Tecwen whittock biography definition

English fraudster (born 1963)

For other people named Charles Ingram, see Charles Ingram (disambiguation).

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

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

Early life

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

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

Military career

In 1987, Ingram trained for the British Army at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and was commissioned as an officer in the Royal Engineers. He was promoted to the rank of captain in 1990 and major in 1995. In 1999, Ingram was sent to Banja Lu

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

It’s the 9th of September, 2001. Major Charles Ingram—soon to be known forever, eternally, as the Coughing Major—is sitting on the edge of a stainless steel high-chair. He is in the middle of filming an episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? He is also in the middle of committing one of the clumsiest, most ineffectual, but brilliant crimes of the 21st century.

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Question by question, guided along by an oblivious Chris Tarrant and a duo of shadowy accomplices hidden in the surrounding audience, the Coughing Major is stealing a million pounds.

The story of the Coughing Major is a tale as timeless in morality as it is peculiarly rooted to the moment in space and time within which it occurred. The army-man’s attempt to steal a million pounds on television, with little more for help than sheer dumb luck and a terrible fake cough, is a fascinating incident even today. Grotesque in its stupidity, tragic in its context, hilarious in its execution.

Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, which first aired in 1998, was a phenomenon when it hit British screens. At its peak in 1999, one edition of the show was watched by 19 million viewers, one third of the British population. A combination of the then-futurist set, the affable Tarrant and the astronomical promise of a million pounds – a prize never before imagined on a television show – made it the perfect premise for the precipice of the millennium. It was a show that promised big thrills and even bigger rewards. Perhaps it was always going to attract some dubious attention at some stage.

Major Charles Ingram’s appearance on the show was in 2001, but his wife Diana had also been on earlier that year and won £32,000. Not only that, but her brother Adrian Pollock had also appeared on the show in December of 2000. It was alleged after the scandal that the Ingrams were in excess of £50,000 worth of debt. Despite the blustery ven

On 10th September 2001, Major Charles Ingram became the third winner of the top prize on ITV’s highly successful quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

The next day, with Al-Qaeda’s attacks on New York and Washington, the world changed. A few days later, Charles’s world changed, too, though not as he had anticipated. He was accused by ITV of having cheated to win the million-pound prize.

This was straight away leaked to the press. It instantly became a top news story and soon replaced even the Twin Towers reports in the headlines.

There was intense public speculation about how a criminal gang had managed to pull off such a spectacular heist. Concealed cameras? Hidden microphones? What was the technical brilliance that enabled them to link the man in the centre of the studio to an outside accomplice with access to, presumably, reference books or a computer?

Actually, none of the above. The story as it emerged – firstly in the Sun and ulti- mately as the prosecution case at a criminal trial in April 2003 – was that a fellow contestant, Tecwen Whittock, had helpfully ‘coughed’ the correct answers to Ingram.

Long before the case reached trial, the media had ensured that this affair was embedded in the national consciousness. Ingram was portrayed as bumbling and dim-witted – ‘military intelligence is a contradiction in terms,’ the Daily Mirror reminded its readers. He was not just incapable of answering the quiz questions unaided – he was so incompetent he couldn’t even think up a credible plot to win the prize by cheating! The received view of the case was that it was so ridiculous and absurd, it must be true.

Charles, his wife, Diana, and Whittock, the head of business studies at Pontypridd College, were all prosecuted and, at trial in 2003, found guilty. They were ordered to pay fines and costs. The verdicts were swiftly followed by ITV’s triumphal broadcast of Tonight With Trevor McDonald