£148M POIS ON JACKPOT
A £2 lottery ticket brought this once-ordinary couple riches beyond the dreams of avarice. But their incredible win came at a devastating cost — broken marriages, failed businesses and their family torn apart
IT WAS a stroke of great good fortune that should have bestowed the gift of a more ‘normal family life’ on Gillian Bayford and her husband Adrian. Before winning £148million in the EuroMillions lottery in August 2012, the Bayfords admitted they felt like ‘ships passing in the night’ as they struggled to make ends meet – he working seven days a week in his music shop, she covering the back shift as a healthcare assistant on a children’s ward.
As their massive windfall was announced to the world’s media in a shower of champagne bubbles, this decent, hard-working pair clearly had no wish to see their lives turned upside down by the shock of suddenly becoming the UK’s 516th richest couple.
At first, the signs looked positive as they celebrated by taking their two young children for pizza at Domino’s.
The next night they went to McDonald’s, while their first trip away from their home in Suffolk was an easyJet flight to Mrs Bayford’s native Scotland to see her family in Carnoustie, Angus.
Mrs Bayford told a press conference the win was ‘something to share with other people, people that need help, people that have helped us and supported us’, adding: ‘Why can’t lots of people be happy from one person’s £2 ticket?’
True to her word, she rescued her parents, Ian and Brenda McCulloch, and brother Colin from a quagmire of debt and life in a static caravan and bought them smart new homes, luxury cars and businesses.
Mr Bayford, meanwhile, was soon back behind the counter of his shop – with plans to expand.
They intended to splash out on a ‘chunky car’ and a Dalek toy for their son but absolutely ‘no Gucci’ – this family was too grounded to let such a vast sum change them too much.
And they all lived happily ever after…
If only. As the Lotto fates foretell with almost comical dependability, the Bayfords could no more escape the unfortunate downside of their new-found Midas touch than the doomed king of ancient Greek legend himself.
Everywhere they spread their largesse, it seems, misery and upset would follow.
Mrs Bayford’s dreams of a ‘normal life’ disintegrated along with her nine-year marriage only 15 months after the win.
After moving into a £6million Georgian home in 200 acres of Suffolk countryside, she and her husband split up amid rumours of an affair – hotly denied – saying that their millions had placed an unbearable strain on their relationship.
sHE returned to Scotland, but a bitter feud with her parents and brother means she now no longer speaks to them.
Businesses bought with her fortune – not all run by her, it should be said – have also foundered, leaving disgruntled staff jobless.
The latest casualty was the Crown Inn, a once-thriving pub in Monifieth, Angus. Run by Mrs Bayford’s estranged family with some of the money she gave them, the bar closed without warning earlier this month, leaving 12 workers high and dry.
Julie Robb, 34, who has worked behind the bar since she was 18, was told she had been made redundant in a phone call. She said: ‘It came completely out of the blue, a phone call to say the pub is shut and will not be re-opening. It was a really busy, successful pub until the McCullochs took it over.’
Ian McCulloch responded to staff criticisms, saying it was a purely financial decision to close.
‘We were losing money and were told by our accountant to get out or you will pour lots of money into it,’ he said.
It is just the latest twist in a saga which has enveloped the Bayford clan ever since Adrian Bayford checked their lucky dip ticket and realised that their numbers had come up.
FROM counting the pennies until pay day, they were instantly propelled into the ranks of the super-rich, alongside A-list celebrities such as Jamie and Jools Oliver (who are worth £150million), Sir Tom Jones (worth £140million) and Eric Clapton (worth £130million).
At the time, Mrs Bayford said they had decided to go public because ‘you cannot give money away and expect people to be quiet about it’.
She has probably had cause to regret that decision 148million times over. Suddenly, she could buy anything, except the family harmony she really craved.
The depth of the rift with her closest relatives was laid bare when she was approached to comment on the demise of the Crown Inn.
The Crown, she said ‘has nothing to do with me’. She added, for good measure: ‘I have no links with what my family do. I have no business dealings or anything to do with the McCullochs. I have never had any business dealings with them. I have no contact with them.’
In one interview, she blamed hostilities with ‘the McCullochs’ on their jealousy over her fortune.
‘It has made them bitter and very, very greedy,’ she said. ‘They’ve disowned me but they’ve been more than happy to take my money.’
Her brother branded her a ‘Jekyll and Hyde character’, while her father, who is now 73, insisted he had received only £1million from his daughter and accused her of cutting him and his wife out of the lives of their grandchildren.
He said: ‘Gillian’s whole life is shredded with lies. Her life is a total mess.’
For a time, it might have been hard for Gillian Bayford, now 46, to have disagreed with her father’s final observation. Immediately before the collapse of her marriage, she was forced to deny an affair with Chris Tovey, the balding gardener at the family’s sprawling new mansion.
The issue came to a head after married Mr Tovey, 40, accused Mr Bayford of trying to run him over with a golf buggy. Mr Bayford, now 47, insisted it was entirely accidental, denying it was motivated in any way by jealousy.
But he admitted: ‘When you win the lottery, it’s so stressful. I’ve worked so hard on those grounds at the mansion. I’ve not had a break; we’ve never had time together as a couple.’
With £148million in the bank, time together is surely the one thing they could have afforded? And, perhaps, it allowed them to realise that they were not actually suited to each other.
They certainly did not appear to want the same things. It was Mrs Bayford who loved the luxury homes, designer clothes and fleet of top-of-the-range Audis.
Her ex hated the glitz, could not make use of the luxury cars (he had never learned how to drive) and did not enjoy life in the mansion. In 2014, the pair were also fending off their first bout of bad publicity after closing down a play centre they had saved only three months earlier, angering parents.
Mrs Bayford defended the decision, saying: ‘I have so many other commitments I cannot give it the time.’
Nor, it seemed, could Mr Bayford’s professional life offer any solace. Despite his best intentions to carry on running the record shop he owned to maintain some sense of normality, it remained open for only six months after the win, having become a focus not for
music fans but for spongers and beggars seeking handouts.
Fifteen months on from their win, the family were still receiving more than 40 begging letters a week.
Their story illustrates that it is not only ‘lotto louts’ such as Rangers fan Michael Carroll who struggle to deal with their lottery win.
cARROLL won £9.7million in 2002 at the age of 19 and set out on a path of chaotic self-destruction that nearly killed him, blowing his entire fortune on fast cars, gold jewellery and crack cocaine.
Untold riches, the Bayfords were learning fast, do not bring happiness. They do, however, bring choice – whether to stay or go. Mrs Bayford took her half-share of the millions and opted to head home to Carnoustie in search of love and contentment. Both proved somewhat elusive.
She bought a £600,000 home on the outskirts of Dundee and moved into it with Alan Warnock, a 43-year-old car salesman who sold her five Audis worth £260,000.
The pair got engaged in 2014, formed A&G Properties Scotland and started building a £7million property portfolio, buying a string of residential properties in the Angus area as well as a sweet shop and tearoom in Arbroath called Sugar and Spice.
Mrs Bayford would give generously to good causes, particularly children’s charities, and works hard to keep her own children’s feet on the ground. She famously limits her 12-year-old daughter and ten-year-old son to £3 pocket money a week, adding: ‘I have taught them if they want things they can save and work for it.
‘They don’t get everything they ask for and they understand the word “No” when they ask for something.’
She sounds like she could be making a pointed reference to her toxic relationship with her own parents. Mrs Bayford said she had received little in the way of thanks for paying off her parents’ and brother’s business debts of £700,000.
Her brother was bought a house and several Audis. He was able to marry his girlfriend and buy an £800,000 play centre business. He did not, however, bother to invite his sister to the wedding. She told one paper that her parents were able to buy a £275,000 apartment in Carnoustie and her father enjoyed holidays in Canada, South Africa and Florida.
But, she said the ‘bank has now closed’, adding: ‘The money was supposed to make everybody happy but it’s made them demanding and greedy.
‘They’ve been given money and houses and cars but still wanted more. They have lost touch with where they’ve come from.’
Yet critics claim she has spread her own share of unhappiness.
In 2016, Sugar and Spice closed without warning with debts of £275,000 and her 21 employees were upset to receive a payoff of only £100.
One said: ‘It is simply heartless and lacking respect. Many of the staff are single parents who are now under a lot of financial pressure.’
A year later, Mrs Bayford’s threeyear relationship with her former business partner Mr Warnock fell apart. She began dating Gavin Innes, 44, who had been a fellow pupil at Harris Academy in Dundee, after he approached her for help with a charity he was starting for male victims of domestic abuse.
Months later, though, she dumped him, accusing him of being a ‘gold digger’ and claiming: ‘You have to meet a few weasels before you can meet someone nice.’
Allegations that she assaulted Mr Innes were dropped in December after police decided there was ‘insufficient evidence’ to proceed with the case.
Her ex-husband’s love life, too, has not been without spice. He met tattooed stable girl Sam Burbidge, 29, at his local pub three months after splitting from his wife and three months later they were engaged.
BUT in 2017, she left their mansion, taking with her horses worth £300,000 and the family dogs. Soon afterwards, he started dating Lisa Kemp, 40, but she then left, allegedly over messages that Mr Bayford had sent to an old flame, sausage factory worker Marta Jarosz.
At the start of last year, Mrs Bayford started seeing another old acquaintance, Brian Deans, who coincidentally started a six-month sentence for fraud at HMP Perth on the very night the Bayfords were celebrating their lottery win.
Deans, who now renovates properties, and an accomplice admitted a £13,574.04 scam while working for Tesco after they ‘formed a fraudulent scheme’ to process bogus customer refunds and pocket the proceeds, Dundee Sheriff Court heard.
Last August, Mrs Bayford and her new love were married at the five-star Fairmont Hotel in St Andrews, Fife, on the sixth anniversary of the bride’s lottery win.
Mrs Bayford-Deans, as she now styles herself, insisted she knew all about her new spouse’s criminal past before the wedding and refused to say whether he had signed a celebrity-style prenuptial agreement to protect her fortune if they divorced.
‘That’s nobody’s business,’ she said. ‘But my head is glued on – I don’t have a massive zip up my back.’
Mrs Bayford’s son gave her away and her daughter was a bridesmaid, while her ex sent the newlyweds a good luck message.
One notable absentee from the celebrations was the father of the bride, who declared when his daughter won the jackpot: ‘Money won’t change Gillian. She’s just a lovely girl, a gem.’
This week, Ian McCulloch’s words lacked the same lustre.
‘Gillian’s moved on and we don’t speak now,’ he said.
‘We weren’t at the wedding. We have nothing to do with Gillian. She has gone her own way.
‘Our door is still open but, unfortunately, there is nothing happening.’
For anyone considering playing the lottery tonight, remember – this could be you.