Conman Edward Putman, 54, was yesterday sentenced to prison in London for greed. He betrayed his friend, with whom he conspired to forge a winning lottery ticket but failed to pay him the agreed split of the 2.5m lottery jackpot.
Sentencing him, Judge Philip Grey told him: “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.”
According to the Sun, UK, Putman’s friend, Giles Knibbs worked with the lottery firm, Camelot in London.
The two of them had hatched the “sophisticated and carefully planned” con by submitting a deliberately damaged forgery just before the 180-day limit to stake claims expired in 2009.
But Mr Knibbs later started to get cold feet – confessed to friends that he had “conned” the lottery before taking his own life after an angry row about how the winnings were divided. Mr Knibbs took his own life in October 2015.
His former partner John Coleyshaw told the jury he had feared he would be jailed for ten to 15 years, adding: “He was in a bad way because he was worried by thought of going to prison. For want of a better word he had been shafted by someone he considered to be a good friend.”
Convicted benefits cheat Putman, wearing a Barbour-style jacket and blue jeans, said in the middle of the judge’s sentencing “I can’t believe what I’m hearing”.
The court had previously heard Knibbs had been working late one night during his time at Camelot when he saw a document being printed which contained details of big wins, which had not yet been claimed.
He then had to create 100 tickets with the winning numbers because each ticket had a unique ‘Check Sum’ number made up of two digits.
Putman had to try 29 shops with 29 different tickets before the right number was found.
The jury of 7 women and 5 men, heard it was just 10 days before the six-month deadline for claims that the builder came forward with the ticket, which had been sold at the Co-op at St John’s Road, Worcester.
It had the winning numbers: 6, 9, 20, 21, and 34.
When Putman made the 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.
The genuine winning ticket, which was bought in Worcester, has never been discovered.
The police investigation was impeded by the inability of Camelot to locate the original of the forged winning ticket. It was only reopened in 2017 when a Camelot employee eventually located the ticket.
