Lotto winners don’t have to bail son and partner out

Court rules couple who won £101m don’t have to keep giving money to son

A former factory worker who won £101 million on the lottery has no obligation to keep “bailing out his profligate son”, a judge has ruled. Michael Dawes, an ex-Royal Navy officer, took his dad, Dave, and stepmother, Angie, to court after they turned off the money tap and stopped topping up his bank balance.

Michael, 32, claimed Dave and Angie, both 53 from Wisbech, gave repeated assurances that he “would always be looked after”.

Michael and his civil partner, James Beedle, 34, said they assumed the cash would keep rolling in and based a series of key decisions on that.

The couple had received Dave and Angie after their huge Lotto win a total of nearly £1.6 million from Dave and Angie in the two years after the win, the Central London County Court heard.

But, by 2013 “most of it had been spent”, explained Judge Nigel Gerald.

The judge comprehensively dismissed Michael and James’s claim, ruling: “There was no basis on which any rational or normal human being could conclude that they could gobackformoremoneywhenever they wanted”.

After the ruling James Beedle was philosophical. “There are no hard feelings,” he said. “We just thought we had a genuine claim.”