod here, a wink there - not to mention coughing - could make all the difference.

A live audience provides an ideal recipe for organised scams. I bet the programme was completely kosher during lockdown!