http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jun/09/turing-test-e... is by one of the judges, Robert Llewellyn is a TV presenter (eg scrapheap challenge) and was an actor (eg Red Dwarf, a comic sci-fi series). He apparently was a judge.

He mentions a Professor Martin Smith in the article as a judge too. http://www.mdx.ac.uk/aboutus/staffdirectory/martin-smith.asp... [which page I've just noticed mentions scrapheap challenge].

.. and following that line I note that Professor Kevin Warwick appears to have history with both Llewellyn (promoting Warwick's book in 2002 here, http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/news/2002/11/08/roberts-robots/) and Smith .. which might make this a case of him having gathered a few cronies together to generate some publicity?

Is there a record of the event somewhere that could disavow me of the result simply being a case of partial judges being generous towards a friend?

Yeah, I'd like to see if those "judges" could pass the Turing Test themselves.