Bolton men jailed after trying to claim £4m scratch card bought with someone else’s money

Two men from Bolton have been jailed after they attempted to cash out on a £4 million winning scratch card bought using someone else’s money.

This week, Mark Goodram, thirty-eight, and Jon Watson, thirty-four, admitted to using stolen debit card details to purchase the winning scratch card from a Waitrose store in the Clapham area of London.

Bolton Crown Court heard how the pair, who were both on licence at the time following prison sentences, had travelled down to the capital on April 22nd 2019, where they intended to go begging as ‘there was more money to be made’ there than there was in their home town.

There, they purchased the winning scratch card and immediately contacted the operator of the National Lottery, Camelot, to claim the winnings.

Mark Goodram / Facebook

However, Goodram almost instantly gave himself away by letting slip to the phone operator that he didn’t have a bank account for the winnings to be transferred into. Suspicions were raised and, the very next day, Camelot investigator Stephen Long rang Goodram back to enquire about the card used to make the purchase.

Goodram told Long that the bank card belong to his ‘friend’ who ‘owed him money’, but could not provide details on the cardholder’s full name or address, fuelling suspicions even further.

While the investigation was getting underway, however, both men sold the story of their win to The Sun, where they claimed they had spent the last four days celebrating with champagne and cocktail-fuelled parties. 

They even hired celebrity lawyer Henry Hendron to try and get Camelot to release the £4m, which was held pending while the investigation got underway. 

Jon Watson / Facebook

Their efforts were all in vain, however; Camelot’s investigation was eventually passed to the police who found that the scratch card had been bought fraudulently, using card details belonging to a man named Joshua Addiman.

It was also found that the men had spent £71.78 on the card in Waitrose as well as £90.56 in a Clapham Londis, all of which was reimbursed back to Addiman, Bolton Crown Court heard.

Yesterday, both men were jailed for eighteen months after pleading guilty to three counts of fraud. Goodram was then given an extra month for breaching his bail, taking his total sentence to nineteen months.

Prosecution barrister Denise Fitzpatrick described the case as ‘very unusual’ and said: “There was little prospect of success but that is due to the rigorous checks of Camelot rather than anything done by the defendants.”

Rept0n1x / Wikimedia Commons

Defence barrister Robin Kitching said that Goodram has a ‘long-standing addiction to drugs and alcohol’ and that he is ‘essentially homeless’, while Watson’s lawyer Nick Ross said the money was only ever ‘fantasy money’. 

He told the court: “When that figure popped up they were in total disbelief.”

Ross added that since the incident and due to the media coverage, Watson has become the subject of ridicule, adding that Watson has ‘had enough of crime’ and describing the incident as a ‘turning point’.