Lottery Fraudster Edward Putman Jailed

By Simon Wright, Last updated Jan 12, 2021

Back on the 20th September we reported on the trial of Edward Putman who was alleged to have conspired in defrauding the UK National Lottery out of £2.5m, by using a forged lottery ticket to claim an unclaimed jackpot prize from the lottery draw held on 11th March 2009.

The jury at St Albans Court found Putman guilty of fraud by false representation and yesterday the judge presiding over the case jailed Putman for a total of nine years.

In passing the sentence, Judge Philip Grey, who called Putman’s offence a “sophisticated, carefully planned, and diligently operated fraud”, stated: “You would have got away with this but quite plainly you were greedy. This crime struck at the integrity of the National Lottery. You have also undermined the public’s trust in the lottery itself.”

Camelot, the organisers of the UK’ Lottery paid out Putman the £2.5m jackpot prize from the 11th March 2009 draw, despite the fact that the ‘badly damaged’ forged lottery ticket had part of the bottom section missing.

After the sentencing of Putman, a spokesperson for Camelot commented: “There were some weaknesses in some of the specific controls relevant to this incident at the time and we’re very sorry for that. We’ve strengthened our processes significantly since then and are completely confident that an incident of this nature could not happen today.”

The actual genuine winning ticket for the prize in question has never come to light.

---