£148m Euromillions winner, Gillian Bayford, blames the money for destroying family

Gillian Bayford, who shot to fame when she picked up a giant Euromillions cheque for £148 million in 2012, says the money has destroyed her family. She is no longer speaking to her parents or her brother, despite giving them enormous sums of money.

In an interview with the Scottish Sun, Gillian (who now lives in Dundee) said her dad, Ian McCulloch (71) mum Brenda (66) and brother Colin (41) were the first to be given large sums of money after the win. She said her father and brother had £700,000 of debts at the time, and they were living in a caravan. The first thing she and her then-husband Adrian did after the win was to pay off those debts.

Gifts

She also gave them houses and cars, and Ian and Brenda now have an apartment in Carnoustie and drive an Audi S8. Colin also has a £288,000 house, and drives an Audi.

Gillian also paid for them to go on a number of expensive first-class holidays, but it wasn't enough.

Nine months after the win, the family came back asking for more. At that point she gave Colin another £800,000 to buy a playcentre business.

In total she gave her family £20 million, but she says they still didn't feel this was enough. She said her father wanted to control her business, and take half her money. He also expected her to ensure Colin was set for life.

Estranged

According to the Daily Record, Gillian says hasn't spoken to her family since her gran's funeral last May, and they have broken off contact with their grandchildren. She says Colin actually got married without telling her. The family told the Sun that none of this wasn't true, that they were always keen to see her and the grandchildren, but that she had chosen not to be in contact.

All of this comes on top of the fact that Gillian and Adrian split just 15 months after the win. The couple did not release any details about what had caused the marriage to break down, but the pressure of such an enormous win - and the dramatic transformation in their lives - must have played its part.

It could be worse

It's not the first time that a lottery win has caused tensions within a family. In some ways, Gillian could consider herself to have got off fairly lightly compared to some of the previous winners.

Denise Rossi won $1.3 million in the California Lottery in 1996. Things had already started going wrong in her marriage before the win, so she decided not to tell her husband about the money, and 11 days later she filed for divorce. Unfortunately for her, when he discovered what had happened, he took her to court. The judge ruled that she had committed fraud, and she was made to give every penny to her ex-husband.

Then there's William Post, who won $16.2 million on the Pennsylvania lottery in 1988. He gave lavish gifts to his friends and family, but still, within two years he had been sued by his ex-girlfriend for a share of the money, and saw his brother arrested for hiring a hit man to kill him for a share of the cash.

But the worst family collapse has to have been after Jeffrey Dampier won $20 million on the Illinois Lottery in 1996. In 2005, he had an affair with his sister-in-law, and bought her gifts and a place to live. Unfortunately for him, the 'relationship' was a scam. She plotted with her real boyfriend to rob Jeffrey. They tied him up, but something went wrong, and the pair shot him.

These stories certainly don't make it any less painful that Gillian wasn't invited to her brother's wedding. But it does offer an alternative perspective.