Euromillions winner’s son loses court battle for money for life
A man who won a £101m Euromillions jackpot does not have to “cough up” financial support for his son “whenever asked”, a court has ruled.
Former factory worker Dave Dawes, 53, from Wisbech in Cambridgeshire, and his wife Angela, 49, won the money in 2011.
Central London County Court heard Mr Dawes’ son Michael, 32, was given £1.6m, but funds stopped after a row.
He was seeking a ruling that his father and stepmother must financially support him for the rest of their lives.
Judge Nigel Gerald said Michael “was provided with the funds to have a comfortable life” but instead behaved like a “profligate son” who expected his father to bail him out.
The court heard the former naval officer and his civil partner James Beedle, 34, gave up their jobs and spent nearly £1.6m over two years.
This included £500,000 on a house in Portsmouth and nearly £250,000 on Mr Beedle’s family and their friends.
At one point the pair were spending between £20,000 and £30,000 a month, which the judge said was “astonishing” and “way outside their means”.
The court heard his father regularly topped up his funds when he ran out of money.
The judge said Mr Dawes was “baffled” when Michael asked for more funds in April 2012 after being given £1m shortly after the win in October 2011.
“Michael took this as a demonstration that his father would cough up whenever asked, and this therefore buttressed his strange conclusion that his dad would financially support him for the rest of his life,” the judge said.
Michael was serving in Afghanistan when his father rang him to tell him of the win.
He told the court the factory shift supervisor promised he “would always be looked after”.
By March 2013, Michael and Mr Beedle were told some of their debts would be paid off “but there would be nothing more”.
This came after Mrs Dawes’ 49th birthday party in November 2013, when a drunken row broke out between the father and son.
The judge ruled that Mr Dawes’ previous “largesse” did not give rise to an expectation of further bail-outs. BBC News
