A British army major, his wife and a college lecturer have walked free from a London court after being convicted of cheating on the hit TV quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.
Charles Ingram (39) tricked host Chris Tarrant into signing the million-pound cheque after using an accomplice's coded coughs to help select the answers.
College lecturer Tecwen Whittock (53) who did the coughing, was also convicted at London's Southwark Crown Court after almost 14 hours of deliberations over three days. Mr ingram's wife, Diana (39) was found guilty of helping to "set up" the scam. All three escaped a jail term but were handed hefty fines.
Major Ingram and his wife were sentenced to 18 months in prison, suspended for two years, and each fined £15,000 and ordered to pay £10,000 in costs.
Whittock was sentenced to 12 months in prison, also suspended for two years, and was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £7,500 in costs.
The Ingrams, of High Street, Easterton, Wiltshire, and Whittock, of Heol-y-Gors, Whitchurch, Cardiff, were each found guilty of one count of "procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception" on September 10th, 2001.
The verdicts came after Judge Geoffrey Rivlin, QC, told the jury he would accept majority decisions. Ingram, a father of three, scooped the top prize on the game show hosted by Mr Tarrant.
But just hours after walking away with the cheque, studio chiefs became suspicious of his success. They thought a system of coughs, heard to come from the direction of Tecwen Whittock, a contestant in the "fastest finger first" seats, was signalling the correct answers.