Lotto lout in court for booze and butty theft
�9million national lottery winner Michael Carroll arrives at King's Lynn magistrates court.
LOTTERY winner Michael Carroll landed himself in court for stealing cider and a sandwich, worth £11, from a supermarket.
Carroll, dubbed the Lotto lout by the national press after his £9.7 million National Lottery win in 2002, said he was in a drink-fuelled haze and forgot to pay.
The 28-year-old is now surviving on benefits after famously squandering all of his winnings.
The Lynn News was the only media agency present when Carroll appeared at West Norfolk Magistrates’ Court, in Lynn, on Wednesday.
He told magistrates: “I’d had a few drinks and picked up some Strongbow and something to eat and walked out. I just wasn’t thinking.
“I went back and paid for it later.”
Susanna Chowdhury said Carroll had been caught on CCTV taking the items from Morrisons, in Downham, on January 20, but returned with the cash that night before police contacted him.
Carroll, of Felbrigg Road, Downham, admitted theft and was given a nine-month conditional discharge.
Michael Gamble, chairman of the magistrates’ bench, said: “You realise it was foolish to take things in the first place and you are to be commended for going back.
“If you don’t come back to court in that nine-month period you will hear no more about it. Obviously if you do come back, this offence is liable to be re-sentenced.”
Carroll was also ordered to pay £85 prosecution costs.
The court heard Carroll still had £25 to pay on a fine for a previous offence, which is being deducted from benefits.
Carroll collected his Lottery win, aged 19, wearing an electronic tag fitted for an offence of being drunk and disorderly and has appeared before the courts dozens of times for anti social behaviour. He was jailed in 2004 for failing to comply with a drug treatment order imposed for cocaine possession and in 2006 for affray.
In 2010 he was given a suspended sentence for drink-driving.
In August last year, it was reported Carroll had made two suicide attempts after losing his £9.7 million fortune.
He is reported to have frittered his fortune on wild parties, cocaine, prostitutes, luxury cars, chunky gold jewellery and hand-outs to relatives and hangers-on.
He was forced to sell his Swaffham mansion in 2010 for £600,000 less than he paid for it after wrecking it.
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Sunday 27 May 2012
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