Playing the Game
by James Plaskett (updated:
In April 2003, Charles Ingram, Diana Ingram and Tecwen Whittock were given fines and suspended sentences at Southwark Crown Court when found guilty of attempting to cheat Celador out of the £1,000,000 top prize on their Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? TV quiz show. Ingram had behaved unusually as a player, not least in that he had the habit of saying out loud the 4 possible answers to each question. The tapes seem to show that on 19 occasions, Whittock coughed just after Ingram had mentioned a correct optional answer to a question, and never after he mentioned an incorrect one. When it subsequently emerged that Mrs Ingram, who was also there that night, had been in regular telephone contact with Whittock before the show, then, to many people, the case against the three looked clear cut.
I´m not so sure.
Contestant Larry Whitehurst sat opposite in the studio from Whittock. He tipped off Scotland Yard that at the £500,000 point he spotted the pattern of coughing just after the mentioning of the right answer. At the £1,000,000 question: "I was absolutely certain there was going to be a signal... He seemed to dismiss Googol initially and he went all round the houses as he had done through the show, and as soon as he got to Googol, Whittock went 'cough, cough'."
Mr Whitehurst is a strong quizzer who probably knew the answers to many of the questions. His certainty on the coughing, as expressed to the court, differs from his police statement of September 2001, which concludes: "I would like to say that it is possible that what I saw was just an amazing set of coincidences and that the possibility remains that I witnessed no criminal behaviour."
By the way, in an indignant response of December 18th 2003, Mr Whitehurst wrote "I did know quite a few of the answers. I expect others did too, they weren’t that difficult." Shame he did not tell the jury that when he testified of the one guy who, unlike him, VERBALLY provided the answers, and received £1,000,000 for so doing: "He just nicked a million".
Ingram insisted that neither he nor the host noticed any coughing. But, with respect, that is not the point. Someone on the other side of the studio did, so it must have been potentially audible to those in the middle. Expert witness, Professor Alan Morris (whose evidence was interrupted by a juror's persistent coughing) testified that Whittock suffered from a year-round dust allergy as well as hay fever. "He also tested very positive for cough variant asthma, which would have been made progressively worse by a hot TV studio. He had a very convincing story to me of someone who provides a cogent history of what an allergic type person complains of."
Whittock claimed his hay fever caused him to cough every day, mostly in the mornings and evenings. This helps to explain why contestant Steve Carroll noted that Whittock´s coughing worsened throughout Ingram´s performance, although he had not coughed at rehearsal. During rehearsal the studio would have been not nearly so hot and also it was not a morning nor an evening time.
This testimony also refutes Martin Bashir´s commentary on Celador´s Major Fraud documentary: "As the two men become more confident in their system the coughs become more frequent." In fact, that he coughed more and more as the programme progressed is absolutely consistent with his medical conditions.
So severe is Whittock´s cough problem that he habitually carries a bottle of water with him. But he had none that night. The prosecution observed that he had managed not to cough during appearances on other quiz shows, including Fifteen To One, The People Versus and Brain Of Britain. But on those the studio time would have been much briefer than the hours of recording on WWTBAM?.
In 1989 my wife was a guest on a TV show called The Time, The Place. She has some respiratory problems, which had been worsened by exposure to smoke a day or two earlier, and asked to take water with her into the studio. Staff refused, saying that if it spilt and someone slipped they would have insurance problems. So she smuggled some in.
Whittock said that he cannot remember just when he coughed. But, although his conditions account for his chronic coughing, they do not explain the coughs coming 19 times just after Ingram enunciates a correct option.
These explanations neither man supplied. We may note that he tended to mention the correct options far more frequently than the incorrect ones, thus increasing the likelihood of a cough following a correct option being heard. But, even after conceding such points, the collective improbability of those 19 coughs coming when they did seemed so colossal that the jury had to let themselves be decisively influenced by it. And that was why the three defendants were convicted.
But it was a majority verdict of 10-1. One juror was overheard outside the court saying that he thought the three accused to be innocent, and therefore the Judge dismissed him. If this juror had not been barred maybe his opinion would have resulted in others having doubt. A split of 9-3 is not acceptable, and would have resulted in the case being thrown out or going to retrial.
1) A POSSIBLE INNOCENT EXPLANATION FOR THE TIMING OF THE COUGHS
But the court did not hear a possible innocent explanation for the timing of Whittock´s 19 "particular" coughs; responsive coughing.
The trial itself provided an example of something along these lines. It took place in London in March. Jon Ronson sat in the public gallery for the 22 days. He reported in the Guardian of April 19th 2003: "Charles's father sits next to me... pensioners... nab most of the other seats... The pensioners spend much of the day noisily unwrapping packets of Lockets... Each time the barristers mention the word "cough" many people sitting around me involuntarily cough."
Each time. Hundreds of triggers and responses. Not just 19. And neither any occasion he noted when the word "cough" from a barrister did not meet with widespread coughing from the zone where the people with throat problems were gathered. What sort of astronomical numbers do you need to explain that as chance? Googol levels of unlikelihood. But all of those people were quite unaware of what was sometimes causing them to cough, and had they been shown the statistics, they would have been startled by them.
There were, naturally, many other occasions when they coughed without any triggers, just as there were 17 recorded Whittock coughs which did not coincide with Ingram considering any option. And we also do not know what coughs he may have produced in the 2 commercial breaks that night, as Celador did not produce any recordings made during those.
In November 2001 Celador produced a DVD about their show: Magic Moments and More. It includes the complete performance of Judith Keppel as she became the first person to win the million. Audible (although unamplified) audience coughs just after her first enunciating the correct answer, but before her definitely committing by saying "Final answer", are clearly discernible at the £2,000, £4,000, £64,000, £500,000 and £1,000,000 points, and one more is faintly discernible at the £8,000 point. That is six of the last ten questions, just as with Ingram
These are illustrations of responsive coughing. People are known to cough on unconscious triggers. People with coughs and throat irritations may experience the need to cough as the correct answer to a question - one which they knew - were read out.
Nerves could account for it. Or perhaps Whittock (and/or those close to him) did not know with certainty the answers to some questions, but had eliminated the least likely options until a mental decision had been made, and then involuntarily coughed as those were recited. Then it was not chance. Neither was it cheating. One family member was not trying to help out another. Responsive coughing; that was all.
That such similar patterns of coughing - especially the Keppel series - may be demonstrated seems to me to be THE STRONGEST POSSIBLE EVIDENCE for the defence. And the court did not hear of it.
If you are prepared to run with the idea that the 19 "particular coughs" of Whittock´s recorded 36 were no more than such involuntary nervous responses, triggered by the mentioning of an answer which he either definitely knew or had reasoned to be the most plausible, then you may agree with my judgement; that responsive coughing sits better with the facts, because there are just too many points which do not fit with the alternative of signalling.
And, before examining the other salient evidence, do not forget that it is not demonstrated that all of the "particular coughs" were definitely Whittock´s. At rehearsal that afternoon, contestant number one, Steve Carroll, who sat a metre from Whittock throughout the recording, coughed so much that the show´s host expressed concern, and contestant´s four and five have both said that they too coughed. Contestant two was not asked by the Police.
2) WHAT TRUE VALUE WOULD THE HELP HAVE BEEN?
What then is the other evidence for Ingram having been helped? And when assessing the potential value of such assistance, remember that although many times couples have consulted openly on special UK editions of WWTBAM?, never has any got further than the £250,000 mark. Although Whittock was certainly a very strong quizzer, Ingram pertinently observed of the cough that is claimed to have prompted his answer to the £1,000,000 question: "If somebody shouted out the bloody answer I wouldn´t agree with them! There is no way you would gamble that much money on coughing. Would you?" He had no definite way of knowing.
Sean O´Neill reported in The Daily Telegraph of April 8th 2003: - "Officers from the special inquiry team carried out ´a complex and unusual´ 18-month inquiry. But sources concede they do not know the full truth behind the case. One said: ´I've never thought that we've been able to find every piece of the jigsaw.´"
The full truth could be there is no jigsaw.
3) A REAL COUGHER IN PLACE TO DO THE FAKING
There are rumours on the internet that there have been plans, on other occasions, for an accomplice sitting in FFF seats 6 to 10, from where he would be visible to the player, to signal through hand movements. I suppose we are to assume that they would have had some such code of visual signals prepared, had the luck of the draw placed Whittock in front of the player. Unfortunately, as the prosecution would have it, they would have discovered at the studio that he was placed in a seat behind him, so auditory signalling became the only option.
What a stroke of luck, don´t you think, to have less than 24 hours notice to notify one particular man - the only one you could recruit - that you wanted him to be in position to serve as a fake chronic cougher, when it turns out that he actually had THREE diagnosed reasons to exhibit a chronic cough under the conditions in that studio?
Much better than a healthy guy. I mean, like this, it looks like he could have had a genuine reason, or three, to be at it. I find that remarkable. Most of us, were we to accept the job, would have to fake not only the timing of the coughs, but also a cough problem.
They deliberated in the jury room for over 14 hours, plus a weekend at home, before returning a majority verdict. What whisker of a chance do you think any defence would have stood, after the coughs had been spotted, had Whittock had no known reason to be coughing that night? But a bogus cougher would have one advantage over that sick man who now has a criminal record: he would be able to place coughs with absolute PRECISION. That´s the sort of guy you want to be signalling to you, isn´t it?
The improbability of getting just this man in to do the required job the next day I find extremely salient in the assessment of whether or not the coughs we hear were genuine.
4) ABSENCE OF SIMPLE CODING
It was claimed on the documentary that Major Ingram´s habit of reciting the 4 alternative answers attracted suspicion from very early on on the night of September 10th 2001. Martin Bashir observed that the cheats´ plan was for Whittock "... to cough after Ingram reads out the right answers." But there was no need for him to recite them; the host does that for you as the question appears, and he will go through them again at least once after that.
Despite Chris Tarrant´s reference to him as "nice, but dim", Ingram is actually a member of the high IQ society, Mensa. However, Charles´ wife and father have said, as did he, that he habitually repeats things over and over. My father-in-law was a Major in the British Army, and my wife said how Ingram´s slightly bumbling manner, his repeating himself and his attention to details were reminiscent of her father´s. Some people had mistakenly thought him thick, too.
But if you do want to list them yourself, then why not have that submitting of the options, at least partly, coded? Imagine a repertoire of signals - you would only need four - where, if the player takes a sip of water, he is indicating´A´. Or if Ingram scratches an ear, he indicates ´B´. He exchanged many words with the amiable UK host, as players often do. If he uses one of three prearranged ones, he means ´C´. His glance at the ceiling means ´D´.
They might deploy some different signals for each question. Occasional verbal mentioning of answers by the player might fit in with this, to make the whole thing seem more realistic. And if you have to use this auditory method of signalling, surely it would be better if the cough came at other answers than the correct one (e.g., if the correct answer is ´A´, cough on ´B´) ? That would be a code. Or they could even alter it for each question, where a cough at ´B´, at the £64,000 stage meant ´A´, but ´A´ were to be indicated at the £125,000 stage by moving the cough on one place more, i.e. at ´C´, and so on. Or they could arrange for it to come, say, 5-8 seconds after either Ingram´s saying of the correct option, Tarrant´s saying of it or the disguised signalling of it by the player.
The media reports contain passim references to "coded coughing". But the Crown´s case is that there was no attempt to disguise the meaning of the transmission, and that they merely hoped that a normally innocent act would not be interpreted for what it now was: signalling. The medium itself was to be Tecwen´s message. Whittock pointed out to the court that using uncoded coughs carried a strong probability of getting caught. "It would have been a very silly thing to do."
Such a genuine coding, of both options and affirmations, could be childishly simple and crystal clear, but only to those who possessed the cypher. People would have a much harder time, if not a well-nigh impossible one, in convincing themselves that they had spotted that scam - especially if it were done quickly and if they, even to some extent, varied the signals. And if it were detected, it would be much harder for any action to be taken, for the plotters could front it out and challenge their accusers to prove anything.
We are asked to accept that a senior college lecturer, a Mensa member with two degrees and an obviously intelligent woman hit upon a signalling scam the naivete of which would have put three small children to shame. I can´t see it. Since the prosecution argued that the Ingrams were prepared to experiment with concealed pagers, disguising and varying a coughing signal hardly sounds too high tech a scheme to me. Had an analysis of the tapes strongly indicated cyphered coughing, then I would be far less sympathetic to the Defence case.
Indeed, so vulnerable is the format of this show that, given that it has aired in over 100 countries, I would expect that such a fraud involving coded signals has probably been used somewhere. But nobody spotted it. I find the Crown´s depiction of this fraud TOO simple, and there seem just too many salient parts of the story which do not mesh with signalling. I must therefore regard the only alternative explanation for this distribution of coughs - the explanation which the court did not hear - as the more plausible; responsive coughing.
People do cough. The Judge´s summation had to be adjourned because of uncontrollable coughing from several jurors. During his sentencing there was a great deal of coughing from the public gallery. Celador staff have spoken of their increasing anxiety that something was amiss as Ingram progressed. If Whittock´s coughing gave cause for suspicion, then why did they not briefly halt recording and ask him to step out of the studio? They could have claimed problems for the sound engineers and/or that it might affect the player´s concentration. He could have been readmitted when the next FFF round took place. They might even have offered him medical assistance.
5) WATER STOPS THE COUGH
Eventually such a remedy was provided, after Ingram had won, in the form of glasses of water. Those stopped the cough. But when observing that Whittock´s cough had vanished when he took the contestant´s chair after Ingram, Mr Martin Bashir omitted to mention that this therapy had been administered. Or they might have told him the truth; that he could be sending signals to the player. The precaution of removing Whittock would then have safeguarded him, Ingram and themselves. Instead, they let the guy hack away and then took steps to saddle him with a criminal record.
6) TUITIONAL ADVICE, OR PLANNING A FRAUD?
It emerged that Ingram´s wife and Mr Whittock had been in communication before the show, something Ingram said he only learnt of a month after he was on. But Mrs Ingram´s brother had been on 4 times. Whittock noted that and that he lived not far away, so he sought him out. The brother then said that he and his sister had co-written a book on how to succeed on WWTBAM?. So who would have been a more natural person for Whittock to contact?
I, for instance, contacted someone who had been successful on the show: Peter Lee. And I wrote to him via Celador, who said that they would be happy to forward my letter. He replied with a long letter in which he spoke of his preparation for not only the show but also the call back question on the telephone, a phase he reached 3 times. Useful tips. But Mrs Lee probably does not know about my correspondence with her husband. I am confident that other instances exist of successful WWTBAM? players being approached by those who wish to get on. As a chess Grandmaster, I am frequently consulted by strangers for advice on how to improve all aspects of their game.
The Ingram family spotted that a tranche of calls made at the start of a series of WWTBAM? was likely to lead to a call back. This tactic got Diana on twice. Probably Whittock had used it to become a contestant once before that night´s show, and then the same ploy got him on again.
On September 9th, 2001, after Ingram had finished his first day as a player, a call was made at 23:02 from Diana Ingram's mobile to Whittock's daughter's phone, which he was using at the time. Diana had heard that night that Whittock would be a contestant on the next day´s show. On September 10th, at 09:25, a call was made from Whittock's daughter's phone to the Ingram´s home, and about three hours later, a call was returned from Mrs Ingram's mobile.
Whittock spent the night of September 9th in a London hotel. That the three would not make even the briefest rendezvous before undertaking the biggest risk of their lives, but rather supposedly secured the deal via two further very short phone conversations the next day, I find unlikely. A clandestine meeting, or at the very least considerably longer spent on the phone, seems much more sensible to me.
7) NOT SENSIBLE AND UNENFORCEABLE CONTRACT
And would Whittock have wanted to take part in this business, anyway? Tecwen was regarded as something of a quiz Grandmaster, so would it not have made more sense to have hoped for Charles (not known as a strong quizzer) to make an early exit so that he could have tried to obtain his own shot, with its promise of undivided spoils and no risk of any undesirable consequences?
Why risk all by helping the Major, a man whom he could hardly have known (in fact there is no evidence that they had ever been in communication) and who began the evening on £4,000 with two lifelines already spent? Of the three anticipated FFF heats, Whittock ought to have considered himself to have a good chance of qualifying from one (and indeed he did win the only such heat that night.)
In league with the Ingrams, he would probably have been on to a lot less than a third of the full million, as only two people had gone that far. But he could have had excellent hopes of quite a big win, entire and riskless, by leaving Charles to his own devices. Diana´s telephoned news that she had ´the keys to the vault´ might well have met with the reply: "Thanks. But I think I have a good shot at gaining legitimate access, and all for myself."
He saw her brother on 4 times, she twice, her husband on thrice and he himself was now back for a second go. The opportunity she supposedly dangled before him was not the chance of a lifetime. By now people were cottoning on that you can get back on to WWTBAM? A decent, family man is to lay his security and reputation on the line for a share of the dosh as part of a cabal who only hit upon the idea the night before during a five minute call as the lady drove home.
How would Whittock have been in a position afterwards to have enforced this contract? He would have been relying on the stranger, Ingram´s, sense of honour: Honour amongst thieves. It is certainly not impossible, I suppose, that Whittock would have agreed, during such minimal telephone negotiations, to participate in this highly dangerous con. But already, at the outset, I find the prosecution case implausible. Potentially, they had hours of available phone time in which to set it up and to arrange codes, yet the records show that they did not make use of them. Why ever not?
8) CELADOR LIE ABOUT DIANA INGRAM´s TWO COUGHS TO STRENGTHEN THEIR CASE
Mrs Ingram coughed when her husband announced the remaining 2 answers to Question 10, for £32,000. The Major Fraud documentary presented this as evidence of fraud. Standby contestant Robert Brydges has stated that he believes there is no way Ingram could have heard her coughs there. Brydges was in the public gallery on more than one day of the trial. Even though he did not testify, the Judge independently instructed the jury not to regard those coughs from Mrs Ingram as any kind of guidance to her husband.
Martin Bashir forgot that direction. His commentary also noted of her at this point "Unaware her every move is being recorded..." Throughout her husband´s entire stay in the hot seat, Mrs Ingram had a camera trained on her face by a man standing just in front of her. This precaution is always used since an incident early in the history of the show in Poland where the invited guest was caught signalling to the player. That´s why Celador put him there - to stop her signalling.
So I can only regard Bashir´s comment "Unaware her every move is being recorded..." as a deliberate lie, which would also apply to his next remark: "His wife seems to check the studio televisions. Diana Ingram´s not on screen but the cameras are still rolling". You do not forget a camera trained exclusively on your face from less than a metre away.
What actually happened, as Brydges and Ingram both said, was that he went for it and gave the wrong answer of the two remaining. That prompted a gasp from the audience and he consequently changed his mind. That is not cheating. But when Tarrant subsequently several times mentioned his amazement at the U-turn there, Ingram could hardly have publicly said what had caused it, could he?
Given the Judge´s direction that Mrs Ingram´s coughs there were insignificant, and also that no other coughs of hers were ever cited, we might ask; What evidence of any kind is there against her, then? Only some phone calls, of unspecified content, between her and Whittock, it would seem. Question 10 is critical. As success grants the player a guaranteed £32,000, plus a risk free shot at the £64,000 question, it is clearly correct to guess when you do not know the answer and have to chose between two alternatives. And perhaps even mathematically defensible to guess when you have to choose between three.
9) EARLY EXPENDITURE OF LIFELINES UNREMARKABLE
Celador staff have said how Ingram´s usage of two lifelines by the £4,000 mark at the end of his first day´s play, gave them cause to regard him as too weak a player to have much chance of going far. I appeared several times on this show and the first time, Tarrant himself encouraged early use of lifelines, instructing us that this did not preclude a big win. He said that a man had recently not known the answer to an early question on soccer. "The whole nation was screaming ARSENAL at the screen...!" But the chap was not sporty and so blew a lifeline. He did not use another until £64,000. I have also seen a man have only one lifeline left by the £2,000 mark, and still go on on to win £250,000.
Tarrant said that Ingram´s early expenditure of two lifelines made him think: "That poor bloody Major. He's got as much chance of getting to £32,000 as going to the moon in a rocket". Of course bad players will tend to use up lifelines early on. But, it is also a start not inconsistent with a big win. Consider this from page 11 of Tarrant´s book 'Millionaire Moments': - "The really bright contestants tend to find the questions easier as the money goes up. They are probably more likely to get stuck on an early question about a boy band, Coronation Street or Aston Villa than when asked later about the paintings of Michaelangelo, the poetry of Alexander Pope or the geography of outer Mongolia". Which perhaps explains why Ingram blew one lifeline on a question about boy bands and another on an early question about Coronation Street, doesn´t it? Do you think that the two previous winners of the million would have been able to answer those questions unaided?
What he told us in November 1999 was the opposite of what he said when presenting evidence against these three people and what he wrote in his book. The stance taken by Mr Tarrant, Sound Supervisor, Kevin Duff and presenter Bashir was unjustified. Using the lifelines early on emphatically does not necessarily mean that you are not good enough to get to the million unaided.
10) CELADOR LIE ABOUT INGRAM´S WAY OF ANSWERING TO STRENGTHEN THEIR CASE
On Major Fraud, Executive Producer, Rod Taylor had his suspicions for thinking Ingram a player not good enough to go far. But he gave a false version of "... the way he was attempting to answer the questions and the way he finally chose an answer. He would make some humourous comment about each answer, how it couldn´t be that because he didn´t know it or it wasn´t that as he was certain it wasn´t that and then finally plumping for an answer that he had disregarded 3 efforts ago or 3 mentions before... But he was doing that to all of them."
That is not true. It was actually only on the last two of his eight questions that night that Ingram initially seemed to prefer one answer before later giving another (except at Question 10, for £32,000 where, as he readily admitted, it was an audience gasp that told him that he had given the wrong answer of the two remaining, and so caused him to change his mind). On the others, i.e. at 8,000, 16,000, 64,000, 125,000 and £250,000, he gave as his final answer the one he had first suggested. Indeed he proposed what he thought was probably the correct answer to each of the first 3 of those 5 questions within 16 seconds of the host´s listing of the options and before any cough was heard.
At 125,000 and 250,000 it is less clear how long he took to give his first answer, as some editing may have occurred. But there too he gave as his first idea the correct answer, and before any cough from Whittock.
11) 1023-1 AGAINST HIS FIRST CITING THE CORRECT ANSWER TO THOSE FIVE QUESTIONS
The odds against guessing correctly are clearly 1 in 4 each time. So to do so 5 times is 1 in 4 to the power 5, or 1 in 1024. What this means is that, regardless of whether or not you think Ingram got any help later on whilst he was pondering the answers to those 5 questions, his ability to quickly cite the correct answer to each of them - thereby pulling off a feat, in a multiple choice setting, with odds of 1023 to 1 against - reveals him as almost certainly a very strong quizzer.
It ought also to affect our assessment of the repeated Celador assertions that they had grounds to consider him a weak player, and the comment of Mr Bashir at the point in the documentary where Ingram had completed his first day´s play: "He´ll clearly struggle on his own." Mr Taylor´s version of how Ingram was arriving at his answers was quite untrue, and he and Celador knew it to be untrue when he said it and when it was broadcast. Mr Taylor´s lies, together with Mr Bashir´s earlier lies and Mr Tarrant´s curiously selective memory, should be borne in mind when considering the defence of the standard of this documentary made by its editor, James Goldston: "The programme was not unfairly or selectively edited in any way. We are sure viewers will have made up their own minds."
Celador Managing Director, Paul Smith observed - "There were coughs coming from Tecwen Whittock and those were used to prompt the Major... you can see him reacting to them, you can see the pattern." I couldn´t see any kind of pattern, certainly not until he had reached £250,000. At question 8, for £8,000, Ingram quickly said he thought that Kennedy´s widow went on to marry "Onassis". Whittock coughed. Shortly after Ingram said he was sure it was Onassis and Whittock coughed again. Ingram gave Onassis as his final answer.
At questions 9 and 10, no coughing from Whittock. At question 11 Ingram quickly said that he thought the answer was "Cricket", and said that he had seen a picture depicting the annual Gentlemen Vs Players match in his grandfather´s study. At question 12 Ingram said he thought that The Ambassadors was painted by "Holbein or Rembrandt", and that he had seen it. He then later gave the correct answer of "Holbein."
At question 13, Ingram said that he thought that an Anthony Eden was a "Hat", and went on to describe one, and then finally give as his correct answer "Hat." Those who believe that coughs, "nos" and blowings of Whittock´s nose helped him to that conclusion might ponder on how any of those sounds could have helped Ingram to describe the hat. For he did so, accurately.
But it was Ingram´s unusual behaviour on the last two of his questions that suggested to many that he had to be up to something. Favouring one answer on big money questions only to then dramatically switch direction, without clear explanation why, was conduct with which they were certainly NOT familiar. I think, initially, my suspicions would have also been aroused. Yet under analysis, neither his behaviour, nor that of Whittock, seems to me to indicate cheating.
12) NO "NO!"
It is claimed that Whittock coughed and said "No!" as Ingram mentioned an incorrect answer to Question 14, for £500,000, and that this was an attempt to influence Ingram. The sound did not become a "No" until the courtroom, and even then it was described as a "partial whisper that sounded like a 'No'". Whittock denies saying "No". It was also agreed by experts in court that the "No" in question did not sound like it came from him.
But if it was him, then how daft a risk to take! Whittock sat in Fastest Finger seat 3. He would have had to have hoped that not only it would not be picked up by his adjacent contestants in seats 1, 2, 4 and 5, each, like himself, wearing a microphone which monitored and recorded all nearby noises, but also that it avoided detection by the bank of people seated just behind him (even those 3 rows back would be a lot nearer than the player) and not overshoot by a metre to reach the host, who, like Ingram, wore a microphone. The plotters would have been aware of these conditions since they had each been on before and so had the chance to ´case the joint´. Even were a trained ventriloquist to attempt that, I would still give the broad daylight heist of the Crown Jewels more chance of success. You simply cannot get away with it, undetected, under those conditions.
The Major Fraud documentary claimed that Ingram had at this point forgotten the code procedure. (In case you too have forgotten, that was for a cough to be supplied as he recited answer ´A´ were ´A´ correct, on ´B´ if ´B´ were correct, etc). So his accomplice had to cough and accompany it with a smothered "No!", otherwise, we were told, Ingram would have misinterpreted the cough for an affirmation that the answer for which he appeared to be plumping - Berlin - were the right one.
Far more practical to let the guy give the wrong answer, and still get away with your share of £32,000, although, of course, Charles had not at that point definitely committed himself and so there was still the chance that he would not have played and left with his £250,000. Or Ingram might have reverted to enunciating the options, thus giving Whittock his chance to cough in signal. In each of these cases, Whittock gets his cut and then the chance of his own shot to come without risking being done for his "No!".
13) WHY NEED AN ALL STOP SIGNAL ( OR TWO ) ?
Later Bashir made out that they had also devised an "... all stop signal". That was for Whittock, who had three nose and throat conditions causing him acute discomfort, to blow his nose. I don´t know what happened that night, but it could very well be that they recorded someone whispering a hissed "No!" to the person next to him, just as they must have done when I and lots of others did so at the moment when the suggestion of a wrong answer had placed a player in jeopardy.
14) OTHER INNOCENT "NO!"s
Although Chris Tarrant has been identified as the most recognised person in the country, paradoxically, in the context by which he acquired that notoriety, WWTBAM?, he is not the star: The player is. It has been suggested that the reason for the worldwide fascination with Millionaire lies in the audience´s captivation with someone engaging on a mythic quest towards a treasure whilst surmounting perils en route. This becomes the more pronounced when someone gets on to the top questions. The other circumstance in which the audience might become fully engaged is a rare occasion when a player is perceived as needy rather than greedy.
The second time I was on aired in early October 2000, and commenced with a grandmother in the chair. She needed a hip operation, the host explained, and, having been on the NHS waiting lists for years, would have it the next day if she won her needed £8,000. She reached that target and was smothered in hugs and kisses. She got the £16,000 question right too. The £32,000 question was :- "For which US President was Dan Quayle Vice-President?" There had been 42 Presidents. The answer is George Bush (senior). She need not have spoken, but instantly said "Ronald Reagan." An incorrect answer at this stage means the player leaves with just £1,000.
The 4 options appeared - George Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford. "Ronald Reagan", she immediately repeated. The host reminded her that she still had her Fifty-Fifty lifeline. She deliberated for some time, and then said that, alright, she would use that. And it left her with the options of George Bush and Ronald Reagan. She turned to him with a big smile and said: "Yes: Ronald Reagan." I, and people all around me, were hissing "No!". But we were not trying to reach the player.
Mr Tarrant remained impassive, and then reminded her that she had one remaining lifeline; "You have Phone a Friend." At the start Tarrant had mentioned that at a celebratory party the night before the lady had met the man who was then the show´s biggest winner: Peter Lee. He had offered his services as a friend to be phoned. She ruminated for some time, clearly reluctant to use it, and then relented and said that she would. Lee straight away supplied the right answer. She paused for a moment, and then said "George Bush." Her successful answer netted her £32,000. Once at that level a player can leave with no less. She was again smothered by Tarrant.
(By the way, in October 2003 Charles Ingram was also found guilty at Bournemouth Crown Court of obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception. It was for £32,000.)
The lady got her next question wrong and so exited. It then emerged that a light bulb had blown in the studio and it took the best part of 20 minutes to fix it. This, together with the extra time spent in the chair by the contestant, meant that the recording time was reduced, so rather than the 3 Fastest Finger First rounds which we would have been able to fit in, we only got 2. I failed them both. The average amount won by a person who wins the UK FFF is circa £50,000, and five have won a million.
There are instances of Mr Tarrant directing the attention of a player to a lifeline even after the right answer has been given. But I do not think you will find one comparable to that from any of the over 100 countries where the show aired - not where a player thrice so instantaneously and unequivocally repeated the same answer as her options narrowed from 42 to 4, and then, after the host pointed out a lifeline, to 2... and only then, after the host drew her attention to the existence of her last lifeline, changed her mind. Still, he was in a difficult spot, and who is to say that many of us might not have done the same there?
So what do you think is the more likely explanation of that "No!" ( if a "No!" it were and if Whittock said it )? An attempt to reach the man in the middle, or a whispered expression of anxiety as the hero is about to stumble at the penultimate hurdle?
The BBC echoed Celador staff in reporting Tecwen Whittock´s blowing his nose at the £500,000 point as perhaps a signal that it was time to stop. Mr Kevin Duff commented "The nose blowing only ever happened at that point, and it´s only my subjective opinion but if you have a system then you´ve got to have an all stop signal." An all stop signal... That was, you understand, in case the guy had forgotten that you recite the answers and Tecwen coughs on ´A´when it´s ´A´, on ´B´when it´s B...
That such an item could have appeared beggars belief. I am reminded of the sketch from the BBC comedy show Not the Nine O´Clock News where a man had been charged with - "Wearing a loud shirt in a built-up area. That was a comedy sketch, but since then a British court has actually had evidence presented to it that a man´s blowing of his nose was a criminal act. No mention on their documentary of Whittock´s three diagnosed reasons to be experiencing nose and throat problems, problems which were worsening the longer he spent in that studio without water to help him. It was, however, illustrative of the absence of concrete evidence. Another instance of known (blown) behaviour cited as suspicious.
You will note that if at any point in the evening a cough from the sector where Whittock sat comes right after Ingram mentions any INcorrect answer, then the entire prosecution stance collapses. Therefore, on the occasion where that patently does happen, they have to have some sort of story to go with it. You see what Monty Python-type nonsense they came up with by way of a serious argument. Also, there are nine tapes of the studio activity from that night, which were edited and mixed to produce the final broadcast. On only one of those nine can the disputed "No!" be made out. These tapes were in Celador´s possession throughout..
15) LISTENING OUT OR HAMMING IT UP?
The Major gave his explanation of his unfathomable performance to the Police. "I had seen other people... not go as far as they could have done... I decided I would have to do everything I could to get to the £1m... just as I'd have to do in the army. You... limit the risks to achieve the mission... The money was secondary to trying to answer the question. I... tried as best I could to delete answers that were too ridiculous and weigh up the options on the remaining answers and if I felt 80% confident... I would go for it. I just wanted to have the courage of my convictions."
Previous players had not read out the options as Ingram did. He offered an explanation: "What I was trying to do was buy time, think through the answers to whether I could get to a confident level where I could take a risk. If I was just quiet, it would not come across as very good television, which I just wanted it to be." I can follow that.
The Police asked about his treatment of the £500,000 question: "Baron Haussmann is best known for his planning for which city?" The four options were Rome, Paris, Berlin and Athens. He said that a "knee-jerk" reaction had led him to briefly consider Berlin, although he was 80% confident it was Paris - the right answer. His apparent hesitation, he maintained, was because he"...wanted to prevent Chris from interrupting, so that I could think about the question. I had a strong inkling that it could have been Paris. I thought back to the 19th century. I have read a lot of history." In court, he expounded further. He said his discursive and apparently indecisive manner when answering questions was partly for dramatic effect. "There was a degree of wishing to be good on television and be a bit dramatic. What I said and what I actually meant were not the same thing. It was a very stressful period. I was under the cameras."
In retrospect, we may see why this conduct looked so suspicious (and after all the brouhaha, nobody will ever behave like that again!). But consider how daft Ingram would have been to recite an answer, saying that he felt sure that it was not right, only to minutes later choose that very one (as he did at question 14) if he were listening out for signals. Would it not have made much more sense to have said that he were UNsure if it were right? However difficult they may have hoped it would prove to spot the (uncoded) coughs, surely a fraudster in the spotlight would have uppermost in his mind how his own behaviour would come across?
Major Fraud claimed that this was because he had forgotten the procedure of checking slowly around the four answers whilst listening out for Whittock´s cough of confirmation. As I have already noted, he had actually given his first supposition, correctly, about what he thought to be the right answer to Questions 8, 9, 11, 12 and 13 soon after the host had finished reading them out and before any cough was heard. That very seriously challenges the notion that he was slowly checking around the 4 possible answers whilst awaiting a signal. If that were his game, then why not just go "It might be ´A´, or it might be ´B´, or ´C´, or even ´D´..."? Too naive? Well, hardly any more naive than using uncoded coughs.
Celador grant players unlimited thinking time. In my opinion they ought not to. Ingram said he was hamming it up for dramatic effect at Questions 14 and 15, i.e TRYING to appear egregious, whilst he thought things through to the point where he had reached a sufficient level of confidence before ultimately committing himself on the 2 biggest financial decisions of his life. I find his explanation the more plausible.
David Edwards, the second winner of the million, has queried Ingram´s handling of the last question: "A number one followed by one hundred zeros is known by what name?" "... That a googol is 10 to the power of 100 is quite esoteric knowledge... but I was surprised that an... engineering graduate made no reasoned attempt to eliminate the three distractors..." (gigabit, megatron and nanomole) "... a professional with a scientific/engineering background did not at any stage identify any of the prefixes, "mega-", "giga-"; and "nano" as most definitely not 10 to the power of 100, even citing two of those options as the most likely at one stage! Does this suggest that Major Ingram's choice of answer was founded on something other than cold reason?"
Again this behaviour seems to me TOO odd to sit happily with a simple signalling scam, for Mr Edwards is, of course, right to think that such a man WOULD identify these prefixes! Ingram says that before he played he did eliminate some. It would be far more suspicious were a simple man (as Celador incorrectly thought him to be when they called in the Police) to have taken what looked like a shot in the dark. Rather than supporting the idea of fraud, Mr Edwards´ observation undercuts it. He is also incorrect to state that Ingram cited two of the other answers as the most plausible. Ingram in fact only cited one of them as his initially preferred idea of the correct answer. David Edwards attached great significance to the number of these so called ´significant coughs´, and produced calculations showing that when they came was so cumulatively unlikely that it had not to be chance. I agree, but see Point (1).
16) WHY SO MANY COUGHS?
On Major Fraud, Sound Supervisor, Kevin Duff observed that a full 19 such 'particular' coughs were very hard to explain away, whereas a smaller number might have been, and he criticised the crooks for going too far. "If they had stopped at 125,000 then I don´t think any of us would be sat here. I think they´ve pushed just that little bit too far." But why did he cough so many times for so few answers? Doesn´t it suggest that the interpretation of nervous, responsive coughing fits better than that of signalling?
Given Ingram´s age, education and IQ, and the known degree of difficulty of questions on the show, it seems certain to infer that he would have been able to answer at least 2 or 3 questions unaided of whatever 8 were thrown at him that night, does it not? (In my judgement he answered 7 unaided, with an audience gasp steering him to the correct answer on the eighth.) So why would he be listening out for signals on those questions?
How many 38 year old Mensa members, with two degrees, need prompts to say who Kennedy´s widow went on to marry, or who painted The Ambassadors? Not many, that´s for sure. Of the other questions, do not forget the statement of key prosecution witness, Whitehurst: "I did know quite a few of the answers. I expect others did too, they weren't that difficult." To repeat; the player is the focus of attention and a fraudulent one would be most conscious of the need not to appear suspicious. If Whittock knew the answer - or even if he was confident that he had gleaned it or had it affirmed from conversing with an adjacent contestant - then transmission and acceptance could be done with far fewer coughs.
Ingram´s story, like that of his wife and of Whittock, has not varied throughout. He said that when he set out he actually had "no great knowledge" about WWTBAM?. The enthusiasm that led him to try came from his brother-in-law, who began writing the book which Diana then completed. He described his first session as "unsettled" and "not very confident". So for day two he came up with a military approach. Bear that in mind when assessing how different his behaviour was to others who had gotten anywhere in the hot seat.
17) THE FRUITLESS INQUIRY
Still, there were those who doubted, and they searched for evidence. Robert Brydges scoured the audience whilst Ingram played, suspecting that someone was sending visual clues, but he could not spot it. Photographs of sections of the audience were taken whilst he was playing. They revealed nothing extraordinary. He and his wife were frisked as they left the set. Nothing was found. ( Marketing Director, Adrian Woolfe, admitted that this made him feel "incredibly disappointed".) All 200 audience members were interviewed by Scotland Yard and their mobile phone records scrutinized. All seemed in order. On Ingram´s first evening in the chair, Mrs Ingram´s brother was spotted lingering near the stage with a mobile in use, but that too became discarded as of no value to the prosecution. Just a random fact. Dawn raids on their homes and seizure of computers, notebooks and other potentially incriminating evidence, including Christmas presents, revealed nothing untoward. No evidence of a contract was ever produced.
Tabloid headlines of late 2001 claimed that anonymous letters had been put through Tarrant´s door outlining how a complex scam might have been pulled off. But the specific contents of any such letters has never been made known. Perhaps that story arose through private investigator, Edwin Pattington? Direct Line Insurance hired him in September 2001 to look into a £30,000 burglary insurance claim which Ingram had submitted, after reading about the doubts over his WWTBAM? win. He delivered a letter to Tarrant saying: "Chris, I investigate for insurance companies and your dodgy major put in a very doubtful claim. If you want to pass my numbers on to those looking into his win, I may have some background information, Regards, Eddie." Curious that Mr Pattington felt moved to do that. At the insurance trial, Ingram´s counsel suggested that he wanted to be known as the man who brought down Charles Ingram. Pattington denied it.
Hundreds of calls to four pagers were cited. Sequences such as 1111 and 2222 were left on them. But Diana Ingram said it was she alone who had used the devices to contact her brothers, Adrian and Marcus, to whom she had loaned £14,000 following her own WWTBAM? success in April 2001. They had vanished in August 2001, one month before Ingram´s win, after unlawfully procuring money and running up large debts, and refused to even answer their mobiles. "Adrian owed a lot of money to various people as I understand it", Diana said. (This makes more understandable Marcus´ reluctance to be seen on camera at the studio.) She was furious with them, and her brothers' wife and girlfriend were left in a "terrible state" by their disappearance. The men eventually got in touch, giving her several pager numbers just in case some of them did not work properly. Asked to explain numerous calls to the pagers on the eve of her husband's first appearance on WWTBAM?, Mrs Ingram said she understood some of them were faulty and this was her way of ensuring her brothers knew she wanted one of them to contact her. Unfortunately, she had never been aware you could send text messages on pagers.
Prosecutor Hilliard pointed out that her brother Marcus was in the studio on the night of September 9th and would not have needed to be contacted in that way. But look how cagily this man, who had very understandable reasons neither to want to show his face on TV nor to answer a mobile, was behaving. That his own sister had to still use this odd mode of contact does not jar with the way he was then seen to be conducting his affairs. Mr Hilliard then asked if she could explain why she had used a variety of telephones one evening
"Your land line at home at 18.03, your mother's mobile at 18.04, the land line again also at 18.04, your mother's mobile at 18.05 and then back to your land line." Mrs Ingram said, "Well, no not really, I just did." It was suggested that they had the pagers at home and were simply "practising" to find out which message arrived first - one from a landline or one from a mobile. She denied it. Hilliard then suggested the pagers represented the four possible answers. "No" , she replied. "They communicated information either to your husband in the hot seat or somebody in the audience so they could help," he continued. "No, that is not true." He suggested, that, for some reason, the couple abandoned that plan and resorted to coughing after learning Whittock was to be there when her husband returned as a contestant. "Most definitely not", she said.
There is no evidence that such a scheme involving pagers was used when Ingram played. And it would be workable with just one. The separate buzzes could be counted and the correct answer thus registered whilst he appeared to be pondering. Obvious scenarios with three or two pagers also spring to mind. The less wired up you are, the more likely to escape detection. Why mess about with four? On Major Fraud, Detective Sergeant Williamson stated that he thought that the original plan had been for Marcus Powell to transmit the questions down his mobile phone to someone who had access to research material. That person would then signal one of the 4 pagers, which Ingram or someone else would have secreted about his person, thereby indicating the correct answer.
Contestants are advised to wear light clothing - it´s a hot studio. On each evening Major Ingram wore the same clothes; a short sleeved rugby shirt and jeans. Also, as he would have known, all contestants will have a microphone of about the size of a packet of cigarettes inserted on their person - usually on their back beneath their shirt. Where were the pagers to have been hidden on Ingram?
18) THE IDEA BEHIND THE LYNCH LAW TV AD IS DROPPED
Within a month of Ingram´s win a TV advert went out during a broadcast of another edition of WWTBAM? showing a man in a pub quiz secretly accessing the answer to a question by mobile phone. This happened to be "googol", which by then the nation knew to be the answer to Ingram´s £1,000,000 question. The ad had been deliberately placed in that slot - I´ve sold ad space - and it is scandalous that this was permitted, and akin to lynch law. It was symptomatic of, as well as helping to further support, the popular view that Ingram was guilty. And it contributed to moving that idea along past the status of an urban myth to something more like an established verity.
It was not just the recital of options, the unexpected success and the switching from initially preferred answers on the last two questions which fostered the belief that some method of answering with certainty had to have been used. Most significant, I believe, was that the full million had been taken. The pushing "...that bit too far" to which Mr Duff referred, may have been the amount of money rather than the amount of coughs, for by the £125,000 stage, the coughs were already considerably more than would have been needed for signalling purposes. And Whittock´s diagnosed cough problems were worsening.
Equally bogus was Larry Whitehurst´s claim on the ITV TV Cheats programme of November 2003. On the £1,000,000 Question he claimed: "My attention becomes focused on Tecwen Whittock - the guy who´s been coughing ostentatiously all the way through. Every time the Major mentioned the right answer,´cough, cough´ bang on cue." In fact Ingram mentioned the right answer to that question a full 17 times before then giving it as his final answer and Whittock coughed shortly after just 4 of these.
Yet the subsequent conscientious yet fruitless investigations caused original ideas about an accomplice accessing the internet to melt away. By the time of the trial, 18 months later, the Police decided that there had been no extraneous communication, and no extensive planning. Now they were saying Whittock had the idea proposed to him the night before during a five minute call, settled it the next morning with two other short calls, and simply knew the answers, which he signalled by coughs (they may have hoped that Mrs Ingram coughed up one, but the Judge told the jury to disregard it). Not even a coded pattern of coughing, such as "One cough for yes and two coughs for no" suggested by jeering workmen when Charles entered the Bournemouth Crown Court in October 2003. Just a cough in response as he mentioned the right answer.
So I follow why, with only this emerging from an 18 month inquiry, Mr O´Neill´s Police source concedes: "I've never thought that we've been able to find every piece of the jigsaw." Some of the Police on this case were also the arresting officers in the abortive prosecution of the Royal butler, Paul Burrell. Having been left with egg on their faces following a previous action involving Charles and Diana, they may have felt the need to get a result in this one, after they had set out, however scant the actual evidence.
19) IT MUST BE TRUE!
Philosophers of science have noted that once people have a fixation that something is valid - and MUST be valid - they will tend to pad that view with all kinds of facts which are not actually supportive evidence at all: they merely represent the already-reached assumptions. This has been called 'adherence to a paradigm'. Many such instances were produced in this case. Indeed, it was when I first recognised several instances of behaviour, which were now being portrayed as suspicious or criminal, that I began to wonder whether we might have witnessed a miscarriage of justice.
20) TO COMMUNICATE OR NOT TO COMMUNICATE?
For example: -
It was noted that the Ingrams and Whittock had not spoken at the studio. Prosecutor Hilliard, argued: "Before September 10th, if there had been prior contact between the three of them, then you might expect that there might have been some contact between them when all together at the studio... Unless, of course, for some reason, the Ingrams and Mr Whittock did not want to be seen together." I cannot follow that point. Charles said he had never had contact with the man and Diana that she did not know what he looked like. When questioned about why they had never met or spoken at the studio, Whittock said that he was concentrating on the challenge ahead. On Major Fraud, standby contestant Robert Brydges said that he had just this impression of Whittock.
What ammunition do you think our learned friend would have made of any noted communications between them there? I am reminded of the moment when Tecwen Whittock protested from the witness box that the prosecution was treating the case rather like a box of chocolates, and ignoring coughs that did not fit in with their thesis. Pointing out to the prosecutor a silent moment from the tapes, where it would have been ideal for him to have placed a cough, he received the response "But you have to be careful with these coded systems, don´t you?" Whittock replied "I don´t know; I´ve never used one." Damned if you do and damned if you don´t, if Hilliard´s the prosecutor.
A roll-over contestant, as Ingram was, arrives at the studio later than the new ones, so time for them to have met would have been less. Note also that after their given purpose for the consultations - the WWTBAM? show - had passed, there were no more recorded calls.
21) NO POST-HEIST CALLS BETWEEN THE CROOKS
DS Williamson said that the Ingrams and Tecwen were not proper criminals. "They may have engaged in a criminal act, but they don't have criminal minds. They made too many stupid mistakes," e.g. they called each other on their own phones. The most stupid mistake of all - say the police - was that they made it so bloody obvious. But there was no post-heist discussion from three people who had made no attempt to disguise the earlier calls between Mrs Ingram and Whittock and who now had the distribution of £1,000,000 to sort out, was there?
21) STARING
Bashir made out that Mrs Ingram´s glances in Whittock´s direction were significant. Is the implication that a man´s choice may be influenced by someone staring at the back of his head? Who was on trial; Diana Ingram or Uri Geller? Mrs Ingram, who insisted that she knew neither where Whittock was sitting nor what he looked like, pointed out that she looked in every direction, but those other glances were not broadcast.
Incidentally, interviewed on BBC News the morning after Major Fraud first aired, Ingram pointed out that there exists a video of his wife for the whole time that he was in the chair with the time code clearly recorded on it - a video played in court - yet on the documentary she is to be seen turning leftwards more often than on that video. He asked how Celador could explain this anomaly. They have yet to.
22) NERVES
The increasingly apparent nervousness of Mrs Ingram was said to be indicative of her anxiety about the scam going too far. A neutral interpretation would be that she was just worried her husband might blow the winnings, and behaved as most wives would.
j) By the same token, Bashir commented that it was no wonder that Ingram was shaking when Tarrant handed him the £64,000 cheque as "Charles Ingram´s committing major fraud in front of a live studio audience". A fair view would be that it is a very exciting and nerve-racking thing that he was undertaking and so he was understandably nervous.
23) LONG PONDERERS?
Tarrant testified that Ingram had taken a long time to answer "... almost every single question. I was trying to work out quite where his mindset was going, which was very hard to follow. It was an extraordinary night. [Ingram's] reactions were unlike anything we had ever seen."
Yet this is false for two separate reasons:-
a) He had seen some players think for ages on almost every question. On the second time I appeared on the show he even told us at rehearsal that one such guy had asked him if he might go for a walk whilst he thought a question through. The host told him he did have a problem with that. On the first night Ingram played, September 9th 2001, an earlier contestant took twenty-four minutes to give an answer. Another precedent forgotten.
On a Christmas 2004 TV show Vanessa Feltz commented that you either know the answer or you do not, and therefore Ingram must have been faking. But she was mistaken, for some people do take their time.
b) But, even more challenging to Mr Tarrant´s statement, is the tape of Ingram´s performance that night, which has a burnt-in time code. This proves that the total time he spent in the chair in answering eight questions was fifty minutes, quite a lot of which was due to Tarrant talking, joking, heightening the tension, etc.
24) HARMLESS CHAT BETWEEN WAITING CONTESTANTS
Whittock was caught on audio conferring with the man next to him about the answers to two of the questions Ingram faced. This, it was said, was likely evidence of wrongdoing.
In fact it is commonplace.
On my first appearance, I think I discussed answers with the man on my left, Ian Phillips. On my second go I even spoke of the peril into which the granny with the gummy hip had placed herself with a lady behind me in the audience, whilst she handed me sweets!
The gentleman to whom Whittock spoke did not seem to think it at all out of order. Waiting players often discuss the answer to a question. Celador would have recorded many previous instances. But they forgot to mention those. And so on and on and on. They listed neutral fact after neutral fact, and claimed that these were of evidential value.
25) MANNERS
Floor manager, Phil Davies, pointed out that the way in which Mr Whittock was coughing "... was rather bizarre. He was actually turning towards the set to cough, so at one point he was talking towards the contestant on his left in a whispered way and then he would turn ròund a full 90 degrees with his head, cough towards the hot seat, and then turn away again." Bizarre? As Whittock pointed out in court, you do not cough into someone´s face.
26) STRANGE SURPRISE AT HIS RETURN TO WORK
Ingram´s brusque attitude towards production assistant, Eve Winstanley, was mentioned. She testified that when she offered the couple a drink afterwards in their dressing room, Ingram declined, saying that he was going back to work the next day. "My words were something like, 'work - tomorrow?' I wouldn't expect anyone to go back to work if they had just won £1m." She had already seen David Edwards do just that, 20 weeks earlier. Yet another example of memory lapse, in the witness box, from Celador personnel.
27) WHAT ROW? NORMAL BEHAVIOR FROM THEM AFTERWARDS ACCORDING TO TARRANT
The documentary claimed that they had a blazing row afterwards in their dressing room. The Ingrams deny this and the only statements to support the row are those of a security guard and Ms Winstanley who both said they heard raised voices. They need not have been raised in anger. Eve Winstanley and Rod Taylor both said that they found the atmosphere afterwards in the Ingrams´dressing room to be tense and unnatural. Mrs Ingram has said that her husband was not entirely happy about Celador staff frisking them as they left the set. That´s not the friendliest of acts.
By contrast, when Tarrant was asked by Hilliard about how he found the Ingrams to be behaving afterwards, not only in the studio but also when he, twice, visited their dressing room and drank champagne with them; "So far as the atmosphere then was concerned, did you detect anything untoward?" He testified "Not from them. No, not at all. They seemed as normal as people who had just won £1m would be in that situation. They did seem fine.
" Mr Bashir forgot to mention that. But then Tarrant was a man whom Charles had even thought had "willed me on" to victory, and had hugged him. Of course Celador people like Ms Winstanley and Rod Taylor, who had searched the Ingrams, were in reality functioning as spies.
28) AN INNOCENT REMARK
As they walked to their dressing room after the win, someone congratulated them and asked, "How did you get the Holbein question?" (at £125,000). Diana turned to Charles and said, "Oh, that was one you knew, wasn't it, darling?" This may be innocently interpreted in the context of Ingram´s stated strategy of not being certain of all of the answers but being prepared to have a go if he could eliminate some of the options to reach a level of confidence sufficient to make him think it warranted a shot. Some he did know.
29) WHY WAS THE WAY HE TOOK THE NEWS SO SUSPICIOUS?
Ingram´s calm reaction to the thunderbolt news in M.D. Paul Smith´s phone call that the cheque would not clear was cited by some as the clearest evidence of his guilt. Nonsensical. If he had done no wrong, why would he have thought that allegations of unspecified "irregularities..." would stand up? Despite his "surprise", the major said he felt it was not really a problem and "... would soon blow over. I was very confident it would be resolved very quickly. In fact we did think it might be a hoax." He had probably never heard Paul Smith´s voice before. The following week Ingram´s solicitors began proceedings for the recovery of his million.
30) NO SENSE IN STOPPING
Mr Tarrant noted that Ingram ignored his repeated warnings that wrong answers would mean big drops in money. What he seemed to be saying there was that he found the player´s decision to continue in itself suspicious behaviour. But why ought he to have stopped? Celador had previously seen only two people go for the million. One was an ex-Mastermind and the other a woman with stupendous general knowledge. They had supplied answers which they definitely knew. This man instead, eliminated what he thought to be the less plausible options, and then took his chances.
The average amount won is circa £50,000. But many people are capable of going far further if they use the lifelines judiciously, keep their nerve and get the breaks. Most prefer to play it safe, like the ludicrously conservative Scots prison officer who declined to use the answer to the £250,000 question even after Tarrant gave it to him. (We´ll be hearing more about him.) But we do see instances of people trying... and sometimes losing.
Early in the history of the UK show a pilot, whom I believe refused to touch the lifelines, attempted one of the big questions, and got it wrong. Duncan Bickley was another pilot and he attempted the £500,000 question, which was on aviation. He failed, and so lost £218,000, but said afterwards that although he regretted giving the wrong answer of the two, he did not regret his decision to play. Only the one chance to win the million.
The contestant immediately before Bickley was a pilot who was also presented with a question on planes, this one for £32,000. He got it wrong. (I heard he took it badly.) The player after Bickley was a pilot, and he also unsuccessfully attempted a question. Certain types may be more likely to go for glory, notwithstanding the peril of the Icarus fall. Gary Kasparov has said: "If you don´t take risks, you don´t drink champagne."
David Briggs is one of the devisors of Millionaire. He has said that nobody should answer a question of value £125,000 or more unless they are as certain as they are of their own name. This well-intentioned advice is wrong. But it takes balls to keep going. It is certain that the mathematical naivite of Celador staff, which they shared with many a previous show player, must have added to their suspicions of Ingram. But it is often RIGHT to play on when you are not sure of the answer.
Many people are very surprised by the maths of Millionaire when they first encounter the statistics. Let´s say you are in the hot seat, faced with one of the top questions and are not certain of the answer. You have no lifelines left. Do you gamble or do you take the cheque offered enticingly in front of you? Here the concept of "Conditional Expected Value" is used, namely what is the expected outcome of earnings if you follow the "Million pound or bust" strategy. This merely determines the average pay-off you can expect, even if such a result is impossible in actuality.
You need to know two things: 1) What is your likely success rate on future (unseen) questions. 2) How clueless are you on this current question. The easiest calculation is for the £1,000,000 question. The break even point is 48.347%, so rounding up to 50% if you can definitely rule out two of the options, you should then guess.
At Question 14 - for £500,000, the numbers are based on both the pay-off if you guess right AND the likelihood of the next (unseen) question being answerable. The better the quizzer, the more you should gamble. Players who normally expect to get over 85% of their questions right should go for it even if it is a blind guess (any one of four). Those players who reckon on getting between 50 and 85% of the questions right should have a punt on a one in three chance (if one answer can be discounted). Those players who are less than 50% accurate should take a one in two chance.
At Question 13 - for £250,000, the numbers are based on both the pay-off if you guess right AND the likelihood of the next TWO (unseen) questions being answerable. Here the odds get even better for good quizzers. Anyone who normally gets 50% of the questions right should take a blind guess, and anybody between 35% and 50% should still take a one in three chance.
And at Question 12 - for £125,000, the numbers are based on both the pay-off if you guess right AND the likelihood of the next THREE (unseen) questions being answerable. Anyone with over 35% accuracy should just take a blind shot.
So, in terms of expected payoff you should play Millionaire very aggressively, especially if you are a strong player. If you were allowed to play Millionaire repeatedly then this is clearly the correct strategy. There is a huge IF however: you only get one shot at this! Most people are not prepared to risk it, and who can blame them?
My acknowlegments to Mark Labbett for those calculations.
On Major Fraud, Marketing Director Adrian Woolfe said that Ingram still being there at the £1,000,000 question "...confirmed my suspicions." Where is the sense in that statement? Ingram had declared at the start of the evening that he was going to be bolder and even said to Tarrant during his thinking through the final question " My strategy has worked so far; take it by the bit and go for it." Just before a book ("Win a million" - with Ingram´s face alongside that of his wife on the cover) was to appear, Charles found himself facing Tarrant´s 15th question. It would have helped neither his street cred, nor that of the book, had he not attempted it.
But it´s not just about odds. Maths aside, there is the focus, the adrenalin and the euphoria of it all. The atmosphere in studio 9 at Elstree is difficult to describe; it´s a unique environment. Duncan Bickley probably, may I say, felt "on a roll" when he went for it. And Ingram, ultimately, was unable to supply a coherent explanation for why he decided to play question 15. "But I did."
31) NO SUBSEQUENT FRAUD CONVICTION
The Times, amongst other quality papers, incorrectly said that he was later found guilty of another fraud. At Bournemouth Crown Court in October 2003, Ingram was found guilty of obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception against Direct Line Insurance by falsely representing that he had made no insurance claims in the three years prior to taking a policy out in July 2001. He was given a 2 year conditional discharge.
PC Norman Brennan of the Victims of Crime Trust commented - "Ingram has yet again been allowed to stick 2 fingers up to our impotent criminal justice system. It begs the question how many serious frauds must he commit before he is sent to prison?" Most people´s idea of an insurance fraudster would be something like a guy who buys a car and then secretly sells it overseas whilst making out that it has been stolen. Not someone who makes errors in recalling the precise dates of previous claims when questioned down a telephone. Ingram said the claims he had failed to disclose had slipped his memory amid the accusations of cheating on the TV quiz show. "If I am worried about being accused of cheating on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, the last thing I do is think about filling in an insurance form." He was found guilty of something which David Taylor of Wilts Constabulary affirmed was "not Fraud." Those concerned for victims of crime might have castigated the people who burgled the Ingrams.
32) NO CASH-IN CONFESSION
And, if it is legitimate to, as so many people have, refer to Ingram´s behaviour post-trial in incorrectly saying that he was later found guilty of another fraud, then there is one other piece of subsequent behaviour which I think could be pointed out. The stories of these 3 people have not varied throughout. A person in the UK is not allowed to profit from their crime. Interviews with them have always been gratis, with the paper making a donation to charity. But there was nothing to prevent them from selling to the foreign media the inside story of how they almost pulled it off. They never have, although at one point 3,000 journalists were clamouring for interviews and by the end of 2003 a third of a million newspaper or magazine articles on this case had appeared throughout the world. The Ingrams even hired a publicity agent, who would surely have soon spelled out to them where the big bucks lay.
Instead, Whittock lost his job and had a £10,000 fine dropped on him. Yet he has never dished the dirt on his two accomplices. The Ingrams were fined £15,000 each, lost their jobs, have been widely pilloried, shamed in the most public way and have their reputations ruined. Charles´ father, who remortgaged his house to finance the defence, may now lose his home. They have two daughters with learning disabilities and sit on the edge of a £450,000 abyss of debt, staring at imminent bankruptcy and loss of home. Yet despite the large sums of money that would have come through confession, they continued to bleat their innocence. Having lost almost everything else, the man continued to cling on to just about all he had left: his self respect. I find that very hard to follow, if they are guilty. By the way, by competing in events such as the Flora London Marathon and Channel 4´s The Games, Ingram and his wife raised over £53,000 for children's and families' charities
The problem of feedback has reared its head before on quiz shows, e.g. Runway. Tarrant has been heard to hush people in the audience - "Serious money here!" - and players have reported being influenced by gasps, as Ingram admitted he was at question 10. It has been said that the audience audibly discussing an answer, or even shouting of it out, is not that uncommon. I believe that if such sums are to be put up as prizes in open competition, and those who take risks and achieve them are to be treated in this way, then isolation of host and player might be better.
The documentary was made purely for profit. Their film will be produced for the same reason. The Managing Director of Celador, Paul Smith, said that it was: "A very funny story". Tarrant said he quite enjoyed giving his testimony. In September 2003 he told Wil Marlow of ic Berkshire - "...it was a hoot. It wasn't supposed to be but it was funny...It was extraordinary and I was going, 'Did I get that right? What have I won?' It was bizarre, a very funny day in court." Not quite so funny for the Ingrams. Charles has already contemplated suicide. ´A fortuitous, supportive texted message from his daughter, Portia, saved him.´
(33) A LAWSUIT WAITING TO HAPPEN
It seems to me that this business was really something that would sooner or later have to occur. By that I mean that the format of the show is flawed in allowing competition for the biggest ever prizes offered in open competition on TV to take place in front of an audience. Obviously player and host ought to be isolated. Then the same behaviour evinced by Ingram would not have allowed the possibility of suspicion, even. And, indeed, he would have left not with £1,000,000 but with only £1,000, for the audience gasp which patently was what influenced him to change from "A1" to "Craig David" at the £32,000 point would have been inaudible.
Sooner or later, in one of the 100 or so countries where the show has aired, some unfancied player who was prepared to have a go would win big. If his performance showed pauses, any change of preferred answer, and audience feedback, then that would have led to understandable concerns. Had we not had accusations against the cheating Major then, by now, we would certainly have heard of the cheating butcher, baker or candlestick maker.
Also after the event there would, naturally, be a greatly heightened awareness amongst all WWTBAM? production teams of any noises off. And so there would only be one such case. It just happened to be Ingram. Celador very soon, of course, realised that another unanticipated aspect of their design flaw was that they were on to a goldmine by hyping the story.
34) YET AGAIN THE ADMISSION OF THE MISSING PIECE...BUT OF WHICH JIGSAW?
(Tarrant) "People are now criticising Celador for making a huge amount of money out of the documentary... but it could so easily have gone wrong for them. There could have been a reality where the three of them were found not guilty because there was not enough concrete evidence. It was all very circumstantial. The whole story of it is so extreme and it's in the hands of a jury so it could have gone either way."
Indeed. It was all circumstantial, in what was in reality, in so many ways, a SHOW trial. In the Radio Times of January 17th 2004 he also admitted - "... we don't quite know what the Major did - Scotland Yard and the Fraud Squad have never worked out exactly what happened. I don't know how Tecwen Whittock - who came on himself, remember, and went home with only £1,000 - did it." Just as Sean O´Neill´s Police source concedes "I've never thought that we've been able to find every piece of the jigsaw." so Mr Tarrant also admits that they have never done so.
The explanation for this inability of anyone to locate, not just a key piece of the jigsaw, but the very heart of it - the means by which the crime was done - could be straightforward: There was no jigsaw.
Or at least, not the one which they were trying to assemble. If my point of 'responsive coughing' is accepted as valid, then that is the missing key piece, but of an unwelcome composite. Unwelcome for Celador in that we do now see a coherent picture. But of innocence. And there is no money in that.
So, I have pointed out some anomalies, some inconsistencies and some untruths. Only those three people know what really happened. Now it´s up to you to decide which explanation for the timing of those 19 coughs fits better with the other facts: Signals between two cheats, or innocent nervous responses? Was it justice, or business?
35) MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING? and WHO WERE THE FRAUDS?
Finally, many people wondered whether this case should have been brought at all. Judge Geoffrey Rivlin, QC said: "I am not at all sure that it was sheer greed that motivated this offence." He called the case "unique". Half an hour later, Chris Tarrant said: "This was a very cynical plan, motivated by sheer greed." and "... hugely insulting to... other contestants".
WWTBAM? had slumped from airing most nights of a week to just once a week. The interest Ingram generated could not have been purchased for tens of millions. The trial itself would displace war from some front pages. Audience figures for and telephone calls to the UK show are now up. Ingram made a fortune for Celador. Celador then rushed out the TV documentary and sold it worldwide. Now they are to make a film about it, with screenplay by Russell T. Davies. They did not have to involve the Police. Apparently there was considerable disagreement in the Crown Prosecution Service whether it ought to be a civil or a criminal prosecution. Several people, including prosecution witness, Larry Whitehurst, journalist Jon Ronson and former head of Middlesbrough CID, Ray Mallon, have said that they ought just to have witheld the money if they thought something fishy had gone on, and challenged Ingram to go after them in the Civil courts for his million. In his Northern Echo column, Mayor Mallon compared it to prosecuting a soccer player for diving in the penalty area. He asked whether Celador were not also guilty - of greed?
"I still feel there was no need for the case to come before the criminal courts at massive cost to the public in terms of money and police and court resources. I... repeat my call for Celador to donate an amount to cover the public costs." And, since Celador claimed they called in the Police to "protect the integrity of the show and against the possibility of any wrongdoing", we might ask: What about their own integrity and propriety?
Tarrant told the court he was "very aware" of the need not to give anything away that might help a contestant. "I have developed a strange, impassioned face that hopefully does not give them a clue to whether they are right or wrong. I cannot do that." He also testified: "When it gets up to serious money, and certainly when you get up to £64,000 and up to £1m, it is absolutely essential. I am very, very aware exactly what I am telling them."
Oh really? I once watched a man face the £250,000 question "What is a Bichon Frise?" It is a dog, which I did not know. Neither did he and he took Fifty-Fifty. He was still unsure so he used his last lifeline and asked the 200 people in the audience, 93% of whom said it was a dog. Almost anyone would play on. An incorrect answer meant that he still left with a tax free £32,000, and a correct one granted him £250,000 with a further £750,000 to shoot at. For most people it would be the chance of a lifetime.
But the gentleman was a Scot, for whom the disincentive of losing £93,000 weighed more heavily in his deliberations than the enormous practical and mathematical arguments in favour of saying "Dog." So he declined to continue. Smiling, but clearly finding it hard to believe that the player would not go for it, Tarrant said "Go on!". Those were not the most guarded words he ever uttered. But the opinions of 186 people, plus now that of the host, were insufficient to remove from a Scottish mind the fear that 14 others might be right. So he stayed true to character and took his money.
And imagine what might have happened had a person yielded to such a presenter´s prompt... and then it had turned out to be a WRONG answer!? Another circus of a court case, I shouldn´t wonder.
You may think that that incident - and don´t forget the earlier story of the granny who needed the £8,000 for her hip operation - is not all that important when taken in isolation, and I might not disagree too strongly. It is in the expanded context of subsequently calling in the Police against a million Pound winner on the grounds that he was given the answers that I believe someone ought to mention them.
After the verdicts, Celador said they were "... happy that the reputation and integrity of WWTBAM? remains intact". But I believe that Mr Tarrant created the opportunity for people to behave as the three defendants were found guilty of doing, for he could hardly have signalled more clearly to that obdurate Scots prison officer the route to an immediate extra £125,000 - plus the option of going for £750,000 more - had he held up a card with "I know it is a dog!" on it. Indeed that door is still open, and presently what is to stop someone in the audience, armed with laptop and loudhailer, blaring out answers which a contestant then uses all the way up to the heist of the million?
To close it, they need only have future players sign a statement - "I, Joe Bloggs, acknowledge that, WHATEVER MAY HAVE HAPPENED ON THIS SHOW IN THE PAST, if I am found to be receiving unauthorised help then I may suffer forfeiture of any prize and criminal investigation." Only thus will the integrity of WWTBAM? be restored. The prosecution of the Millionaire Three has not affected it.
I here state my reasons for seeing no evidence that Whittock told Ingram any answer. There is absolute proof that Tarrant has told a player the answer to a £250,000 question. And he called the Police in on them.
Although it was the Police who passed on a file to the CPS and then the CPS who elected to prosecute, it was Celador who called in the Police when they had the option of just witholding the prize. There did not have to be a trial. Mr Tarrant told a key untruth by testifying that he does not assist players. "I cannot do that." Had he admitted that he is known to prompt, the trial would have halted, and there would have been no need for you to have listened to me. In his closing speech, prosecutor Hilliard told the jury: "The fact that it is a quiz show does not matter, does it? Nobody forces you to play. He (Ingram) was not made to take part. But if you decide to, there are rules." Indeed. There ARE rules. But the British public does not mind when some people break them.
An entertainment company will not let such a heaven-sent opportunity slip by, and, following their documentary, their film will spotlight this matter again. Including such issues as Tarrant having told big money winners the answers and later denying from the witness box that he ever did. When Ingram resumed the contestant´s chair for his second day of questioning, the host asked if he had changed his strategy. He replied that he now thought he had been too cautious when first questioned. So he was going over to counterattack.
In reviewing the standards of evidence presented by Celador, including several examples of deliberate lies in their documentary and false testimony from their personnel to the court, I am left wondering just who were the perpetrators of any Major Fraud. And I would advise Mr Russell T. Davies to draft more than one ending for that screenplay.