Tata-my-chance, please Your Honour

London - A £9.7-million (about R120-million) lottery winner has admitted stealing £11 (about R150) of alcohol and food from a supermarket.

Michael Carroll – known as the Lotto Lout for his yobbish and criminal behaviour – told a court he was in a drink-fuelled haze and forgot to pay for the cider and sandwich.

The 28-year-old, who has squandered all his winnings from 2002, said: “I’d had a few drinks and picked up some Strongbow and something to eat and walked out. I just wasn’t thinking. I went back and paid for it later.”

Carroll was caught on CCTV taking the items from Morrisons in Downham Market, Norfolk, on January 20, and returned with the cash later that night before police contacted him.

Michael Gamble, chairman of the bench at West Norfolk Magistrates’ Court in King’s Lynn, told him on Wednesday: “You are to be commended for going back.”

He admitted theft and was given a nine-month conditional discharge with £85 court costs.

He had collected his lotto win, aged 19, wearing an electronic tag fitted for being drunk and disorderly. He has appeared before the courts dozens of times for antisocial behaviour and been jailed for affray and a drugs offence.

He is said to have blown his fortune on parties, cocaine, prostitutes, cars, jewellery and gifts. - Daily Mail