Charles Ingram

Quiz, a play written by James Graham that re-examines the events and subsequent conviction of the Ingrams and Whittock, opened at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester, on 3 November 2017, running until 9 December 2017. The play transferred to the West End—playing at the Noël Coward Theatre from 31 March 2018 to 16 June 2018.. In 2019, James Graham adapted his play into a serial drama for ITV, which was broadcast in April 2020 in three parts.

A book covering the case, Bad Show: The Quiz, The Cough, The Millionaire Major, by Bob Woffinden and James Plaskett was published in January 2015.

In 2010 he lost three toes on his left foot in an accident involving a lawnmower.

In 2006, journalist Jon Ronson, who covered the case at the time for The Guardian, wrote that he believed the Ingrams might be innocent. Ronson, who attended every day of the trial, had observed that when the word "cough" was mentioned, pensioners in the public gallery had coughed. James Plaskett, who had appeared on Millionaire several times before winning £250,000 in January 2006, argued this was an example of coughs caused by unconscious triggers; Whittock had simply coughed involuntarily when he heard the correct answer. Whittock was also accused of having coughed after Ingram mentioned an incorrect option to his penultimate question and swiftly following that up with a smothered "No". However, Plaskett, who had sat in that very same seat, argued that he might have audibly said it in response to an incorrect option in the same way that other waiting contestants have been known to whisper "No".

Since leaving the Army, Ingram has written two novels: The Network (2006) and Deep Siege (2007).

On 19 May 2004, the Court of Appeal denied Ingram leave to appeal against his conviction and upheld his sentence, but agreed to quash his wife's fine and prosecution costs. On 5 October, the House of Lords denied Ingram leave to appeal against his fine and prosecution costs, and he appealed to the European Court of Human Rights. On 20 October, the original trial judge reduced Ingram's defence costs order to £25,000 and Diana's defence costs order to £5,000. Ingram's defence costs were later further reduced to £5,000 on appeal.

In 1986, Ingram trained for the British Army at 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 1998, Ingram was sent to Banja Luka in Bosnia for six months on United Nations peacekeeping duties. He graduated from Cranfield University with a master's degree in corporate management in August 2000. He was ordered by the Army Board via letter to resign his commission on 20 August 2003 and give up his rank of major.

Following a trial at Southwark Crown Court lasting four weeks (including jury deliberation for three-and-a-half days), Ingram, his wife, and Whittock were convicted by a majority verdict of their offences on 7 April 2003. Both of the Ingrams and Whittock were given prison sentences, suspended for two years - the Ingrams were sentenced to eighteen months; Whittock was sentenced to twelve months - and each both fined £15,000 and ordered to pay £10,000 towards prosecution costs. Within two months of the verdict and sentence, the trial's judge ordered the Ingrams to pay additional defence costs, which left them repaying a total of £115,000.

On 19 August 2003, the Army Board ordered Ingram to resign his commission as a major after 17 years of service, but stated that this would not affect his pension entitlements.

In late 2003, Ingram and his wife were charged with further fraud offences. On 28 October, Ingram was found guilty at Bournemouth Crown Court of obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception, and of a second charge of deception, having attempted to claim on an insurance policy after an alleged burglary at his home. Ingram had failed to tell Direct Line Insurance about claims he had made in the three years before he took out the policy in July 2001. The court was told that Ingram had been a "habitual claimant" with Norwich Union after suffering "unfortunate" losses of private possessions.

On 9 and 10 September 2001, Ingram became a contestant on the television game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, following after his wife Diana and her brother Adrian Pollock who had each won £32,000 as a contestant on the show. To help ensure his chance of being fully involved in the quiz, Ingram practised for about twenty minutes per day on a homemade "Fastest Finger First" machine. By the time recording ended on the first day, Ingram had reached £4,000 and used two of his three "lifelines", leading the production team to doubt he would proceed much further when filming resumed. However, on the second day, he began to surpass their expectations and reached the jackpot of £1 million. However, during this time he began to answer questions in an erratic manner by often flipping between answers, initially settling on one before opting for an entirely different answer, in some cases without pure knowledge on the question's subject - for example, when asked who recorded the 2000 Craig David album Born to Do It, Ingram said he had "never heard of" the artist, and appeared to go for a different option before moving to the correct answer.

Christopher Parker, prosecuting, said Ingram switched insurers to Zurich Insurance Group in 1997, after Norwich Union reduced a burglary claim from £19,000 to £9,000, and in 2000 switched again to Direct Line. "He has been ineluctably dishonest", Parker said. "He went to Direct Line and didn't make a disclosure about his claims history because he knew he wouldn't have been insured. It might not have started off as the most monstrous piece of villainy but these things tend to snowball and it all came to a sticky end when he claimed for £30,000." Staff at Direct Line were already "suspicious" about Ingram's £30,000 burglary claim but decided to investigate only after reading newspaper coverage about his questionable win on Millionaire.

Ingram met his wife, Diana, while she was training to be a teacher at Barry College in Wales. The two became engaged during his first posting with the Royal Engineers in Germany. They were married in November 1989 and have three children.

Charles William Ingram (born 6 August 1963) is an English former army major, who gained infamy for cheating on the television game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in 2001. Ingram managed to win the show's maximum prize of one million pounds, until staff discovered he had cheated using an elaborate method and stripped him of his winnings. Following a lengthy trial at Southwark Crown Court, he 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.

Charles Ingram was born on 6 August 1963 in Shardlow, Derbyshire, the son of retired RAF wing commander John Ingram and his wife, theatre set designer Susan. His father's Wellington bomber, operating with 103 Squadron from RAF Elsham Wolds, had been shot down around 20 or 21 September 1941; he was taken as a POW, 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.