The trial of two former ticket touts has got underway in Leeds Crown Court, with the defendants accused of involvement in a "dishonest enterprise" that "exploited the love and passion that many of us have for our favourite pop bands".
Mark Woods and Lynda Chenery were both involved in a company called TQ Tickets which was subject to an investigation by UK National Trading Standards in 2018, amid efforts to enforce the laws that regulate the resale of tickets for profit. Both are charged with three counts of fraudulent trading, which they deny.
There were originally four defendants in the case, with Woods and Chenery's spouses - Maria Chenery-Woods and Paul Douglas - also facing charges of fraudulent trading. However, they pleaded guilty as the trial began earlier this month, which delayed the proceedings by a week.
According to the BBC, Jonathan Sandiford - speaking for the prosecution - conceded that Chenery-Woods "was the driving force behind this dishonest scheme", but added that the two remaining defendants were also involved.
Sandiford told the court that 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.
They would also put on sale tickets they were yet to actually source, meaning sometimes buyers wouldn't get into shows. And there were even dodgier practices, such as sending customers ripped envelopes so that they could pretend tickets had been lost in the post, a tactic they referred to as "doing a fraudie".
There is "no dispute that the fraudulent scheme exists", Sandiford declared, also citing a message sent by Douglas to Chenery-Woods which openly stated that the aim of their business was to "simply rinse consumers for as much profit as they are willing to pay".
This isn't the first ticket tout trial stemming from a National Trading Standards investigation. In 2020 two other touts, Peter Hunter and David Smith, were sentenced for a total of six-and-a-half years in jail after being found guilty of fraud in relation to their touting businesses Ticket Wiz and BZZ.
Many in the music industry continue to call for tighter regulation of ticket touting, including the better enforcement of existing rules, and ultimately an outright ban of for-profit resale.
