As a keen quizzer myself, I completely agree that you would want to win and prove yourself right/knowledgeable - but what's the point of cheating to do it? Countdown champions rightly take pride in having won legitimately, but would they really think it worthwhile to cheat and lose their integrity for the sake of getting a teapot and a dictionary? They are token prizes to be put on display so as to testify to your achievement rather than anything particularly valuable or amazing in their own right. I forget which one it was, but I remember a comedian once making a joke about trying really, really hard to win trophies for various things, before he passed by a trophy shop one day and realised that you could just go in and buy them!
The problem is the only footage we have has been edited by itv has it not? To make the coughs louder. I think they did cheat but have no idea how you could say beyond reasonable doubt, because there were loads and loads of coughs going on the whole programme.
Yes, this. Comedy news shows routinely do mash-ups by selectively using footage of famous people and what they say. Any two-bit editor could take a section with somebody saying "I am NOT guilty" and edit out the 'not'. They could even get them saying "100%" from elsewhere in an entirely different context and swap that for the 'not'. I'm reminded of when Smithers mashed up tiny bits from a number of Mr Burns' sentences to have him apparently saying "Hello....Smithers....you're....good....at..turning....me....on!" to sound automatically when he booted up his computer 