Ticket touts who conspired to “fleece” fans of artists including Ed Sheeran, Liam Gallagher and Lady Gaga have been jailed for operating a “fraudulent trading” scheme worth more than £6.5m.
Judge Batiste sentenced four touts, who fraudulently bought and sold hundreds of tickets through a business called TQ Tickets, to up to four years in prison each on Friday.
Maria Chenery-Woods, who ran the business and went by the nickname the “Ticket Queen”, was first named as one of the UK’s most prolific touts in an Observer investigation in 2016.
Sentencing Chenery-Woods at Leeds crown court to four years in prison, Batiste said she had “acted out of greed” in order to “rinse or fleece” fans out of as much money as she could.
In an investigation codenamed Operation Zebedee, the National Trading Standards (NTS) e-crime unit found the defendants had used “multiple deceitful and fraudulent tactics” to acquire tickets from primary sellers, such as Ticketmaster and Eventim.
They then resold the tickets, to see acts such as Paul Weller and Little Mix, for up to 500% above their original cost, a practice NTS said “shamelessly exploited people longing to see their music idols”.
During one Skype conversation, the court heard, the defendant Paul Douglas referred to one customer as “another idiot” after they bought two tickets for the West End production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child for £535 each, when the face-value price was about £120.
“Plenty of them, it seems,” Chenery-Woods replied.
During the case, the court heard the touts used resale platforms including Viagogo and StubHub to sell to consumers.
In another message, Douglas wrote: “Fuck me, I have rinsed some twat on Via[gogo] today.”
Chenery-Woods replied: “Not unusual though, is it?”
Batiste told Chenery-Woods that “secondary ticketing websites and, indeed, possibly some primary sites, were complicit in what you were doing” but said that provided no mitigation.
The defendants were also involved in “spec[ulative] selling”, where nonexistent tickets are sold to consumers at inflated prices.
When they could not fulfil the purchases, the defendants tried to cover it up by providing fake postal trackers and sending empty or torn envelopes to make it appear as if the tickets had been sent and lost in the post.
The NTS chair, Michael Bichard, said: “Today’s sentencing marks another significant milestone in our work to combat online ticket touts, which has already resulted in landmark prosecutions, and sends a clear message that criminals trying to rip off honest fans risk prosecution.”
A Viagogo spokesperson said they could not comment on specific legal cases, but added: “Bad actors go against all we stand for. Viagogo is a regulated marketplace, which means we have safety measures in place to protect fans. Viagogo takes its obligations under law very seriously. When we are contacted by any relevant authority in respect of any investigation, Viagogo cooperates fully and fulfils its legal obligations.”
Sheeran’s promoter and manager, Stuart Camp, took part in the case, giving evidence to assist the prosecution.
He said on Friday that Sheeran’s team were motivated to take a stand against touts after Viagogo was revealed to have sold tickets to gigs he performed in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust in 2017.
“Today’s sentences send a strong message, which I hope will help protect music fans and set an important precedent in the live music industry,” Camp added.
The case is the second successful prosecution of ticket touts by NTS in recent years.
In 2020, two touts who made at least £11m selling tickets for concerts by artists including Sheeran, Bruno Mars and Taylor Swift were jailed after being found guilty of fraud.
In the “Ticket Queen” case, Mark Woods, 60, and Lynda Chenery, 51, were found guilty of fraudulent trading on 13 March. Chenery-Woods, 54, and Douglas, 56, entered guilty pleas earlier in the process.
Chenery-Woods, of Dickleburgh, Norfolk, was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment and disqualified from being a company director for 10 years.
Woods, of Dickleburgh, Norfolk, was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, and disqualified from being a company director for four years. He was also ordered to undertake 250 hours of unpaid work and made the subject of an electronic curfew between the hours of 8pm and 6am for four months.
Chenery, of Dickleburgh, Norfolk, was sentenced to one month’s imprisonment, suspended for two years, and disqualified from being a company director for three years. She was ordered to undertake 180 hours of unpaid work and complete 20 days of rehabilitation.
Douglas, of Pulham Market, Norfolk, was sentenced to two years and five months’ imprisonment and disqualified from being a company director for six years.
• This article was amended on 19 May 2024 to add a response from Viagogo.
