I won lottery THREE times but nearly walked away with nothing because I thought I ‘forgot to pay’

A STUNNED lottery winner nearly walked away with nothing after he claims he thought he’d forgot to pay.

David Crowder, an ex-cop and army veteran from Perthshire, won a bumper £1.02m prize after buying three tickets for the People’s Postcode Lottery.

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David, 62, is now dreaming up a golf trip to the Masters Tournament in the US, a long voyage to Australia to visit long-lost relatives and donating to charity.

But it nearly wasn’t to be.

When David missed a call from People’s Postcode Lottery on Tuesday, he thought it might’ve been a scam – and Googled the number assuming he forgot to pay the monthly £12 fee to be in the running.

As it turned out, David had paid and players in the PH2 9 postcode in Perthshire struck gold with a £10.2m pot, the biggest ever in Scotland.

“I got a missed call on Tuesday and decided to ignore it because I thought it was a scam,” David told The Courier.

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“I googled the number and noticed it was the Postcode Lottery, I thought I may have forgotten to pay.

“They told me that I was a winner. They went through some details and told me that I had won at least £5,000.

“I had three tickets so knew I was going to win at least £15,000.”

David’s three winning tickets were actually worth a whopping £340,000 each.

“They asked me if I wanted to know how much I had won and passed over the first bit of paper to see I had won £340,000.

“They then said that I wasn’t finished and passed me another one, and then a third one.

“I was speechless, my legs were like jelly. I was in shock, I’m a council guy from Letham, these things don’t happen to me.”

David said the winnings would be “generationally life-changing” with daughter Amie, 37, and son Dale, 32, set to benefit.

“I’ll share it with my family because that’s what I’ve always done,” he said.