UK Lottery jackpot winners jailed
Posted: 5/2/2005 10:45:00 AM
Two UK lottery jackpot millionaires were jailed for different crimes when they appeared at the same court Thursday.
A judge told Surinder Singh, a 53-year-old drug addict and dealer, that he was "not all persuaded" that the £2.1 million (US$4 million) the chip shop owner had won on the National Lottery would ensure he kept out of trouble in the future and jailed him for nine months.
Less than two hours later, Melvyn Howlett, a 45-year-old businessman who won £1.2 million (US$2.3 million), was sentenced to three months by a different judge for trying to smuggle 14,000 pouches of tobacco into the country.
"We've never had the pleasure of having a Lotto winner in the dock here before," said one official at Maidstone Crown Court, "and then, like the buses, two come along together."
Singh was arrested in December, 2003, months before his lottery win, after police found amphetamines, cannabis and cocaine when they raided his shop and restaurant in Ashford.
Apart from the prison term, Singh, who was described in court as "an habitual drug user", was ordered to pay back £3,124 he had earned through selling drugs.
Later in the afternoon, Howlett - described as a businessman who had "never lost the love for a good deal" despite his Lotto win - looked stunned as he was sent to prison.
Howlett, who has homes in Blackburn and Florida, was arrested at Dover after Customs officers found the tobacco stashed in a secret compartment of a camper van as he disembarked from a cross-Channel ferry in February last year.
He claimed that he had been stocking up on the tobacco to hand out free to guests at party to celebrate his win. He was found guilty of trying to evade £20,000 of excise duty.
Source: Telegraph
