A woman who scammed concert-goers out of tens of millions of pounds has been jailed for four years by a judge who said she acted "out of greed".
Maria Chenery-Woods, who became known as the Ticket Queen, ran her multimillion-pound scamming business TQ Tickets Ltd, where she used dozens of identities to buy highly sought-after gig tickets from stars like Ed Sheeran and Lady Gaga. The 54-year-old then went on to re-sell the tickets on secondary ticket websites, often at highly inflated prices, a judge said.
She was jailed at Leeds Crown Court on Friday along with her employee Paul Douglas, who was sentenced to prison for two years and five months.
Chenery-Woods's husband, Mark Woods, and sister Lynda Chenery, who is also Douglas's ex-wife, were given suspended prison sentences by Judge Simon Batiste. Chenery-Woods and Douglas admitted to fraudulent trading, but the pair were convicted by a jury earlier this year, where it was revealed TQ Tickets sold tickets worth more than £6.5 million between 2015 and 2017.
But Judge Batiste said this was a downplayed figure, as it only covered a period when the company was trading and did not account for the hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of unsold tickets trading standards officers found during a raid of its offices in the Dickleburgh, Norfolk.
Judge Batiste said: "What was being done was purely to maximise profit and out of greed." He said: "Your aim was to rinse or fleece customers out of as much money as you could."
Chenery-Woods, of Dickleburgh, Norfolk, and Douglas, 57, of Pulham Market, Norfolk, admitted three counts of fraudulent trading earlier this year. Chenery, 52, and Woods, 60, both of Dickleburgh, were found guilty of the same charges.
Woods was given a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years, and was ordered to do 250 hours of unpaid work. He was also given an electronically monitored curfew between 8pm and 6am for four months.
Chenery, who sobbed uncontrollably while being sentenced, was slapped with a 21-month jail sentence, suspended for two years. She was also ordered to do 180 hours of unpaid work with a 20 day rehabilitation activity requirement.