Grandad wins thousands on postcode lottery after buying tickets by mistake

A grandad from Leicestershire has won half a million pounds on the postcode lottery after buying extra tickets by mistake.

Each ticket picked up £76,923 - but Michael Stokes and his wife Sandra had six between them.

Michael who had four tickets told how his £307,692 win was in fact a happy accident after he bought two extra tickets by mistake.

He says he thought he'd cancelled his original direct debit for two briefs so he signed up for two more - but when he realised his mistake he kept all four.

He said: “I’ve been doing Postcode Lottery since it started. I originally bought two tickets. But after six months, I was looking at my bank statement. A few days before I had cancelled some direct debits and I couldn’t see the Postcode Lottery payment.

“I thought I’d cancelled it, too, so I bought two more tickets, and then the original payment came out the next day. It meant I then had four tickets.”

“I thought about cancelling two, but then thought that if I did that and then won, I’d be really annoyed", he adds.

Michael's wife, Sandra, who picked up £153,846 with two tickets, said: “He told me he had two tickets and I thought ‘he’s not going to win without me…I should have two’.”

The pair, who have five children and ten grandchildren, are now celebrating with their six neighbours after LE9 7PA was named the winner of the one million pound jackpot.

Michael and Sandra say it's the "icing on the cake" after being told last year that he could have died.

“If I’m honest, I’m lucky to be alive - and this is the icing on the cake. Something like this happening was the furthest thing from my mind after everything", said Michael.

Doctors told the 61-year-old that flying home from a Greek holiday last year after suffering two strokes could have killed him, but he risked it anyway.

He has since had two operations to clear blocked arteries in his neck and is now in recovery.

“I had a couple of strokes while on holiday. I went to the hospital in Rhodes and it was diagnosed right away. I lost my speech for a short while each time", explains Michael.

“I flew back home when I probably shouldn’t have. When I got home the doctor told me that there was a 90-per-cent chance I would have arrived in the UK dead.