I was convinced I’d lost out on £160,000 lottery win after direct debit mix-up – don’t make my mistake

A LOTTERY winner has told how she was left convinced she'd lost out on £160,000 jackpot after a direct debit mix-up.

Laura, from Ringland in Norwich, received the good news from her pal Sophie.

But then the midwife panicked as she thought she had cancelled her subscription.

But after checking her direct debits she realised that she paid the Postcode Lottery through PayPal.

"It would have been awful not to have won," she explained.

Laura was pleased to get the call from her best friend Sophie, who lives a few doors down.

She said: " Sophie got the phone call first and she was screaming down the phone at me. We've been really excited together.

"She's a really close friend. We have known each other since high school.

"Our partners grew up in this village together, we go on holidays together and they're godparents to my kids. This is a really exciting day for us."

The pair said how they've been trying to process the news and have already started to plan how they are going to splash their cash.

Laura said that she and her husband Tommy are thinking of visiting Yellowstone National Park in America.

"My husband loves the TV show," she said, "I'd like to have a girls' trip, me and my friend were talking about going to Ibiza for a weekend."

Jack, who also lived in the village, broke down after being presented with his cheque before revealing the bumper amount to husband-to-be AJ, who'd said he should ditch his ticket.

He said, "It will change our lives forever. We're getting married next year. I've never had money in my life. I never expected this to be six figures."

Jack and AJ will tie the knot in stunning nearby Arts & Crafts manor Voewood House in October next year.

The locals landed the windfall with nine neighbours in the picture-postcard village of Ringland, near Norwich, in Norfolk, after NR8 6AB was announced as the winner of our £3.2 million Postcode Millions prize today.

Every ticket in the postcode was worth £160,000.

A further 1,159 people playing with the wider Norwich postcode sector of NR8 6 received cheques ranging from £1,264 to £3,792, depending on how many tickets they played with.

This comes after another winner also thought they'd missed out on the huge cash prize.

Yu from Dartford, Kent won £250,000 but brushed initially it off as an Amazon voucher.

“It is the happiest day ever. I'm so excited.

“I feel dizzy because I thought I was winning an Amazon voucher."

The Chinese Mandarin teacher's big win came just hours before she jetted off to China to see her parents.

“I haven't been back home for more than four years because of the pandemic.

"This has changed my life. I have no words to describe my feelings now.

“It is the happiest day ever. I'm so excited."