She gloried in shamelessly calling herself ‘the Ticket Queen’.

But there was nothing regal about Maria Chenery-Woods and her family ticket tout operation.

From a sleepy corner of Norfolk two sisters and their partners ran a sophisticated and criminal ticket selling business with the sole aim of fleecing innocent members of the public for as much money as possible.

Chenery-Woods, 54, was the ‘driving force’ behind TQ Tickets Ltd – selling tickets to all the top concerts and shows via ticketqueen.com.

No trick or ruse to obtain precious tickets for major events was too dodgy for these scammers in pursuit of personal riches.

To the casual consumer Ticket Queen seemed like a respectable agency selling tickets for big name shows and concerts, including Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, Elton John, Gary Barlow, Take That, Michael Bubble, Little Mix, Tom Jones and many more.

Maria Chenery-Woods (circled in the reflection) shamelessly called herself ‘the Ticket Queen’. Her daughter Paige is pictured left and her partner Mark Woods is right

Mother-of-three Chenery-Woods, 54, and her team ran the multi-million pound business from the home (pictured) she shared with partner Mark Woods, 60, in the village of Dickleburgh, Norfolk

Mark Woods (L) and the ‘Ticket Queen’s’ sister Lynda Chenery (R) are pictured at Leeds Crown Court after being found guilty

Lynda Chenery’s husband Paul Douglas (pictured) is believed to own ‘multiple properties’ and is advertising an apartment with swimming pool in the island of Ciovo, Croatia, to rent

Sister Lynda Chenery, 51, was officially company secretary and Paul Douglas (pictured together), 56, was ‘Ticket Boy’ or the second in command. They lived in the same sleepy village but have since split up

Investigators moved in on TQ Tickets after receiving ‘intelligence’ as part of a wider operation on major tout organisations

National Trading Standards investigators discovered that in two years between 2015 and 2017 TQ Tickets Ltd racked in £6.5m from the fraudulent ticket business

In a world where a ticket to a Taylor Swift concert is like gold dust – selling out in minutes – fans are willing to pay almost any price for a golden ticket or, as was sometimes the case with this operation, a fake ticket to the big event.

Mother-of-three Chenery-Woods and her team ran the multi-million-pound business from the home she shared with partner Mark Woods, 60, in the village of Dickleburgh, Norfolk.

The idyllic sprawling property is set in fields on the outskirts of the village, which has a private courtyard with swimming pool.

It has been in Woods’ name for more than 30 years ago and its exact value is unknown. But it sits next-door to Dickleburgh Manor, which went on the market for £950,000 in July 2020.

A powerful Mercedes AMG two-door coupe with a private number plate was parked outside today, along with a dark smart car.

It’s not just the Ticket Queen and her partner in crime who live in luxury there. A grand chicken hutch, painted red, that Chenery-Woods proudly displays as the profile photo on her Facebook account is believed to be worth around £1,000.

One local said: ‘They’ve obviously got lots of money to splash around. Most of us have basic wooden huts and chicken wire for our birds.’

Despite having no qualms about ripping people off, Chenery-Woods has maintained a very low public profile.

Her Facebook page has a profile picture of her chickens instead of her, information about her foreign travel, some old links to concerts involving Ticket Queen ticket sales and a link to a holiday rental business.

The only photo MailOnline could find of her was at a family meal in which she is seen in a mirror reflection taking the photograph of her partner and children.

Some tickets brought in massive profits.

Two £47 tickets for the Last Night of the Proms at the Albert Hall in London were sold for a total of £924.

While two £80 tickets for an Anthony Joshua versus Wladimir Klitschko boxing fight each sold for £418.

Selling tickets to the Harry Potter play in London’s West End was highly lucrative.

Two tickets in the stalls were sold for £725 per ticket – a mark up of over 500 per cent.

The piles of tickets found by trading standards investigators in the company office included tickets to a 2017 Lady Gaga concern in Birmingham, the Sports Personality of the Year event in Liverpool in the same year, a Michael Ball and Alfie Boe concert and a Peter Tong event in Manchester.

There was a stack of Ticketmaster tickets for a stand-up gig in January 2018 at the Manchester Arena by American comedian Chris Rock.

A file packed with credit cards – many under the name Chenery-Woods – was seized as evidence as well.

The company began as a legitimate coach touring business but was nothing of the sort.

Sister Lynda Chenery, 51, was officially company secretary and her husband Paul Douglas, 56, was ‘Ticket Boy’ or the second in command. They lived in the same sleepy village but have since split up.

The family would stop at nothing to buy tickets under multiple names and with multiple credit or debit cards.

The court heard how they roped in their children as well.

They used the identity of Chenery-Woods’s ten-year-old son George to buy £3,500 of tickets, including a gig by the heavy metal band Five Finger Death Punch.

Douglas is pictured with former Norwich manager Daniel Farke who is now in charge at Leeds

Chenery-Woods’ TV producer daughter Paige (pictured), 27, was encouraged to apply for multiple cards, the court heard

Pictured is an office where the ticket company was raided by investigators

Pictured is the home of Lynda Chenery, where she used to live with Paul Douglas

Investigators found the company bought 47,000 tickets using 127 names, 187 email addresses and 200 postal addresses

Prosecutor Jonathan Sandiford, KC, told the jury at Leeds Crown Court they could safely assume a boy of 10 wouldn’t be going to that concert.

Chenery-Woods’ TV producer daughter Paige, 27, was encouraged to apply for multiple cards, the court heard.

While Lynda Chenery’s son Jack, 27, was also used to buy tickets. Friends were persuaded to join in the operation – taking a cut for themselves.

They provided their details or bought tickets to be resold and received a share of the profits. The court heard hampers and gift vouchers were also used as an inducement.

Indeed, the operation was far more sophisticated than just using the names and cards of a few friends and family members.

And it seems the family operation became somewhat notorious and a cause of dispute in the rural backwater.

The landlord of the village pub, The Crown, said the family had not visited since a violent incident shortly after they were first accused of the massive fraud.

The publican, who gave his name as Andy, said: ‘We had a run-in with him [Mark Woods] and his son a few years ago when it was his birthday.

‘There were some people in the pub whose mother worked for them and she was implicated in it unknowingly, so there was bad feeling when Mark walked into the pub.

‘I asked him to leave because it caused a bit of a problem and his son put his fist through a window. There was blood everywhere.’

Andy added the family owned two cottages next door that they rented out, although he wasn’t sure ‘if the Inland Revenue know about them’.

He said: ‘I knew the two people who lived in the properties, although one has now died. They were always asked to pay in cash.’

National Trading Standards investigators discovered that in two years between 2015 and 2017 TQ Tickets Ltd racked in £6.5m from the fraudulent ticket business.

Ruth Andrews, the National Trading Standards regional investigations manager who led the team, said how much of that was profit is unknown but it certainly was a ‘significant proportion’ and ran into ‘millions.’

Exactly how much is left will be the subject of a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing in future, as attempts are made to regain the ill-gotten gains.

Douglas is believed to own ‘multiple properties’ and is advertising an apartment with swimming pool in the island of Ciovo, Croatia, to rent.

While Chenery-Woods has also clearly enjoyed a luxury lifestyle of foreign travel as well.

There were also trips to Croatia and the Harvey Nichols Champagne Bar in Knightsbridge.

She toasted the high-life in 2014 with a photo of two glasses of bubbly at a bar – one for her sister Lynda – and the caption: ‘I wanted coffee!! But rude not to.’

She enjoyed other holidays – Renaissance Phuket Resort and Spa in Thailand, and Austria.

National Trading Standards have released photos of the tickets that the fraudsters were selling

Investigators recovered 124 debit and credit cards from the office. Pictured: Some of the tickets being sold

The family resold the tickets they bought fraudulently on secondary ticketing websites such as Viagogo, Seatwave, Stubhub and Getmein, for big profits

Chenery and Woods were found guilty of three counts of fraudulent trading after a trial at Leeds Crown Court

During their investigation police found the company bought 47,000 tickets using 127 names, 187 email addresses and 200 postal addresses. They also recovered 124 debit and credit cards from the office.

Computers were used to hoover up tickets from primary sites such as Ticketmaster, Eventim, SEE Tickets and AXS, to be sold on at up to five times the face value.

Trading Standards found they used a specialist software Insomniac Browser – designed for use by ticket touts. It enabled them to use multiple online identities and proxy IP addresses to buy a mass of tickets at the same time.

The family resold the tickets they bought fraudulently on secondary ticketing websites such as Viagogo, Seatwave, Stubhub and Getmein, for big profits.

Chenery-Woods and her team made contacts from some of the secondary sites to help in their operation. Ms Andrews said they ‘got tickets out the back door’ from these contacts.

Even when the Ticket Queen team was unable to obtain tickets to a concert that didn’t stop her selling them anyway.

They would sell non-existent tickets, with false information about seats and row numbers, at an inflated price. When the real tickets couldn’t be found they send empty or torn envelopes in the post to make it look as if they had gone missing by accident. This was known as ‘doing a fraudie.’

While the use of ‘fraud juice’ involved using Tipp-Ex correcting fluid to amend tickets manually, along with more professional digital methods to amend tickets to make them appear real.

Investigators moved in on TQ Tickets after receiving ‘intelligence’ as part of a wider operation on major tout organisations.

The sprawling manor house in Norfolk, with its resident chickens and views across stunning countryside, was raided with stunning results in December 2017.

Investigators found incriminating Skype messages. In one Douglas said to Chenery-Woods that the purpose of the business is to ‘simply rinse consumers for as much profit as they are willing to pay’.

Woods told the court he believed there was ‘nothing untoward’ about his wife’s business.

He said TQ Tickets was an ‘obsession’ for her, telling jurors: ‘She became completely obsessed. It took priority over me, the family, and it caused conflict.’

However, as well as supplying multiple debit and credit cards he also worked as an executive with Phillips UK and as a perk of the job was able to obtain NFL seats in London to be resold.

Chenery and Woods were found guilty of fraudulent activity over their involvement in ‘dishonest’ Norfolk-based touting firm TQ Tickets Ltd

Woods even provided more than £1million to the company to buy tickets.

Chenery said she did some book-keeping work for her sister’s firm but did not think TQ Tickets was involved in any kind of fraud.

She said she became company secretary after being asked by her sister, but this did not involve performing any duties.

The jury dismissed these protestations of innocence.

Chenery and Woods were found guilty of three counts of fraudulent trading after a trial at Leeds Crown Court.

Chenery-Woods and Douglas had admitted the same offences.

They will be sentenced at a later date.

After the hearing Lord Michael Bichard, Chair of National Trading Standards, said: ‘Millions of people spend their hard-earned money on tickets for music concerts and sporting events each year. Buying a ticket in good faith and then discovering it is part of a fraudulent scam can be deeply distressing and can have a considerable financial impact on consumers.

‘This is a landmark case for National Trading Standards and I hope this prosecution supports progress towards a step-change in the secondary ticketing market, making it easier and safer for consumers buying tickets in the future.’