'Millionaire' Cough Plan Could Have Been Fallback
Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2003 12:48 pm
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LONDON (Reuters) - The bizarre coughing plan used by three cheats to con their way to the jackpot on worldwide hit TV quiz show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" may have only been concocted on the night of the show.
British Major Charles Ingram, his wife Diana, and their accomplice Tecwen Whittock, were found guilty on Monday of cheating to win the top prize, had considered using four silent vibrating pagers to indicate the right answer but decided later to abandon the idea.
"It looks as if the point was to make the particular pager of the four vibrate, and the significance appears to be in which particular pager is activated," prosecutor Nicholas Hilliard told Southwark Crown Court during the case.
"It's feasible they hatched it (the coughing plan) on the night," one detective said afterwards.
"The plan involving pagers somehow didn't work and wasn't used and the fallback was that two heads were better than one."
Instead Whittock, a TV quiz show veteran who has appeared on numerous such programs, and his wife helped Ingram answer all 15 question correctly by coughing at appropriate times.
Ingram had struggled to on the first day of filming, using up two of three helping hands known as "life lines" -- "phone a friend" and "ask the audience."
But the following day, he told host Chris Tarrant he would be "more positive" and go on the counter-attack.
When asked which pop group released an album titled "Born to Do it," he selected Craig David (news) -- who he had earlier dismissed saying "I have never heard of him" -- after his wife coughed twice and there was a gasp from the audience.
Later on, while considering the 500,000 pound question -- Baron Haussmann is best known for planning which city? -- Ingram was set to plump for Berlin until he heard a cough that sounded like someone saying "no."
He then chose Paris after further coughs were heard.
The judge described the case as unprecedented, played out as it was in front of television cameras.
It has been likened to the infamous fixing of 1950s U.S. quiz show "Twenty One" in which the producer gave contestants the correct answers.
Unlike the "Millionaire" case, the producer in that case, Dan Enright, was merely hoping to boost ratings for the show. However the deceit led to a Congressional inquiry which found many such shows were a fraud.
"The allegation of illegally obtaining a million pounds is a serious offence," Detective Inspector Chris White told reporters. "The vehicle just happened to be a quiz show."
LONDON (Reuters) - The bizarre coughing plan used by three cheats to con their way to the jackpot on worldwide hit TV quiz show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" may have only been concocted on the night of the show.
British Major Charles Ingram, his wife Diana, and their accomplice Tecwen Whittock, were found guilty on Monday of cheating to win the top prize, had considered using four silent vibrating pagers to indicate the right answer but decided later to abandon the idea.
"It looks as if the point was to make the particular pager of the four vibrate, and the significance appears to be in which particular pager is activated," prosecutor Nicholas Hilliard told Southwark Crown Court during the case.
"It's feasible they hatched it (the coughing plan) on the night," one detective said afterwards.
"The plan involving pagers somehow didn't work and wasn't used and the fallback was that two heads were better than one."
Instead Whittock, a TV quiz show veteran who has appeared on numerous such programs, and his wife helped Ingram answer all 15 question correctly by coughing at appropriate times.
Ingram had struggled to on the first day of filming, using up two of three helping hands known as "life lines" -- "phone a friend" and "ask the audience."
But the following day, he told host Chris Tarrant he would be "more positive" and go on the counter-attack.
When asked which pop group released an album titled "Born to Do it," he selected Craig David (news) -- who he had earlier dismissed saying "I have never heard of him" -- after his wife coughed twice and there was a gasp from the audience.
Later on, while considering the 500,000 pound question -- Baron Haussmann is best known for planning which city? -- Ingram was set to plump for Berlin until he heard a cough that sounded like someone saying "no."
He then chose Paris after further coughs were heard.
The judge described the case as unprecedented, played out as it was in front of television cameras.
It has been likened to the infamous fixing of 1950s U.S. quiz show "Twenty One" in which the producer gave contestants the correct answers.
Unlike the "Millionaire" case, the producer in that case, Dan Enright, was merely hoping to boost ratings for the show. However the deceit led to a Congressional inquiry which found many such shows were a fraud.
"The allegation of illegally obtaining a million pounds is a serious offence," Detective Inspector Chris White told reporters. "The vehicle just happened to be a quiz show."
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