One of the people facing charges of fraudulent trading in relation to ticket touting operation TQ Tickets has told a court that he had no active involvement in the venture. It was his wife's business, Mark Woods said, and his listing as a director of the company was a mere formality.
Woods "didn't take a great deal of interest" in TQ Tickets, he told Leeds Crown Court, according to the BBC. "I knew Maria was running a ticket and travel company, I knew she was involved in that market", he added. "I was perfectly satisfied that there was nothing untoward about what she was doing".
As a result, he said, his arrest in 2017 as part of a National Trading Standards investigation into unlawful ticket touting was "a bolt out of the blue". That investigation was part of efforts by the UK government to enforce laws that regulate the unofficial resale of tickets for profit.
According to prosecutors, TQ Tickets resold tickets on an industrial scale - bringing in around £6.5 million between June 2015 and December 2017 - via resale sites like Viagogo. In order to access tickets they ran a scheme to circumvent restrictions put in place by official ticket sellers, using "corrupted" students and fictional identities to buy tickets from primary sites.
There were originally four defendants in the case. However, two of them - Maria Chenery-Woods and Paul Douglas - pleaded guilty as the trial got underway last month. Therefore it is Mark Woods and Lynda Chenery - the latter Douglas's wife and Chenery-Woods's sister - who are the focus of the court proceedings.
Woods told the court that he agreed to be a director of TQ Tickets because when the company was established his wife was bankrupt from the collapse of a previous business and therefore couldn't fulfil that role. He "decided to give Maria one last chance" when helping her with the formalities of setting up a limited company.
He also admitted in court that he was aware that his wife was using his credit cards for her company. Having access to extra credit cards is important for touts looking to access large numbers of tickets for in demand events. Woods said he thought his cards were being used to "pay invoices", adding, "I knew my cards were being used but I didn't get any summary or update".
The trial continues.