The organizer of Norfolk-based TQ Tickets Ltd. has been sentenced to prison for their involvement in a £6.5 million ticket scheme.
As previously reported earlier this year, two people involved with TQ Tickets — Lynda Chenery, 51, and 60-year-old Mark Woods — were found guilty of three counts of fraudulent trading by a Leeds crowd court. Prosecutors for National Trading Standards (NTS) told the trial TQ Tickets, run by Maria Chenery-Woods – the sister of Chenery and the wife of Woods – reportedly used multiple identities to buy tickets to big-name artists like Ed Sheeran, Little Mix, Lady Gaga and Liam Gallagher. Some of the identities were deemed fake.
The trial found that the pair bought tickets via Ticketmaster using over 100 identities and resold to various ticketing sites including Viagogo and StubHub, as well as the now-defunct Ticketmaster sites Get Me In! and Seatwave.
While 54-year-old Chenrey-Woods previously pled guilty to the fraudulent trading, she has now been sentenced to four years in prison and was banned from being a company director for 10 years, NME reported.
Judge Simon Batiste told the court Chenery-Woods acted “out of greed.”
Alongside Chenery-Woods’ judgement, Woods was sentenced to two years in prison with suspension for two years, as well as disqualified from being a company director for four years and ordered to undertake 250 hours of unpaid work. Chenery was sentenced to one month in prison with suspension for two years and was disqualified from acting as a company director for three years, in addition to an order to undertake 180 hours of unpaid work.