If Eddie hadn’t been so greedy Giles would still be alive today
Olivier Orphelin, right, on holiday with Giles in 2012 of view was very like mine, but he said, ‘He’s good fun and we’re doing business together together’.” .
Olivier noticed Putman alwa always kept the curtains closed at his h house. “Even during the day d because he was worri worried about people seeing in,” i he says.
“He drove a big wh white BMW M Sport, which he was very proud of.
“His girlfriend also h had other cars she would dr drive and they went to Maurit Mauritius flying first class with Brit British
Airways. Ai rways. He w was spending money, but was also careful not to show too much.” Olivier says his new lover mentioned early in their relationship that he used to have a job with Camelot.
“He wasn’t working, but he always seemed to have money,” he says. “One thing I did think was strange was that he always had £50 notes in a cash box.
“I suspect now Eddie was giving him the money. Giles did have some money of his own – I once saw over his shoulder he had £12,000 in the bank. He always told me he had saved a lot of money and worked a lot when he was younger.”
Then came the day Giles almost
The winning numbers, 6, 9, 20, 21, 31 and 34 match a ticket worth £2.5m bought in
Worcestershire. blurted out his dark secret. In 2012 Olivier read in the Sunday Mirror that Putman had been given nine months for benefit fraud.
He recalls: “I said to Giles, ‘ Why did Eddie need to do that when he’s a lottery winner?’
“Giles looked at me aggressively and then snapped back, ‘He never won the lottery!’ I asked him what he meant, but he wouldn’t say any more. He said, ‘ Just leave it’. But Eddie’s conviction changed Giles completely. He was livid about it and became very worried and depressed.
“It didn’t make sense to me then, but it obviously does now because he was drawing attention to himself and Giles. That was when him being a lottery winner came out in the Press.
“After Eddie got out of jail, Giles and Eddie would go up to Eddie’s office in his house for hours. I didn’t know at the time what they were talking about, but I suspect now it was the winnings and the split.”
TENSION
It emerged at Putman’s trial that his friendship with Giles started breaking down after he reportedly gave him only £280,000 of the £2.5million prize.
Olivier soon noticed the pair were no longer speaking. He says: “By 2015,