A LOTTO winner accused of dumping her boyfriend after they landed a jackpot worth £3.6million and keeping the winnings is enjoying a lavish lifestyle - with a new man.
Laura Hoyle, 40, and Kirk Stevens, 39, won a 'set for life' prize of £10,000 per month for 30 years in 2021 - and the paranormal-loving pair revealed plans to launch a ghost-hunting business.
But a year later Kirk told The Sun how Laura - to whom he had planned to propose - had dumped him, taken the winnings and moved alone into the £500,000 Nottingham home they had planned to share.
She was able to claim the jackpot after the split as the winning ticket had been bought using her card.
Now new man Graham Jones is enjoying the lifestyle Kirk once thought would be his - with Laura posting a string of loved-up photos of the romance on social media.
One pal has hailed the pair - thought to have been dating for around a year - as a “beautiful couple” while another gushed: “Great to see you happy.”
The pictures have devastated Kirk, who previously told the Sun: “Laura had told me we’d live the life of Riley if we won.”
Lotto winner Laura’s Facebook page reveals she is enjoying the glam life - with holidays, a sleek new look and a trip to the Strictly ballroom in Blackpool.
But on her arm is Graham, rather than irked Kirk.
Engineer Kirk previously told The Sun he had let Laura live in his three-bedroom home rent-free if she paid £25-a-week into lotto on their behalf.
After landing the Set for Life prize in March 2021, Laura quit her job at Hermes and the pair bought a Porsche Cayenne, as well paying for Kirk’s Master’s degree, with him recalling: “We had plans for the future.
"We were going to buy properties together and build an empire.”
But their relationship fell apart in 2022, just 16 months after their win.
Kirk previously said: “I wanted to try to fix it but Laura wasn’t interested. It was like the money gave her confidence to throw it all away.
"She became snobbish and superior..when it became clear we were not going to work things out, I asked her: ‘What about our Lottery win?’ She said, ‘It’s not ours, it’s mine’.”
The pair used to share videos of their spooky adventures on their YouTube channel, ‘K & L Ghost Hunters’.
Since their split, Kirk has documented his solo paranormal pursuits on ‘Ghost Hunter Kirk’, which has around 6,000 subscribers.
She made it “very clear” to Kirk at the time that the money was hers and hers alone, and that the £1,000 she had previously been paying him every month was “rent” and not a share of the winnings.
I asked her: ‘What about our Lottery win?’ She said, ‘It’s not ours, it’s mine’.”
Kirk Stevens
After the split, Kirk said that all he wanted was 10 per-cent of the win: “I just want ten per cent. If she continues to pay me £1,000 a month, I’ll happily walk away. She won’t even notice it.”
There is no legal requirement to tell your spouse if you win the lottery during the course of your marriage.
However, during a divorce, all assets including lottery winnings must be declared so that they can be considered as part of the financial proceedings.
In a landmark case, the High Court held that, where one party to a marriage wins the lottery, the other will not share in those winnings unless they were acting together in the ticket’s purchase.
For example, this could be if they were effectively acting as a syndicate.
Or they could be considered to have "acted together" if the proceeds are invested in joint assets or property such as the matrimonial home.
However if the ticket is purchased unilaterally, without the knowledge of the other party, then the prize was described to be ‘akin to an external donation’ and therefore non-matrimonial.
One case involved a woman who had won £500,000 on the National Lottery.
She bought the winning ticket with her own money and without her husband’s knowledge.
The couple, who can’t be named for legal reasons, were living in a council house at the time and used the winnings to buy a £275,000 house.
A few years later, the couple’s marriage broke down and the husband moved out of the family home.
He claimed a share of the lottery winnings as part of the divorce settlement but the court ruled against him.
The judge said he was not entitled to an equal share because the wife’s lottery winnings were not “matrimonial property”.
However, the husband was entitled to a share of the proceeds from the family home because when the wife bought it with her winnings, she had converted it into “matrimonial property”.
He still wasn’t entitled to an equal share as he had only lived there for a short time.
He was therefore awarded a lump sum of only £85,000, even though the house is now worth an estimated £500,000.
Just months later, in September 2022, Kirk revealed new fears that Laura would take his dogs away and said that would hurt more than losing out on the cash.
The former couple shared two cocker spaniels, Teddy and Barney, and had a joint custody arrangement.
But Kirk was worried Laura would fight him for sole custody of the dogs.
He said at the time: “The only communication we have now is over the dogs. We both own them and are splitting time with them. I may not have any lotto money but at least I still have the boys.
“These dogs mean the world to me. I hope she never takes them away from me. I couldn’t bear that. It hurts to lose the money we won together but it would hurt even more to lose the dogs.”
Kirk didn’t respond to requests for comment. He last spoke in April last year when he said: “I would like to just put all this behind me. I’ve moved house and jobs also, to just get away from everything.”
By Fiona Connor and Mike Ridley
A MAN who was jilted after his girlfriend hit the Lottery jackpot says he should've seen the warning signs their love was doomed.
Kirk Stevens and his live-in girlfriend won the jackpot worth £3.6million in the National Lottery’s Set For Life draw in March 2021.
They were overjoyed to find out they'd be banking a staggering £10,000-a-month for 30 years - but the happiness didn't last long.
Kirk says things started to go wrong slowly but surely, and the plans he had to marry Laura moved further from his grasp.
Looking back, there were hints their relationship might have been in more danger than Kirk wanted to realise at the time.
He said: “We’d both been married before and when we first got together Laura told me she wasn’t bothered about tying the knot again.
“She said she’d change her name by deed poll and wear a ring but wasn’t interested in marriage.
“Things changed, though, and after two or three years together, I was getting to the point where I wanted to marry her. I loved Laura and wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.
“I even talked to her parents and asked them for her hand in marriage. They were over the moon, and I was really excited.
Kirk felt Laura was checking out of the relationship and that the mega-money win had become a difficult subject to talk to her about.
He says: “People used to ask me why I never quit my job [at aero engine maker Rolls-Royce in Derby]. I liked having a sense of purpose, something to get up for each morning.
“But it was more than that. The truth was, I never felt secure enough with Laura to give up my job. I could feel her pulling away from me — and things went from bad to worse.”
The Lotto lad was left heartbroken over dreams that never came true.
