Tragic £160m Scots Lotto winner spent HALF his fortune
Incredible generosity of Scot who scooped £161 million jackpot revealed in his will (and his beloved SNP didn’t get a penny!)
AS he popped champagne corks on a summer lawn nine years ago, lottery winner Colin Weir’s fame became as huge as his enormous bank balance. He and his wife Christine had just scooped an incredible £161 million on the Euromillions draw. It was Europe’s biggest ever jackpot win. Not surprisingly, it changed their lives in the most unimaginable and unpredictable way. Following that heady July day in 2011 when they hugged, kissed and celebrated their fortune, however, Mr Weir separated and divorced from his wife of 38 years. He suffered from debilitating illnesses and, tragically, the father of two died in December – but not before he had, incredibly, spent or given away half of his reported £80 million share of the jackpot win.
Today, the remarkable details of the 71-year-old’s will can be made public for the first time.
It is an astonishing insight into what the former TV cameraman spent his vast fortune on – and how he used his good luck to help others.
Ironically, Mr Weir, a once ardent supporter of the SNP who donated millions to its coffers, appears to have bequeathed nothing to the party. His will, lodged at Ayr Sheriff Court last week, shows that Mr Weir’s estate stood at £40,812,683.22 at his death.
The main beneficiaries of a discretionary trust fund set up to manage his legacy are his children, Carly, 32, and 30-year-old Jamie, their partners and any descendants, as well as the trusts and charities close to his heart.
But the will also reflects a man content with his lot and someone able to take or leave luxury trappings.
At the time of his death on December 27, he lived in a £1.1 million five-bedroomed seafront home in Ayr which he bought in 2018 following the breakdown of his marriage. Meanwhile, he signed over sole ownership of the couple’s £3.5 million mansion, Frognal House, near Troon, to Mrs Weir, a former psychiatric nurse.
They reportedly bought the property, along with its furniture and fittings, four years earlier after a ten-minute viewing.
Among his final listed assets are furniture, jewellery and artworks valued at around £212,000, as well as four relatively modestly priced cars – a vintage Bentley Arnage, worth £10,000, a £28,250 three-yearold Jaguar F-Pace SUV, a £24,000 four-year-old Mercedes Benz E Class Estate and a 2019 Mercedes Benz V Class people carrier, valued at around £35,000.
Tellingly for a man who held bank accounts in most major currencies, as well as private client funds with
Coutts and a Swiss bank, he also kept a petty cash box in his house – but containing only £263.90.
Thanks to a lengthy television career, Mr Weir apparently still received a pension. When he died, the Department for Work and Pensions owed him arrears of £679.80. His council tax was also recorded as being £37.08 in credit.
And, perhaps in hope of another big jackpot, he even had the maximum £50,000 invested in Premium Bonds.
A long passion for horseracing led him to take part-ownership of three thoroughbreds controlled by syndicates, which included five-year-old geldings Knighted (£2,500) and Felony (£1,675), as well as winning Irish mare If You Say Run (£4,000).
His soft spot, however, was his beloved Partick Thistle FC. A £2.5 million investment shortly after his win was followed up later with more financial backing. Mr Weir, who owned shares worth £272,000 in the club, also helped set up the Thistle Weir Youth Academy and a section of Firhill Stadium was named the Colin Weir Stand.
In November, a month before he died, his company Three Black Cats Ltd, which is listed as having £5 million in the bank, acquired a 55 per cent shareholding in the club so he could donate it to the fans and put Partick Thistle’s future in the hands of the local community.
Mr Weir also made other smart investments, including assets in the tax haven of the Isle of Man of around £3.5 million and a varied share portfolio of more than £12.3 million, which featured stakes in global names such as Microsoft (£20,368), Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (£19,230), Estée Lauder (£19,813), Tesco (£19,562), AG Barr, creators of Irn-Bru (£10,040), and bakery chain Greggs (£22,950).
There was also a significant stake of around £400,000 in tax-advantageous Enterprise Investment Schemes, where individuals can buy into small and medium companies for generous tax relief.
According to the will, Mr Weir’s estate is still due £80,000 from Spanish authorities following the sale of a holiday home on Majorca. The property had been specially adapted to cater for his mobility problems.
Indeed, at the time of their £161,653,000 win, Mr and Mrs Weir were both pictured using walking sticks as they revealed themselves to be the nation’s luckiest couple.
While Mrs Weir went on to hire a personal trainer and transform herself, Mr Weir appeared to carry on much the same. But, regardless of personal goals, the couple also wanted to share their good fortune.
At the time, Mr Weir said that the couple, who lived in a three-bedroom bungalow in the seaside town of Largs, Ayrshire, would use their winnings to bring themselves ‘closer to people’.
He added: ‘We didn’t want to go away and live on a small island with no contact with the people who are important to us.’
In the first year of their win, the
couple spent £5 million buying houses for friends and setting up bursaries for talented youngsters – as well as giving cash to the local football team, nursing home and sports centre.
Instead of selling their £220,000 house, they gave it to a young mother who lived next door with her parents. They are thought to have bought five homes, costing £230,000 each, for friends in a new development. Mrs Weir, the second of six children, also bought properties for all of her siblings. Meanwhile, they splashed out £850,000 on a four-bed detached home in 23 acres of gardens and woodland on the outskirts of Largs, a property that had a cinema, pool and stables. It was sold in 2016 to an overseas trust in a £1.4 million deal.
Stories of their kindness are legendary in the town and they set up the Weir Charitable Trust to back projects promoting health, animal welfare and public participation in sport. There was a £50,000 sponsorship for Lee Craigmile to complete a four-year course at the Florence Academy of Art, £102,000 for the National Sports Training Centre Inverclyde, and £750,000 for an all-weather artificial pitch at Largs Thistle, where football-mad Mr Weir became honorary president.
In August 2012, the couple paid a fivefigure sum for a prosthetic limb for 13year-old Kieran Maxwell from Heighington, County Durham, who had lost part of his leg to a rare and aggressive form of cancer. The teenager was a keen athlete but tragically died from Ewing’s Sarcoma in 2017, aged just 18.
The Weirs were also among a group of sponsors who helped raise £50,000 to send 15-year-old Ross Wilson from Largs to a tennis academy in Barcelona, Spain.
They also gave £100,000 to help save the paddle steamer Waverley, which was built in 1946, and part-fund its refit.
To those in political circles, it is Mr Weir’s support for the Nationalists, who received £4.5 million from the couple, as well as a further £3.5 million for the failed Yes campaign during the 2014 referendum, that will be most remembered.
Despite his past generosity, however, there is no mention of the party as a beneficiary in what is left of his estate.
Yesterday, a financial expert said: ‘Spending £40 million in eight years takes a bit of doing but it is likely to have mostly gone into setting up trusts for his family and other interests. What he left behind seems to be a very sensible, safe portfolio.’