Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
£5 raffle for house flops
THE winner of a £5-aticket raffle for a £600,000 four-bed home will get just £35,000 – and no house.
Marty Pumbien, 44, and Annie Brown, 46, hoped to sell 500,000 tickets but just 16,000 went in six months.
The Northampton duo, who will also give £34,000 to dementia research, had a get-out clause if sales did not reach 150,000.
Naming the winner as Kyle Thompson the couple said: “Thanks to everyone who took part.” X Factor star Danny Tetley has been reaching out to children with cleft palates because of the bullying he went through at school.
Big-hearted Danny, 38, who was born with a cleft lip and palate, has been video calling ecstatic children with the same condition between shows.
Four-year-old William Stotty, his number one fan, beamed with joy when he talked to Danny and told his mum: ‘He’s just like me!’’
Danny told how he reached out because bullies had taunted him about his looks.
The singer endured eight operations before he was 12 and hundreds of hospital visits.
He became the first child in the UK to have a set of false teeth at 18 months.
“I’d go shopping with my mum and I was always getting stared at,” he said. “People would ask, ‘What’s wrong with his face?’ I got that up until I was 10 years old, bullying and name calling.
“Every month up until I was 18, I had to go to the facial unit and orthodontist, so this was happening all through school, which had a big effect on me.”
Sister Leanne, 42, of Bradford, West Yorks, tried to defend him from bullies who called him “square face” and “flat nose”.
“Kids were so cruel and ignorant,” she said. “He hated going to school. Music was his