Father and daughter syndicate scoop life-changing Lotto jackpot
A father and daughter syndicate from Whittlesey near Peterborough have won a £729,026 share of the Lotto jackpot from the draw on Wednesday 20 April.
Derek Daniels and his daughter Lorraine Daniels are over the moon that the numbers they have played every Lottery draw since Lorraine's daughter, Lotus, was born have come up trumps.
Lotus was only a couple of weeks old when she started to suffer epileptic fits which worsened over time until, aged 3, she was having 300 a day and doctor's recommended putting her into an induced coma. Then in April 2014 Lotus underwent a nine-and-half hour operation at Great Ormand Street to have the right side of her brain removed.
With the winnings now safely in the bank Derek and Lorraine's first thought is to pay back their local community who recently raised funds for Lotus to have a specialist bed all of her own.
Lorraine discovered she had won on Thursday morning after she had waved her daughter off to school. Receiving a call from her dad, Lorraine was convinced something awful had happened.
Turning on the TV to double-check, Lorraine saw the magic six numbers the family syndicate had been playing since Lotus' birth almost seven years earlier; a combination of her date of birth, baby weight, the number of the room she was born in and the day she was christened.
Within minutes Lorraine's dad appeared at the house and the pair tried to take in the situation between them. With 45 minutes to go until the National Lottery claim line opened, Lorraine and Derek hid the ticket away safely and nervously waited to stake their claim bang on 9am.
Beyond helping the community Lorraine plans to use her share to take Lotus on holiday and a new home is also on the cards.
Derek has his own plans which are still loose, but he thinks these include a cruise and a new car.
Derek bought the family's winning Lotto ticket at Parkers News on Market Street in Whittlesey and the winning numbers were 1, 7, 9, 10, 12 and 31. The Daniel's syndicate were one of three lucky ticket-holders to share the £2,187,078 jackpot from the Lotto draw on 20 April, 2016.