Millionaire jury returns

Millionaire jury returns

Mr Ingram and his wife Diana deny cheating

Jurors in the trial of an army major accused of cheating TV quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? have resumed deliberations after one of them was discharged on Thursday.

Charles Ingram and his wife Diana, both 39, are accused of cheating with the help of deliberately timed coughs by college lecturer Tecwen Whittock.

All three deny "procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception" - namely £1m on 10 September 2001.

High stakes

At the start of Thursday, Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC told Southwark Crown Court a "matter had arisen" unrelated to the defendants and he asked the jurors to adjourn for the morning.

He called them back at 1430BST to discharge one of them - for undisclosed legal reasons - and send the remaining eight women and three men home for the night.

In his summing-up on Wednesday, the judge told the jury not to be over-critical.

"This was, after all, a game show although the stakes proved to be very high," the judge said.

Mr Ingram and his wife Diana deny cheating

The prosecution had contended Mr Whittock, 53, from Cardiff, a "fastest finger first" contestant at the time, had used a series of coughs to guide Mr Ingram to most of the right answers.

The officer's wife was accused of helping to set "the fraud" up.

But the officer and his wife, of High Street, Easterton, Wiltshire, have both insisted he won the £1m prize money fairly.

Mr Whittock, who is head of business studies at Pontypridd College, south Wales, has told the court his coughs were genuine and random and had nothing to do with the officer's answers.