Shop stripped of licence over missing lottery prize

A shop involved in a ‘missing’ £920 lottery prize has been stripped of its licence.

Sandwell Council revoked the licence for Best One Store in Market Place, Great Bridge, Tipton, after owner Vincent Shaanmugarajah Thamilnesan gave confusing explanations over his role over the theft of a winning lottery ticket.

The shop was investigated by West Midlands Police after a staff member was accused of stealing a winning lottery ticket and not handing over the correct prize to a customer.

West Midlands Police said the victim had been given £30 in winnings for the lottery ticket only to realise later the prize should have been “substantially higher.” It was later revealed the prize was £920.

Licensing committee chair Cllr Matt Lloyd said Mr Thamilnesan had provided “varying and differing narratives” and “several different versions” of what had happened to the winning lottery ticket, which meant the panel had no confidence in his ability to hold a licence at the 24-hour shop and so revoked it.

During the police investigation into the theft, Mr Thamilnesan, the shop’s licence holder and designated supervisor, lied to officers telling them he was not the owner of the Great Bridge shop and could not access CCTV – only to change his story when interviewed by the same officers a week later.

CCTV footage from the shop, which should have been kept for at least a month, had been recorded over a week earlier and West Midlands Police said the missing video had “hampered” their investigation into the missing ticket. 

Sandwell Council’s licensing enforcement officer earlier said they had “serious concerns” about the shop and urged councillors to give serious consideration to revoking the licence. 

The hearing was told the process for shopkeepers who are handed a winning ticket and it was understood Mr Thamilnesan would have been given several prompts by the ticket machine to notify the customer had won. The shop owner said he “hadn’t noticed them.”

The on-screen message would have told Mr Thamilnesan that the shop could not pay out the prize and should be returned to the customer with an instruction to submit an online claim.

Sandwell Council’s licensing committee had met to review the shop’s licence at a hearing on June 30 but was forced to adjourn the meeting after a Tamil interpretor was unable to be secured for Mr Thamilnesan. 

The hearing was reconvened for July 10 where the licence was then revoked.

Duncan Craig, licensing barriest representing Mr Thamilnesan, said the shop owner would still have had to claim the prize if he had stolen the ticket.

“Where is the dishonesty?” he said. “There’s no gain made out of this at all. And there’s no way he would have known the amount that was involved.

“There has been no loss sustained,” he added. “And nothing gained.”

Mr Thamilnesan also told the hearing he had only admitted the ticket theft to West Midlands Police and agreed to sign a community resolution, which the force uses as an informal out-of-court settlement to deal with minor offences and anti-social behaviour, based on legal advice.

Mr Thamilnesan had already been stripped of his licence to sell lottery tickets by operator Camelot ahead of the hearing.