Inside the life of Lotto winner who scooped £5m but ended up a penniless benefit scrounger
A LOTTERY winner who won £5.5million ended up penniless and fiddled thousands of pounds in disability benefits.
Lawrence Candlish, from Gateshead, scooped the huge jackpot in 1997 when he was 23 and shared out the winnings with his relatives, including his sister Melanie Batey.
He splashed the cash on seven homes surrounding his own for his family and also gave away £1.2m between a dozen other relatives.
The Newcastle United fan then moved to Spain’s Alicante province where he bought a house he called Casa Shearer in Santa Pola.
He then set up an Irish-themed restaurant and bar business with his dad, Frank.
Candlish though blew the prize money and was declared bankrupt before his dad hanged himself in 2009.
The lotto winner, who suffers from a bone disease, didn’t tell officials he had left the UK but still continued to get disability allowance although he wasn’t entitled to claim any benefits as he was living abroad.
Due to his deception, he fraudulently pocketed £13,365 between May 2005 and December 2010.
Batey, who is a paraplegic, also moved to Spain with her husband in 2007 and continued to claim more than £23,000 in income support and incapacity benefit even though she had received £800,000 from the lottery win.
During a trial at Newcastle Crown Court in October 2012 both Candlish and Batey pleaded guilty.
They both received nine months’ jail suspended for 18 months.
Recorder Tim Roberts QC told them at the time: “You both knew what you were doing was fraudulent.”
During the trial, the court heard how Candlish had been struggling to get by on just a £125-a-week wage as a factory worker when he scooped the National Lottery win.
He split his fortune with his parents and sister and also forked out £370,000 to buy seven homes on the Gateshead estate where he lived, so his family could all live near one another.
Candlish though moved to Spain’s Costa Blanca after thugs torched his home.
Mitigating for both at the trial, Vince Ward said that since his win Candlish had fallen on hard times.
His restaurant business had gone bust and his dad had taken his own life.
In 2010, Candlish flew home from Spain without a penny.
Candlish isn’t the only lotto winner to have burned through their prize money.
A sheet metal worker who scooped a £7.5m prize in 1998 but has since lost it all in a messy divorce.
Callie Rogers became Britain’s youngest lottery winner when she won £1.9m in 2003.
She ultimately blew thousands on wild parties, three boob jobs and drugs, plus around £300,000 on designer clothes.
Eighteen years after her win, Callie was found to be claiming Universal Credit after blowing her fortune.
There’s an increasingly long list of winners who have ended up penniless, split up with loved ones and even been jailed.