Couple celebrate their £18m win on Lottery

AN ELDERLY couple and their two daughters are celebrating winning £18m which they say will be spent on helping people, a new car and a Mulberry handbag.

Dennis and Shirley Banfield, of Bristol, and their daughters, Tina Burgess, 54, and Karen Maddock, 51, will split the Lottery windfall three ways, with each sister taking a third and their parents sharing theirs.

Mr Banfield, 87, who worked for South West Electricity Board for 40 years and was in hospital over Christmas following an operation for a leg infection, said his daughters would get more benefit from the money, but if he could help anyone else, he would.

“All that has ever mattered to Shirley and I is that the girls are OK,” he said. “We joke that it is just a matter of time and we are playing the Lottery for them, so that they are financially secure forever.

“To know they are is a wonderful feeling.”

Mrs Banfield, who worked as a local government officer and as a shop assistant before retirement, said they might replace their three-door Nissan Micra with something a little roomier but “not a Ferrari or a Maserati”.

She added that they might swap their three-bedroom house of 57 years for a bungalow.

Mr Banfield said he was looking forward to buying a tailored suit while mother-of-two Mrs Maddock said she had her eyes on a Mulberry handbag.