Sheeran celebrates as touts led by the ‘Ticket Queen’ are found guilty
A FAMILY of ‘greedy and dishonest’ ticket tout fraudsters were convicted yesterday of ripping off music lovers and theatregoers in a £6.5million operation over just two years.
The successful prosecution was welcomed by singer Ed Sheeran’s team as ‘good news’ for live music fans and a landmark in providing extra protection to consumers.
Maria Chenery-Woods and Paul Douglas – dubbed the Ticket Queen
‘The aim is to simply rinse consumers’
and Ticket Boy respectively – ran TQ Tickets Ltd, along with their spouses Mark Woods and Lynda Chenery.
Staff created multiple fake accounts to purchase large amounts of tickets against the terms and conditions of primary sites, such as Ticketmaster, Leeds Crown Court was told.
They snapped up tickets for big music events – such as Ed Sheeran, Lady Gaga and Little Mix concerts – and then re-sold them, often at vastly inflated prices, on secondary sites such as Viagogo. They knew some fans faced being turned away for having invalid tickets.
The court heard they used the identities of dead people and children in their fraudulent but lucrative trade. A ten-year-old boy rel
ative was used to buy £3,350 of tickets. Fake names, addresses, dates of birth and card details were used to create accounts.
Rogue practices included ‘doing a fraudie’, which involved sending customers ripped envelopes to
infer that the tickets had been lost in transit, and ‘using fraud juice’, which involved correcting fluid to amend tickets.
Investigators found 124 different debit and credit cards from the company’s office. In total, TQ Tickets
Ltd bought 47,000 tickets using 127 names, 187 email addresses and 200 postal addresses.
Jonathan Sandiford, KC, prosecuting for trading standards, told the jury: ‘They were part of a dishonest scheme that exploited the love people have for their favourite artists in order to milk them for profits. This case is about greed and dishonesty.’
The company was launched in 2006 as a legitimate touring coach business but between 2015 and 2017, secondary ticket sales totalled £6.5million-plus while the books showed it made £156,000.
Chenery-Woods, 54, was the ‘driving force’ of the operation. She was said to be ‘ obsessed’ with making money.
Before the trial, she pleaded guilty to fraudulent trading along with Paul Douglas, 56. Her husband Mark Woods, 59, and Chenery,
51 – the now ex-wife of Douglas and sister of Chenery-Woods – were found guilty of fraudulent trading. Both couples lived near each other in Norfolk villages.
Mr Sandiford claimed Woods, a director of the firm, was aware the business was criminal and called it a ‘horrid industry’.
TQ Tickets also bought tickets for the Harry Potter play in London’s West End and the Military Tattoo in Edinburgh.
Quoting the defendants, Mr Sandiford said: ‘The aim of ticket touts is to simply rinse consumers for as much profits as a consumer is willing to pay.’ All four will be sentenced at a later date.
Following the verdicts, Sheeran’s promoter Stuart Galbraith said: ‘Today’s verdict is good news for live music fans, who are too often ripped off and exploited by greedy ticket touts.’