Lottery losers fight on for £3m

Martyn and Kay Tott will consider legal action

The couple who were refused a £3m lottery jackpot have vowed to fight on after learning Camelot has already paid out on a missing ticket.

Martyn and Kay Tott said that they may take legal action after learning that the National Lottery operator paid out £130,000 to a syndicate that missed the 30-day deadline for claiming on a lost ticket.

Camelot has already told the Watford couple it will not honour their £3,011,065 win because they missed the same deadline as this would set a precedent for flouting the rules.

It said the payout to the syndicate in Dudley was a "human error" and would not affect the pair's claim.

Why pay them and choose just to ruin our lives

Martyn Tott

But Mr Tott, 33, said the company had told him that his was a unique case.

When he saw a copy of the letter sent to the syndicate saying Camelot could pay out at its discretion, he said he could not believe the company's "bare-faced cheek".

Speaking from the couple's Watford home on Sunday, Mr Tott told BBC News 24 that the discrepancy between Camelot's attitude in the two cases was unacceptable.

"You can't turn round once you done something wrong and just say ooh sorry it was a mistake, because what is the point of having rules in the first place," he said.

Camelot and the Lottery Commission had said that to pay the Totts would undermine the lottery's rules and damage its integrity.

"Why pay them and choose just to ruin our lives.

"I don't know what else we need to do to get the money," he argued.

Chris Smith hoped Camelot would "see reason"

A syndicate from Dudley in the West Midlands managed to flout the rules with a late claim in December for a prize draw four months earlier.

Graham Friend, boss of the Dudley syndicate, told the Sunday Mirror newspaper: "We couldn't understand why Camelot paid out to us and was refusing to pay out to them."

A Camelot spokesman replied: "We are aware of it and we have never consciously broken the 30-day rule.

'Human error'

"In this case the payment was made in human error.

He said the incident happened at a busy time because the company was concentrating on its application to win back the lottery licence.

Mr and Mrs Tott answered a television appeal on 5 March over an unclaimed jackpot ticket bought for the draw six months earlier.

Last week Culture Secretary Chris Smith said Camelot should "see reason" and give the couple the prize money.