'Crying child scooped me £1.6m'

Denis Doherty, a 60-year-old retired Du Pont worker, won more than £1.6m thanks to a child crying in his local shop.

He was in the queue to fill out his weekly lottery ticket when a woman behind him tried to calm down her young son who wanted her to buy him sweets.

"I didn't want to hold things up so I just wrote down the first numbers that came into my head."

The numbers were 16, 22, 28, 30, 33, 35 - and they landed him a £1,655,605 as a one third share of last Saturday's Lotto jackpot.

Mr. Doherty said: "Had I been able to take more time to think I have no doubt I would have selected some different numbers.

"None of the numbers had any personal connections like birthdays or anniversaries and had I remembered the date was 07/07/07 I might have been tempted to put in a '7'"

'Electric tin opener'

Denis and his wife Patricia live in the Waterside area of Derry - and have no plans to move.

Mrs Doherty said: "We're not going to rush into anything. We will sit back, relax and take it in. Neither of us drinks at all - so there won't be any champagne.

"But I do need a new electric tin opener!"

Mr Doherty bought his regular National Lottery ticket at the Spar Trench Road.

His daughter Denise said her parents really deserved the win and that they were always there for the family.

"If it was a choice between £1m and my parents - it would just be them two - I would tell them to take the money back tomorrow," she said.

Her sister Geraldine added: "They have sacrificed a lot for us - this is a miracle of some sort."

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