Derry Lotto Winner Banks Cheque

Derry has hit lucky yet again as a local man was today celebrating after scooping one of the province's biggest ever lottery wins.

The Londonderry ticket-holder won £6.4m in the EuroMillions lottery last Friday night.

While there was no overall winner of the £96m jackpot - the biggest ever in the lottery's history - the prize was shared out among 16 ticket holders throughout Europe, including six in the UK.

Now Northern Ireland's newest multi-millionaire has told how he believed he was 'destined' to win a share of the massive £96m EuroMillions jackpot.

Ryan Magee was so sure he was in for a win that he bought 11 tickets in four different towns.

The massive prize means that the 27-year-old IT specialist from Londonderry will now earn £20,000 per month on interest alone.

The delighted Derryman said: "In the week leading up to Friday's draw I was certain I would win. I just couldn't get it out of my head so on the day, while I was travelling on business, I bought tickets in Omagh, Strabane, Coleraine and Londonderry. The winning ticket was the last one of the 11 I checked by which time the numbers were in my head so I knew straightaway that I'd won.

"But despite my premonitions I still couldn't believe it."

Now the father-of-one is considering buying his dream car - a Ferrari - and will also use the cash to expand his business.

If a single ticketholder had scooped the jackpot it would have been the biggest payout of its kind in the world.

No surprise then that on the day of the draw, more than a million tickets an hour were sold in the UK - with a peak of two million an hour in the early evening.

The North West has done well with winners in both the UK and the Irish Lotto.

One Waterside winner, Denis Doherty scooped £1,655,605.

The 60-year-old former DuPont worker and his wife Patricia pocketed a third share of that week's Lotto jackpot.

Previously, Coleraine man Willie John McConnell took home exactly £3,822,330 in 1995 to become one of the largest single Lottery winners in the UK at the time.

However, a local man who scooped £130,000 in the UK Lottery hasn't been quite so 'lucky' as he was recently remanded in custody on charges that he was threatening to kill his girlfriend after the two argued over the financial windfall.

Sean Paul Cruickshank (37), a long-distance lorry driver from Manorwood, Altnagelvin, in the Waterside area of the city, was alleged to have told his girlfriend that he'd paid a man £10,000 to shoot her.

(BMcC)