Builder ‘won £2.5m after pal at Camelot forged winning ticket’
...then they ‘fell out and accomplice killed himself’
A BUILDER scooped a £2.5 million National Lottery jackpot with a ticket forged by a friend who worked for Camelot, a court heard yesterday.
Edward Putman, 54, allegedly approached Giles Knibbs about using Knibbs’s inside knowledge to create the bogus ticket.
Putman claimed the money days before the six-month time limit, resulting in the life-changing payout, jurors were told. But the scam is said to have fallen apart after Knibbs complained that Putman had reneged on a deal to hand over £330,000 and began telling friends about the conspiracy.
Knibbs killed himself in 2015 – six years after the win.
Prosecutor James Keeley said: ‘ Just ten days before the winning ticket was due to expire, the defendant called Camelot claiming he held the winning ticket. He was lying.
‘He did not hold the winning ticket, but a forgery created by Mr Knibbs.
‘The real winning ticket may still be out there, for the real winner has never been identified.’
St Albans Crown Court heard that Putman’s ticket was badly damaged when he claimed the win on August 28, 2009. The draw had been held on March 11. It lacked the entire lower section, which contains vital information including a unique reference number to help verify the ticket.
But just 11 days later, Camelot concluded it was genuine and agreed to pay out the seven-figure sum.
Mr Knibbs, 38 – who worked for Camelot’s fraud detection department in Watford – took his own life on October 5, 2015. The resulting police investigation
‘He reneged on his side of the bargain’
unearthed several friends who said he had admitted taking part in the scam.
The jury was told that one, John Coleyshaw, said Knibbs had described working ‘late one night and something started coming off the office printer’.
The document ‘ contained details of big wins that had not been claimed, including dates, times and locations where the tickets had been bought’.
Mr Keeley said: ‘The defendant would claim one of the winning lottery prizes and they would split the money. However, the defendant reneged on his side of the bargain.’
Another friend, Andrew Sales, who also worked at Camelot, said Mr Knibbs complained he had lent Putman £50,000 but was ‘rubbing his nose in it by not paying, even though he had plenty of cash’.
Andrew Suckley, who had known Mr Knibbs since 2005, said he went out for a few drinks with his friend before he ‘blurted out that he had “conned” the Lottery’ and it had been ‘quite easy to do’. Mr Keeley said: ‘ Mr Suckley did not really understand the detail.
‘Mr Knibbs had said it was not about fixing the numbers, it was knowing the numbers and then creating a ticket with the winning numbers on it.’
The police investigation was held up after Camelot lost the original of the forged ticket, the jury was told. It was finally located in 2017.
Tests showed it was missing the barcode, as well as the retailer and terminal number. Also unavailable was the ‘Checksum number’, a unique code that Knibbs did not have access to.
This contained ‘a hundred permutations’ and required ‘some trial and error in producing a forged ticket until the correct Checksum number was found’.
Mr Knibbs made 100 tickets with every combination, the jury was told. Putman then visited 29 shops before he ‘struck lucky’ at North Town Stores in High Wycombe.
The court also heard that an expert will give evidence about ‘significant differences’ between the forged ticket and genuine examples. These allegedly include a different type of paper being used to the one available in the Co- op store in Worcester where the ticket was allegedly bought.
Devices seized from Knibbs’s home in Bricket Wood, Hertfordshire, included an iPhone 6 that had a photo of a computer screen, the jury heard. This appeared to be ‘the first page of an 11-page document that referred to the involvement of Mr Knibbs and the defendant in the fraud’.
Mr Keeley said: ‘Giles Knibbs has left behind compelling evidence regarding the genesis and execution for the fraud.
‘The veracity of his narrative and thus his credibility is strongly supported by the forged ticket.’
Putman, who arrived at court with his face covered, denies fraud. The trial continues.