Lottery winner faces eviction

A National Lottery winner and her family were today set to be evicted penniless from their Wolverhampton home - just three years after scooping £258,000.

Mother-of-two Pauline Parkes, who is facing bankruptcy proceedings later this month, fought back tears as she confessed: "I wish that I had never won the money because it has brought nothing but misery."

Pauline and husband Allen ran The Angel Pub in Wednesfield, where they won the prestigious Cask Ale Pub of the Year title, and decided to invest some of their lottery winnings in transforming a second pub.

They took over the tenancy of The True Briton in Ashmore Park and left a manager to handle The Angel – and plunged into a spiral of debt that threatens to ruin them.

The couple claim that owner Marston's imposed conditions on the licence that restricted the amount of entertainment allowed at The True Briton and made success impossible.

Mr Parkes, aged 46, insisted: "We did not realise this until we had been at the pub for seven months and invested over £40,000 in it. I feel victimised."

Mrs Parkes, 45, whose children are Matthew, 19, and 12-year-old Sian, added: "We could have taken our money after the lottery win and got out of the pub business but we decided to stay in it and expand because we love the work and are good at it.

"But we would never have taken over The True Briton if we had known the truth about the licence. We had to make further alterations to the pub and took out a £7,000 loan from the brewery. Then we got fined £3,700 for allegedly selling products not bought from the brewery – a charge we deny.

" Now the brewery claims we owe it £19,000. If we had just stayed at the The Angel and never won the lottery we would be as happy as larry but now we are being thrown out on the street with our children. We have no money and no future.

" I do not want the sympathy vote. I am very bitter and frustrated at the way we have been dealt with. The debts are not proved and we are very well respected in the business but if we are declared bankrupt we will not be able to work in it for 10 years."

The family were evicted from The Angel last week and were scheduled to be thrown out The True Briton by bailiffs today. A bankruptcy hearing is set for November 20.

Andrew Cooney, marketing director of Marston's, said: "We have dealt with this matter in accordance with our business agreement with the tenants but we do not discuss such matters in public."

So what happened to all that cash?

* Celebration party – £10,000: Delighted Pauline Parkes threw a celebration party at The Angel Inn after collecting the £258,918 lottery winner's cheque in November 2004. It was a great do which the locals loved – but didn't come cheap and with the headache the next morning came a hefty bill for the festivities.

* Paying off debts – £44,000: Wisely Pauline wanted a clean slate and used a chunk to pay outstanding bills. Once the debts were paid and the party completed, the windfall was down to just over £200,000.

* Flash cars – £35,000: Around £30,000 was spent on a BMW X5 for the couple. They also decided to spend a more modest £5,000 on a second hand Rover car as a day-to-day runaround.

* Exotic holidays – £5,000 plus: Pauline, husband Allen and their family went on a dream two week holiday to the United States. They also caught the sun by jetting off on a couple of sunshine trips to the Spanish holiday island of Majorca.

* Business – the rest of the windfall: The couple ploughed an estimated £40,000-plus into The True Briton pub and later shelled out a further £3,500 on CCTV cameras for the car park.

There was also tens of thousands spent on The Angel Inn, the other pub where they held the tenancy and living costs.

But as the pubs made less money, and demands came in from the brewery, they had to dig deeper into their savings to make ends meet – and now they insist that they are left with nothing.