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Post by Patrick on Apr 18, 2009 17:30:20 GMT
What do you make of this?
A couple who found a winning lottery ticket on the floor of a shop and collected the £30,000 prize have been given suspended jail sentences after the pensioner who bought it realised it was lost and alerted the authorities.
Amanda and Michael Stacey spent half the money in a month clearing debts, buying new carpets and treating their children after Mrs Stacey spotted the slip in a Co-op supermarket in Swindon, Wiltshire.
But 61-year-old Dorothy McDonagh, who had bought the Daily Play ticket, rang the lottery operator Camelot after discovering she had mislaid it, and police were called when it emerged the jackpot had already been claimed.
Rob Ross, defending, told Swindon crown court: "It is important for the public to know that 'finders keepers, losers weepers' is not true and never was true."
The couple were given 11-month sentences, suspended for two years, after admitting charges of fraud by false representation. Amanda Stacey also admitted theft.
The judge, Mark Horton, told the pair: "Your decision to take this money was one of dire financial need in your household at the time rather than pure financial greed."
Police froze the remaining £15,000 of the prize, but McDonagh will not find out if she will get it until a financial hearing in July. The only way she can recover the other half is by launching a private action.
She said she was angry that Camelot would not pay out again. "I have a nervous condition and I'm an absolute wreck over this," she said. "I just hope Camelot see this and decide to do the decent thing."
Camelot said it had nothing to do with the outstanding dispute and it had cooperated fully with police.
A spokesman said: "We sympathise with her situation, which is why we remind players it is their responsibility to keep tickets safe and fill out their names and addresses on the back.
"The dispute is now between the two parties involved. We have a clear lost and found policy so if a member of the public finds the ticket they should send it to our prize payout department, setting out in writing the circumstances of the find and the steps they took (if any) to reunite the ticket with its rightful owner."
McDonagh said she would continue to play the lottery. "What else can I do?" she said. "It's my hobby."
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Post by riotgrrl on Apr 18, 2009 17:40:45 GMT
I don't know the rules of fraud by false representation that this couple got done on, but there certainly can be 'theft by finding'.
'Finders Keepers' has never been the law.
Ownership of property does not transfer by the act of the property being lost, and then found by someone else. It still belongs to its original owner.
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Post by motorist on Apr 18, 2009 17:58:52 GMT
I don't know the rules of fraud by false representation that this couple got done on, but there certainly can be 'theft by finding'. 'Finders Keepers' has never been the law. Ownership of property does not transfer by the act of the property being lost, and then found by someone else. It still belongs to its original owner. In the U.S I think there is an exception if it is found in a bin, as it can be said you discarded your ownership of the item. Is this the same in the UK? |
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Post by riotgrrl on Apr 18, 2009 18:03:16 GMT
I don't know the rules of fraud by false representation that this couple got done on, but there certainly can be 'theft by finding'. 'Finders Keepers' has never been the law. Ownership of property does not transfer by the act of the property being lost, and then found by someone else. It still belongs to its original owner. In the U.S I think there is an exception if it is found in a bin, as it can be said you discarded your ownership of the item. Is this the same in the UK? Dunno. sorry. I vaguely remember some Scottish case where there was beer found in a bin that went to court . . . but can't remember the outcome. |
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Post by sesley on Apr 18, 2009 20:00:27 GMT
it must be terribly gutting to buy a lottery ticket and loose it and then find out the numbers were called and then to find some one found it and then spent half of it. the lottery people need a system like putting your postcode on each ticket,so that if it comes up, the trace would be back to you and not the person that found the ticket on the floor.
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Post by Patrick on Apr 18, 2009 20:18:29 GMT
it must be terribly gutting to buy a lottery ticket and loose it and then find out the numbers were called and then to find some one found it and then spent half of it. the lottery people need a system like putting your postcode on each ticket,so that if it comes up, the trace would be back to you and not the person that found the ticket on the floor. That's what intrigues me about the story. (Admittedly I haven't bought a ticket for years) but how do you claim ownership of a lottery ticket? |
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Post by housesparrow on Apr 18, 2009 20:23:11 GMT
I don't know the rules of fraud by false representation that this couple got done on, but there certainly can be 'theft by finding'. 'Finders Keepers' has never been the law. Ownership of property does not transfer by the act of the property being lost, and then found by someone else. It still belongs to its original owner. In the U.S I think there is an exception if it is found in a bin, as it can be said you discarded your ownership of the item. Is this the same in the UK? I'm not sure about that either, but there is a defence to theft along the lines of: you thought (and had reasonable grounds to believe) that the owner would have given you permission to take it. That would probably apply to something in a bin unless it was obviously valuable. |
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Post by Flatypus on Apr 20, 2009 23:25:16 GMT
There was always the famous Fell off the back of a lorry, dinnit so this sounds like one of those archaic laws with exceptions both weird and wonderful. If it was in transit, it couldn't belong to anybody traceable? Something like flotsam and jetsom?
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Post by trubble on Apr 21, 2009 8:08:02 GMT
Case Number 2: Investment banker and husband steal £60,000 from faulty Waitrose cash machine
An investment banker and her husband stole £60,000 from a faulty Waitrose cash machine, visiting it 300 times to take out the money in separate installments.
Joanne Jones, 33, and her husband Darren, 29, used their gains to fund a "fairytale" lifestyle, buying designer clothes, staying at a luxury hotel and putting down a cash deposit for a Chrysler Crossfire sports car.
They visited the supermarket in Billericay, Essex, for 88 days after discovering that the withdrawals did not come out of their HSBC bank account.
The "greedy" pair, who owned three homes, were finally caught after the bank became suspicious and installed hidden CCTV cameras at the cashpoint.
Police found receipts for luxury clothes and cosmetics by Hugo Boss, Coco Chanel and Dior at the couple's home. In the kitchen was £27,340 in cash, put into various envelopes, marked "holiday money", "car money", "clothes money", "kitchen money" and "baby money", the court heard. Prosecutors said that Mr and Mrs Jones had stayed at the £600-a-night Hotel Du Vin in Brighton and the total amount stolen was £61,400.
Judge Christopher Mitchell spared them a prison term because they had not breached trust, but said that they were "clearly motivated by a great deal of greed".
"You couldn't believe your 'luck'," he said. "I say luck in inverted commas because of course eventually it was all found out."
Passing sentence at Basildon Crown Court, the judge handed the couple a nine months suspended prison sentence each, ordered them to do 250 hours of unpaid work and attend a probation sessions for two years.
The fault arose because the cash machine was "very old", the court heard, and failed to record the transactions properly so did not show people had taken more money out if they were already overdrawn.
Alan Jackson, prosecuting, said that "very few" other people benefited from the free payouts because "a majority of people in Billericay were not overdrawn".
Mrs Jones, who was a team leader for the Northern Trust Bank in London, lost her job after pleading guilty to the theft.
She had discovered in March last year that the faulty cash machine paid out cash even though she was more than £1,000 overdrawn - and it did not appear on her HSBC statement.
She immediately took out a total of £300 in three transactions, the court heard, and then recruited her husband to help her withdraw more money using her account and a joint account, which had originally been in credit.
At their height the couple were making daily visits to the cash machine and took at £1,250 in just five minutes and £2,400 in 10 minutes on another day, the court heard.
Judge Mitchell described the scam as a "fairy tale". He said: "It's like something out of a fairy tale, put a bit of plastic in the wall and free money comes tumbling out and there is no record on their bank account."
Mrs Jones admitted theft of the cash from HSBC between March 1 and May 27 last year and converting £9,000 of the money to pay for a Chrysler Crossfire sports car. Her husband, a £25,000-a-year builder admitted theft and transferring £2,000 of the cash into an Abbey bank account.
It looks as if they would have got away with taking a small sum - greed is a terrible thing. |
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Post by trubble on Apr 21, 2009 8:15:33 GMT
Meanwhile... Italian rescuers find £400,000 life savings stuffed into jam jars in earthquake rubbleAn elderly Italian couple was celebrating on Friday after rescuers searching through the rubble of their earthquake-hit house retrieved nearly half a million pounds worth of cash stuffed into jam jars.
The money represented the entire life savings of the married couple, who had begged rescuers to comb the remains of their ruined home after being told it was too dangerous for them to search themselves.
Their village, San Gregorio, was one of dozens around the city of L'Aquila to be affected by last week's earthquake, which killed 295 people, injured hundreds of others and left 30,000 people homeless.
Officers from the Forestry Corps, one of the paramilitary units which has been helping in the rescue and recovering operation, found 500,000 euros (£441,000) in cash stuffed into the old jars, along with stocks and shares certificates, in the ruins of the kitchen.
Many older Italians do not trust banks and prefer to keep their savings hidden at home.
Rescuers said it was not the first time they had come across hoards of cash in the ruins of collapsed homes, although this was by far the largest sum.
"We came across the money unexpectedly among a pile of jam jars and pickle jars," said Giorgio Morelli, a rescue official. "Altogether we recovered half a million euros. In similar cases we recovered 40,000 euros, and another time 60,000, but we've never found as much as this."
The couple have agreed to make a donation to the firefighters fund.  |
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Post by Patrick on Apr 21, 2009 9:33:08 GMT
I've got a thirty year old clock radio upstairs that "Fell Off the back of an Aeroplane!" (Well the front actually 'cos that's how they open!)
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Post by Patrick on Apr 21, 2009 9:41:51 GMT
Well, naturally you get a better class of robber at Waitrose! If they were to be charged with anything - it should be for having no taste whatsoever! A Chrysler Crossfire??-??-?? The Hotel Du Vin??-??-?? Oh Perlease! It looks as if they would have got away with If it hadn't have been for those pesky cameras! taking a small sum |
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Post by Patrick on Apr 21, 2009 9:44:03 GMT
Good job it wasn't in Lira! |
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Post by housesparrow on Apr 21, 2009 11:43:27 GMT
I've got a thirty year old clock radio upstairs that "Fell Off the back of an Aeroplane!" (Well the front actually 'cos that's how they open!) My bruv was a pilot before he retired (military, aeronautics industry and commercial) and tells the story of an RAF chum who was sent somewhere warm in a smallish plane. He decided on the way home to buy a load of melons to sell at a profit in the UK. Unfortunately he bought the wrong sort, which all burst on the way up, and he had to spend a day and a half cleaning melon pulp out of the hold. |
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