Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
My Liam looks Lott like him My Liam looks Lott like him
SINGLE MUM & £108M WINNER’S PATERNITY ROW SINGLE MUM & £108M WINNER’S PATERNITY ROW
A CLEANER claims her son is the love child of a lottery winner and says he is the “spitting image” of the mechanic, who scooped £108million.
Dawn Scully wants Neil Trotter to give Liam, 18, an estimated £100,000 to make up for 16 years without handing over child maintenance payments.
She also sent him and his family Facebook messages suggesting a £5million out-ofcourt settlement.
But Neil, 45, insisted he does not remember the single mum, who said she backed out of court action in fear of spiralling legal costs.
Hard-up Dawn said: “Last year I had bailiffs knocking on the door trying to evict me and Liam over unpaid rent. On the flipside, Neil is enjoying his millions without a care in the world.
“Liam is the spitting image of his dad, everyone says that. If Neil denies being his father I’d say, ‘Prove it, take a DNA test’.”
Dawn said she dated Neil on and off for a year after meeting him in spring 1998. Neil’s Euromillions jackpot came in 2014. The first picture Liam saw of his alleged dad showed him spraying champagne with partner Nicky Ottaway after his win.
He told the Mirror: “I’m not after his millions, although if he decided to give me some I wouldn’t be complaining.
“I just want him to accept responsibility for me as his son. I remember telling Mum she would have been a more deserving winner, she works so hard. Despite that, I would still like to meet him one day.”
But Neil, 45, said Dawn is one of hundreds of people chasing a share of his fortune.
He claimed: “I have had loads of people contact me on Facebook, I’ve probably got about four million kids in this country. Everyone wants a bit of money.”
Dawn claimed she met him while waitressing at Gwen’s Cafe in Morden, Surrey, which was less than two miles from the garage where Neil worked as a body shop mechanic.
It is said Neil used to pick her up in a distinctive red car, with half the paint stripped off. It had a personalised number plate with the letters NJT, representing his
SHE SAYS
I knew the baby was his... when I phoned him with the news he told me ‘good luck’
HE SAYS
Loads contact me for my money.. I must have four million kids in this country
I’d open the floodgates for a lot of people, I’d be doing DNA for the rest of my life
NEIL TROTTER SAYS HE WOULD NOT DO A PATERNITY DNA TEST
initials and middle name Justin. When asked whether he remembered the cafe, Neil said: “Not really, George’s Cafe I used to go to a lot.”
He added of his car: “I had a brand new Rover 216 GTI red one, with my number plate on it. That was my car but everyone knew my car.”
Dawn said while dating, they went to pubs, clubs, stayed at his flat and, on one occasion, Neil took her to visit his millionaire dad Jim Trotter’s home.
She recalled “gleaming white carpets” in the extensive property.
Talking outside his multi-millionpound mansion, Neil said: “She’s never been to my dad’s house. We’ve got green carpets in my dad’s house.”
He added: “I never remember a girl called Dawn Scully. I might have met her, I might have met loads of people, I haven’t got a clue. It’s 19 years ago.
“I never went out with her for a year, I can tell you that.”
Dawn said she became pregnant in May 1999, just weeks before they split. She added: “We never had much in common so we grew apart and the relationship just fizzled out.
“When I found out I was pregnant I knew the baby was Neil’s as I hadn’t seeing anyone else.” She claimed she phoned Neil with the news and he replied: “I told you I didn’t want any more kids, good luck and all the best.”
Dawn gave birth to Liam on February 25, 2000. The father section of his birth certificate was left blank.
Dawn said that when Liam was six weeks old, she posted A4 photographs of him to Neil’s work address.
The single mum, then 21, alleged he called her saying: “Why have you sent me these? I’ve told you I don’t want any more kids.”
But Neil said: “I never phoned her.”
Dawn’s mum Carol Scully, 64, said she remembered Neil picking her daughter up from the family home, and backed her Dawn’s claim about the pictures.
Carol said: “Neil wasn’t interested in Liam, even after she sent him photos of him as a baby. Dawn brought him up on her own and struggled, it was tough doing it on her own.” Dawn, of Orpington, Kent, said she immediately made a claim through the Child Support Agency, but the application failed as they could not find Neil at the address she had for him.
She said she tried to forget about him and focused all her energy on raising Liam alone.
Then in 2014 she saw pictures of him landing the UK’S fourth biggest lottery win. Referring to the Trotters in TV’S Only Fools and Horses, Neil joked at the time: “Being Trotters, we were always going to be millionaires one day.”
He offered to buy his dad a house and gave £500,000 to his younger halfbeen sister. He bought a £5million grade Ii-listed, eight-bedroom mansion on a sprawling estate with a lake. Neil, who went public with his jackpot, also spoke of buying a “fleet of supercars”.
Shortly after, one of his exes Maxine Murray claimed he walked out on her while she was pregnant with their son Jamie, who later died of cot death. Dawn said her family paid £500 for a solicitor to send a letter to Neil after his win.
They gave up when they allegedly received no response to it.
Dawn said she feared an expensive court fight. She said: “Everyone says I should have tried harder, but I felt I couldn’t get anywhere through the system. I didn’t have any money to pay court fees so I gave up.
“Neil is so rich, my family thought we’d go bankrupt fighting him.
“Sixteen years of maintenance is probably just a week’s interest for Neil. But it could help Liam buy his first house, which I’ll never be in a position to do.”
Neil denies receiving legal contact from Dawn. He said he refused to respond when she contacted him and his girlfriend through Facebook.
He told the Mirror: “Four years ago she said she didn’t want him [Liam] to know me at all in the Facebook messages she sent my girlfriend.
“She said: ‘All I want you to do is give me five million quid and I’ll go away.’ I just left it, I didn’t answer it.”
He said of doing a DNA test: “No, I bloody wouldn’t. If I open that, I open the floodgates for loads of people, I’d be doing DNA for the rest of my life.”
Asked if he would pay maintenance if it was proved Liam was his son, Neil said: “I don’t know, I’d have to sort that out and speak to someone.”
He added: “Winning this has been the worst thing I ever did. No one writes anything good about the lottery and that’s why no one in this country, big winners, will go public again.
“I’ve had loads of people after me; I owe them money for this and that. I’ve never owed anyone any money.”