‘I lost everything after £1.8m lottery jackpot – my mansion burned down and my husband left me'

Lara Griffiths, 54, was the archetypal ever online National Lottery victor but mislaid everything aft landing the £1.8 cardinal jackpot astir 20 years agone – including her location and her husband

Lara Griffiths could ne'er person predicted the “absolute hell” she’d spell done aft winning the lottery. She and her hubby Roger were successful their mid-thirties and surviving successful West Yorkshire erstwhile they won £1.8 million. But everything fell isolated successful the years that followed, arsenic the mates went done a location occurrence and a divorcement – and ended up spending each the money.

“There wasn’t truly immoderate communal consciousness progressive astatine the time. I don’t adjacent callback a speech with Roger astir however to negociate the wealth – I conscionable retrieve determination was an atrocious batch of panic and absurdity,” Lara, 54, says. Lara and Roger, who had met astatine assemblage and joined successful 1997, won the lottery successful October 2005 erstwhile she worked arsenic a performing arts teacher and helium was an IT manager. Their eldest daughter, Ruby, was 22 months old.

The mates were the archetypal online winners and they received an email to alert them to “exciting news” astir their ticket. “It was astir 2.30am and Roger started calling maine upstairs to look astatine the machine screen, which said our equilibrium was £1.8 million,” Lara recalls. “We didn’t judge it was existent – I was convinced it was a prank.”

However, Camelot, the relation of the National Lottery astatine the time, verified the triumph implicit the telephone and the brace went public.

They soon started spending without a 2nd thought. They discontinue their jobs, jetted disconnected to locations specified arsenic Dubai, Florida and France, bought a quality salon for £150,000 and moved into a £450,000 barn conversion. However, their bully luck didn’t past long.

In December 2010, their lavish caller location went up successful flames. “We had a catastrophic location fire,” Lara recalls. “The full spot burned down portion I was astatine work, but Roger, the 2 children and the dogs were inside. It was a nightmare – we mislaid each of our possessions too. We didn’t adjacent person apparel to wear. Our location burned for 3 days.”

The household stayed successful hotels and with Lara’s parent for the adjacent 8 months portion their location was made liveable again. Lara says the origin of the inferno, which started successful the inferior room, has ne'er been determined contempt an probe being carried out. “Nobody was injured, but my girl Kitty inactive has immoderate PTSD issues from the fire,” she says.

They moved backmost successful July 2011, but the misery continued for Lara and a fewer months aboriginal her matrimony to Roger ended. She says the pursuing 2 years were “absolute hell” arsenic she was trying to rise her 2 daughters portion grieving the extremity of her marriage. By the clip their divorcement was finalised successful December 2013, she says they had nary wealth left.

“I had to merchantability the house, merchantability my concern and past merchantability everything that I owned,” she says. “It was an implicit disaster. It truly was awful. I’ve got Crohn’s illness – I was astir 6st astatine that point. But I was conscionable trying to support the children contented and not suffer my mind.”

Lara had nary prime but to trust connected her mum financially for a year. She lives successful the aforesaid location arsenic her mum and daughters Ruby, 20, and Kitty, 17, to this day. She retrained arsenic a tattooist and runs a workplace successful her garden. Despite each of the anguish she experienced since her lottery win, Lara insists, “I emotion my beingness now. OK, I’ve been done immoderate truly hard moments, but I don’t regret winning. I regret not having the wealth immoderate more, but I program to marque it backmost somehow.”