The court was told that Whittock owed pnds stlg 20

The court was told that Whittock owed pnds stlg 20,000 in credit card bills at the time of the show.

But he told police he was about to sell his house for pnds stlg 115,000 and was not short of cash.

He said: ‘I am under control.

I don’t need to cheat to get the money.

‘

Asked once again about the coughing, Whittock – who by now had seen a video of the show – said: ‘In my opinion, there are more coughs on there that haven’t been recorded and certainly there is a discrepancy.

‘I know the [answers to the] pnds stlg 16,000 and pnds stlg 32,000 [questions] but there is no coughing coming from me that I can hear.

‘

When it was pointed out that there was clearly coughing coming from the direction of his seat on another question, Whittock replied: ‘From my position, I didn’t do it.

‘I know it looks suspicious.

Whatever anyone else has been up to, I have only gone on the show, done my bit, and sat there.

‘Unfortunately, I had a cough.

I wasn’t trying to help the guy.

‘I still don’t think I am stupid enough to do it when it is recorded.

Why am I doing this stupid thing and putting myself at serious risk of presumably a prison
sentence?

‘I have never done anything like this before.

‘

The jury heard that Whittock also accused police of ripping out a page from one of his special trivia revision books to back up their case.

He claimed he knew that Craig David had released the album ‘Born To Do It’ because it was written in the book, but no coughing could be heard on the show at that point.

But when officers examined the notepad, they found it contained details of Craig David’s singles but not the album.

He told police: ‘That book needs to be forensically checked because there is the possibility that pages have been ripped out of that book.

‘

Turning to a series of phone calls between himself and Mrs Ingram after the first day – when Ingram was a ‘rollover’ contestant on pnds stlg 4,000 – he said they were just chatting about the show.

Whittock claimed he was only trying to find out what the ‘fastest finger’ question had been so that he could have a rough idea of what he would face the following day.

Asked about Mrs Ingram’s manner that night, he replied: ‘She sounded, I would say, reasonably excited.

‘She was obviously hoping that he would win some money.

That’s basically all I can remember.

It was totally innocuous.

‘

The trial has now been adjourned until Monday.

ends

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