Lottery winner scooped £5million - but ended up in court for benefits fraud
A lottery winner who scooped £5.5million went on to fiddle thousands of pounds in disability benefits while living it up in Spain.
Lawrence Candlish, from Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, won the National Lottery jackpot in 1997 - just three years after it was launched - and shared his spoils with several relatives.
He even forked out £370,000 to buy seven homes on the estate where he lived so his family could all live close by to each other.
After thugs then torched the former factory worker's home, he moved to Santa Pola in Alicante.
There he bought a house he called Casa Shearer, after the ex-Newcastle United striker and current Match of the Day pundit.
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Candlish also opened an Irish bar and restaurant with his dad, Frank.
But he would go on to blow his whole fortune before declaring himself bankrupt.
Candlish outside court in 2010 (North News & Pictures Ltd)In 2009, his dad took his own life after their business venture went bust, and the following year Candlish, who has a bone disease, flew home to the UK penniless.
He did not tell officials he had left the country to start a new life in Spain and continued to claim disability allowance.
Between May 2005 and December 2010, he fraudulently pocketed £13,365.
He shared some of his lottery winnings with sister Melanie Batey, a paraplegic, who also moved to Spain in 2007.
Candlish's home in Gateshead that he was forced to flee (North News & Pictures Newcastle)She went on to claim more than £23,000 income support, despite receiving £800,000 of the lottery winnings.
The pair had been caring for their mother, who has the same condition as Melanie.
Candlish, who in October 2012 appeared at Newcastle crown court on crutches after a hip operation, and Batey both pleaded guilty.
They were each given nine months’ in jail, suspended for 18 months.
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Recorder Tim Roberts QC said he’d taken into account the family’s disability and trauma.
But he added: “You both knew what you were doing was fraudulent.”
The trial heard Candlish had been struggling to get by on £125-a-week as a factory work when he won the lottery.
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