Who Wants To Be A Millionaire scandal: What happened? The real events that inspired Quiz

The Who Wants To Be A Millionaire scandal is a noteable TV quiz show incident from 2001, which involved married couple Charles and Diana Ingram. The scandal has inspired a West End play, which was created by James Graham, and he has now produced a series for ITV telling a similar story. Here is everything you need to know about what happened in the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire scandal and how it came to be one of the biggest moments in game show history.

Charles Ingram was a British Army Major who became known as the ‘Coughing Major’ following the events of the scandal back in 2001.

His wife Diana was a huge fan of the show and had previously featured Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, having walked away with more than £30,000.

Later Charles took the hot-seat and it was during his episode, which was hosted by Chris Tarrant at the time, that the incident occurred.

Diana was sat in the audience at the time, alongside fellow contestant and co-conspirator Tecwen Whittock.

Both Ingrams were convicted of ‘procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception’ along with Whittock after it was found they had cheated their way to winning the cash.

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The original episodes aired on September 9 and 10, 2001, just before the 9/11 tragedy, and the clip from the game show is available to watch on YouTube now.

Tarrant was shocked to see Charles walk away with the £1million prize after he answered all 15 questions correctly, albeit with some hesitation.

After each question was asked, Charles spent a lot of time deliberating and would select multiple answers before landing on a final answer.

Following the show, alarm bells started ringing and the production team started to feel something was not quite right about the outcome.

They watched the show back, removing the audio besides Tarrant’s voice, Ingram’s voice and the coughing in the audience.

They discovered Tecwen Whittock would cough whenever Ingram read the correct answer out loud, and his wife Diana would do the same thing.

In 2003 the couple were found guilty on one charge of procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception, and were given suspended prison sentences of just under two years.

They also had to pay back £115,000, and Charles Ingram was forced to stand down from the Army later in 2003.

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Both Ingrams had denied the charges and they also appealed the court fees, with Diana’s being waived due to her lack of financial independence.

The ITV series shows how during the first night on the quiz show, everything seems to go pear-shaped for the Army Major, who claims he is not a fan of quizzes.

However, on the second night, he returns with a completely different mindset and seems to be a new man with a new strategy.

Matthew Macfadyen, who plays Charles Ingram in the series, said he was familiar with the scandal before taking part in the filming.

He said: “When this production came along, I vaguely remembered the Charles Ingram case. But I had to be reminded of it. People think they saw the actual episode featuring the ‘Coughing Major’ but it was not transmitted at the time. They most likely remember the ITV documentary about it.”

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However, Graham said he remembered the night it was first screened vividly.

He was only 16 at the time, and was watching it with his grandparents.

He said: “I just couldn’t believe it. That was one of the challenges for the drama. Re-communicating both to an audience which is overly familiar with it now as just part of life – and the younger audience who maybe haven’t engaged with it in a similar way – just how shocking it was.

“The idea that they were possibly going to give away a million pounds just with questions and answers.”

He wanted to meet the people on both sides of the debate and so spent time with Paul Smith, the executive producer behind the game show, whom he said was a “good sport”.

Graham also spent a lot of time with the Ingrams and said they were a little wary at first, not wanting to bring the 15-year-old story back into the limelight.

The series was filmed using a replica of the game show set, wanting it to look like the original set in the late 90s as opposed to the new set, which sees Jeremy Clarkson hosting.

Quiz will air on ITV on April 13 for three nights, starting at 9pm

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