Lotto lout Michael Carroll is a skint coalman working 7 days a week after blowing £9.7m winnings but is ‘happier now’
LOTTO lout Michael Carroll is a skint coalman who works seven days a week, but swears he's "happier now" after blowing his £9.7million winnings.
Michael, 36, bagged the money in 2002 after buying a £1 ticket when he was 19 and working as a binman in Norfolk.
After a mind-blowing 10 years, he says he has no regrets and is glad he has his life back.
Michael, who now lives in Moray, told : "It didn’t go wrong – it was the best 10 years of my life for a pound.
"I don’t look back with any regrets that’s for sure. It was 10 years of fun for a pound, you can’t go wrong with that.
"I wouldn’t want to turn the clock back. But I live a good, free lifestyle now and I’m happier because I’ve got my life back.”
For years Michael blew his money on booze, drugs, sex and friends, gaining the title "King of the Chavs".
Michael appeared in court more than 30 times, often in luxury cars and swigging a can of beer.
His drinking and wild holidays in the brothels in Puerto Banus with his mates put an end to his short marriage to Sandra Aitken, who was seven months pregnant with their daughter when he won the lottery.
When he won the jackpot he immediately gave £4million away.
Michael, whose dad died when he was 10, gave a million to his mum, his aunt and his uncle, his ex-wife Sandra and his ex-wife's mum.
He was then left with £5.7million, which he also used to buy his eight-bedroom £390,000 Norfolk mansion - the spot for wild parties and demolition derbies.
His mansion fell into disrepair and the other two that he bought eventually slipped from his fingers.
By 2012 his money had gone and he’d been barred from every pub for miles around.
He moved to Scotland for a fresh start and is now single, rents a £500-a-month, two-bed house and walks to work or bums lifts.
He worked as Walkers biscuit factory in Aberlour and the worked at a slaughterhouse until it shut down.
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Now, he works his coal job in Moray seven days at a week.
In February, he told The Sun he still plays the occasional lottery: "If I won again, I’d be down the yard at six every morning just to keep out of trouble.”
“People often say to me, what does it feel like to have lost all that money? I tell them I didn’t lose it . . . I spent it!”
