£30k Lottery Winner, Dorothy McDonagh to receive half her win

Dorothy McDonagh purchased her National lottery Daily Play ticket as usual at the her local Co-op, and when she saw the National Lottery winning numbers was overjoyed to find that she had won the jackpot of £30,000.  Little did she know at that stage that receiving her National Lottery win was going to be more problematic than she had first thought. Dorothy had unfortunately dropped her winning Lotto ticket in the Co-op and unfortunately someone else had picked up the ticket and then went on to make the winning National lottery claim themselves.

Couple who cashed winnings get 11month suspended jail sentence

Dorothy thought because she could prove that she purchased the winning Daily Play National lottery ticket that it would be a very simple case of collecting her winnings.  However by the time the Police and Camelot had tracked down the winning Daily Play ticket, Amanda and Michael Stacey had not only cashed the cheque but managed to spend £15,000 of the prize winnings.  The Police froze the remainder of the cash and the Stacey’s have now been ordered by a court to repay the remainder of the money to the correct winner.  Both Mr and Mrs Stacey have been given 11 month suspended sentences by the judge at Swindon Magistrates Court for fraud and ordered to pay the £15k plus £111 interest accrued.  The other £15,000 that has been spent by the Stacey’s on debts, carpets and presents for their children, they have said in their defence that they did not know what they had done was wrong, and that they felt that it was luck that they had found the ticket.  The Judge said in his belief that the couple had acted out of "dire financial need rather than greed".

Look after your lottery ticket, responsibility with you

Having bought a Lottery ticket doesn’t always mean then that you will receive the winnings in the event of a win. If you lose the ticket then you will be required to prove that it was yours in the first place, and then once you have done that hope that nobody else has collected the ticket and made a claim.  In an article published on the BBC website a Camelot spokesperson is quoted as saying "We have a clear lost-and-found policy. If a member of the public finds the ticket they should send it to our prize payout department, setting out in writing the circumstances of the find and the steps they took [if any] to reunite the ticket with its rightful owner. If no corresponding prize claim or lost ticket notice has been received, the prize may be paid to the finder at Camelot's discretion after the expiry of the 180-day claim deadline."