THE Lotto conman who used a fake ticket to claim £2.5million in prizemoney still hasn’t paid a single penny back.
Edward Putman, a convicted rapist, was told at a proceeds of crime hearing in January he had three months to give back £939,782.44 or he would get six years added to his nine-year term.
Edward Putman still hasn’t paid any money owed back[/caption]
A document released under the Freedom of Information Act to the Mirror, states “to date the full confiscation order amount of £939,782.44 is outstanding”.
Putman, who still owns a £700,000 property, has been given an extension to pay the cash, the Crown Prosecution Service has confirmed.
Sources have confirmed that once the three months had elapsed prosecutors could consider “a range of options”.
Putman, now 56, was found guilty in October 2019 of using a forged winning ticket to claim a £2.5 million jackpot in 2009.
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During his trial the jury heard Putman had conspired with Lottery insider Giles Knibbs, who worked in Camelot’s security department, to present a fake ticket.
The actual winning ticket, which was never claimed, was bought at a Co-op store in Worcester on March 11, 2009. It had the winning numbers: 6,9,20,21, and 34.
On August 28 that year, just before the 180-day claim deadline, Putman called Camelot to come forward as the winner. In a call to Camelot to claim the prize, he said he found the ticket under the seat of his van.
It was missing its bottom part, which contained unique numbers. He submitted the deliberately damaged forgery, which was accepted as authentic by Camelot even though it was missing a barcode.
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The fraud began to unravel on 5 October 2015 when Mr Knibbs, 38, committed suicide at Ivinghoe Beacon in Bucks.
He had confessed to friends that he and Putman had “conned” the Lottery.
The two men had rowed about how the winnings were divided. In June 2015, Putman had gone to the police alleging Knibbs had threatened to reveal his previous convictions for the rape of a 17-year-old girl in 1991 and a benefits fraud in 2012.
Tonight, a friend of Mr Knibbs told the paper: “It’s devastating that Putman has yet to pay up – there’s no way he should be allowed to get away with it. My fear is that when he is released, he may well have access to millions more stashed away.”
Passing sentence at the time, Judge Grey said the “sophisticated, carefully planned, and diligently operated fraud” struck at the heart of the integrity of the National Lottery.
He said: “You would have got away with this but quite plainly you were greedy.
“Whatever the exact monetary split you and Mr Knibbs had agreed, you did not pay him what split he felt he was owed. The two of you fell out spectacularly.
“This crime struck at the integrity of the National Lottery. You have also undermined the public’s trust in the Lottery itself.”
In 2012 Putman was sentenced to nine months for benefit fraud after going on to claim £13,000 in housing and income support despite his jackpot win.
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He was jailed in 1991 for 7 years for raping a 17-year-old girl.
In December 2016 Camelot was fined £3 million by the Gambling Commission for breaching its controls relating to databases, the way it investigated a prize claim and its processes around the decision to pay a prize.
Putnam used a fake National Lottery ticket to claim £2.5m in prize money[/caption]
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