Lotto court saga is f inally at an end for winner and stepson
Row over €3.4m jackpot from a 2011 draw is settled
THE long-running saga of a Lotto winner who had been told to pay her stepson €565,000 of a €3.38million jackpot has finally ended after her appeal against the ruling was allowed by a court yesterday.
The feuding pair reached a settlement – the terms of which were not made public – after the court heard the matter was ‘resolved entirely’.
Last year 66-year-old Galway hairdresser Mary Walsh was sued by stepson David Walsh for failing to distribute the proceeds of a 2011 ‘family syndicate’ Lotto win equally, leaving him with nothing.
The mother of two had won the jackpot with a ticket signed by six family members including herself. She used a chunk of the winnings to purchase a mansion called Perssepark in Ballinasloe, Galway, the High Court was told at the time.
She gave gifts of as little as €100,000 to one signatory – a nephew of her husband – and effectively decided that Mr Walsh didn’t deserve a cent of her win.
The courts heard the biggest gift she gave was €456,000 to one of her sons even though an equal one-sixth share of the €3.38million prize money came to €564,965.
Mr Walsh, a 52-year-old painter and decorator, won his High Court case in February 2017 when Judge Richard Humphreys broadly rejected his stepmother’s version of events and awarded Mr Walsh €564,965.
Judge Humphreys said Mrs Walsh was a woman ‘capable of very significant calculation and design’.
Mr Walsh, of Knocknagreena, Ballinasloe, Co. Galway, had been fighting his stepmother for his one-sixth share of the Lotto win through the courts since 2013 and finally won his case in 2017.
But, as revealed by the Irish Daily Mail in February of last year, Mrs Walsh lodged an appeal against the decision.
Mrs Walsh’s assets had been frozen by the High Court after Mr Walsh won his case though this ruling was later varied by the Court of Appeal to allow her to access some of her money.
Her appeal had been due to be heard in full by the Court of Appeal later this year.
Yesterday, in a twist in the saga, Dervla Browne SC, for David Walsh, told appeal judge Ms Justice Mary Irvine the case was ‘resolved entirely’.
Ms Browne said that by agreement between the two sides ‘the appeal will be allowed’.
She said that under the agreed deal, the High Court’s order for Mrs Walsh to pay her stepson just under €565,000 will be scrapped.
Mr Walsh’s original High Court case against his stepmother was also struck out by agreement
The €12 winning ticket was sold on January 22, 2011, at Salmon’s Department Store in Main Street, Ballinasloe, Co. Galway.
Mrs Walsh collected the €3.38million winnings – but chose not to distribute equal €564,956 shares among the family members who had signed the back of the ticket.
Mrs Walsh revealed to the High Court last year she was ‘absolutely stunned’ to discover she had won the Lotto, but the reaction of her husband Peter – David’s father, who died later that year – was rather more lacklustre.
Mrs Walsh said she had selected ‘the same numbers I always did’ for the National Lottery draw of Saturday, January 22, 2011, and didn’t check her ticket until she went online 24 hours later.
The businesswoman told the High Court last year: ‘I didn’t check my numbers until the Sunday night. I’d forgotten all about the numbers so I went online and checked… All the numbers came out in a row and I was absolutely stunned. I couldn’t believe it. I had to check a couple of times.’
She went on: ‘I went into the bedroom and I said [to Peter], “I think I won the Lotto”. Peter said ‘Oh, that’s grand’, and went back to sleep again.’
The following morning, she rang Lotto headquarters to ‘verify my win,’ she told Judge Richard Humphreys.
The official she spoke to ‘asked me was it a sole winner or a syndicate. I said a sole winner,’ Mrs Walsh claimed.
She claimed the official ‘then advised me to sign the back of the ticket. ‘He asked had I any family and I said yes, I had. He said, “If you wish to give gifts of money to friends or relations, get them to sign the back of the ticket for tax purposes”.’
The lottery ticket was one of two winning tickets drawn in a jackpot prize of €6.7million.
Case has been ‘resolved entirely’ ‘Advised me to sign back of the ticket’