‘It should be my home too, we chose it together’: Lottery winner tells how girlfriend moved into their ‘beautiful’ £500,000 five-bed ALONE after she dumped him and cut him off from the jackpot – as he reveals he had planned to propose

• Laura Hoyle, 40, and Kirk Stevens, 39, won a ‘set for life’ jackpot worth £3.6million split over 30 years
• Miss Hoyle lived in Mr Stevens home for  free while for free on condition she pay for lottery tickets  
• Since the winning ticket was bought with her card, Miss Hoyle was able to claim the jackpot after the split
• She has now moved into the £500,000 home the couple picked out together, giving Mr Stevens nothing 

A lottery winner who scooped £10,000-a-month for the next 30 years has told how his girlfriend has moved into their £500,000 dream home alone after dumping him and taking all the money.

Kirk Stevens, 39, today said his ex live-in partner Laura Hoyle, 40, has settled into the new build five bedroom detached house that they chose together after they won the life changing sum in March last year.

The couple chose the large red brick three-storey property off-plan when it was being built in a quiet corner of new estate on the outskirts of Nottingham. The end of cul-de-sac home overlooks fields and boasts one of the prime locations on the estate which is still under construction.

Mr Stevens said he was planning on proposing to Miss Hoyle after they won the jackpot worth £3.6 million over 30 years – going so far as to ask her parents’ permission and buying an engagement ring. 

Instead, Mr Stevens helped his former partner move out of his home and into the luxury red brick home he thought they would share together, where she now stays by herself.  

Mr Stevens had been letting Miss Hoyle live with him in his three-bedroom house for free as he ‘didn’t expect her to pay rent’ – with the agreement that she would be the one to pay £25 a week for lottery tickets. 

The deal paid off for the couple, but Mr Stevens claimed Miss Hoyle has now broken up with him, snubbed him from the winnings and ‘even wants our two dogs’.

The couple had said they planned to set up a ghost hunting business and were photographed holding their cheque – written out to both of them. 

Mr Stevens argued he should be given a share of the winnings after the split, but although the novelty cheque handed to the couple had both of their names on it, the ticket was bought with Miss Hoyle’s account.

A woman who allegedly cut her ex live-in partner off from a shared £10,000 a month jackpot over 30 years, has settled into a luxury £500,000 detached house the couple had chosen together

Mr Stevens had been letting Miss Hoyle live with him in his £240,000 three-bedroom house for free as he ‘didn’t expect her to pay rent’ – with the agreement that she would be the one to pay £25 a week for lottery tickets

Kirk Stevens, 39, and Laura Hoyle, 40, (pictured) bought their winning ticket online via the National Lottery app but Mr Stevens said Miss Hoyle has dumped him and taken ‘everything’

The couple said they planned to set up a ghost hunting business with their cash prize 

Mr Stevens had been letting Miss Hoyle live with him for free as he ‘didn’t expect her to pay rent’ so the pair decided she would put £25 a week into the lotto

Camelot has said that all Lotto wins are paid to an individual, even in a syndicate, and told the Sun that the winning account was hers.

However around 10 weeks ago later Miss Hoyle dumped Mr Stevens and got a new house. Her new home is a large red brick three-story five bedroom property nestled in a quiet corner of a new build estate on the outskirts of Nottingham. 

Mr Stevens, an engineer, said his ex had told him the pair would ‘live the life of Riley’ if they won but ‘now she’s gone’.

Speaking to MailOnline he said: ‘That should be my home too. We choose it together.

‘It is the house we were meant to move in together.

‘It is beautiful, absolutely beautiful. It is three storey, five bedrooms. It is amazing!’

Ironically Mr Stevens helped his ex move into the new home he has never set foot in since.

He added: ‘She pulled the plug and took everything. She even wants our two dogs.’

The couple had previously shared custody of their two pet Cocker Spaniels, Barny and Teddy.

Mr Stevens said: ‘The relationship was not perfect but it was all right. There were a few problems towards the end but I don’t want to say what.

‘But I feel hard done by about the house, why wouldn’t you?’

Kirk told how the couple had first seen the place when it was an empty plot.

He explained: ‘We originally saw it about a year ago. It was a shell, no walls, no plasterboard just wood and studs.

‘We liked the location, it was one of the best spots right at the end of a close and it was a similar style to the luxury Bosworth show home.’ 

He told how Laura had put down a 10 per cent deposit from her money, stating: ‘She was buying the new house with a mortgage for us and I was continuing to pay the mortgage on my £240,000 house where I have lived for seven years and where she had moved in with me rent free.

‘We were happy with that arrangement and I had planned to rent my place out.

‘I was paying my mortgage and bills and she was paying for food and the dogs’ insurance.’

Earlier this year Miss Hoyle said the pair were planning to go to Disneyland Paris in the summer, as well as ‘lots of other exciting places’, before the split.

Laura was seen saying she was ‘going to be sick’ in a clip from when the couple won the draw on March 1, 2021. 

Laura Hoyle (seen in a clip of the phone call), 40, and 38-year-old Kirk Stevens matched all five main numbers plus the Life Ball to win the top prize in the Set For Life draw on March 1 last year

Mr Stevens said: ‘I couldn’t make her stay when she said she didn’t want me so I helped her move out to help her our.

‘She took the bed from the spare room, wardrobes and some furniture she had bought and all her clothes.

‘She got a removals van and I helped her get her stuff out. It was about 10 weeks ago and she moved straight onto the new house, which should have been ours together.

‘I’ve not been in it since it’s had walls! After she walked out I assumed she was living there alone and I wasn’t living there.

The couple now split custody or their two dogs.

Kirk explained: ‘There was a bit of a spat last week and she said I wasn’t having the dogs and that she was keeping them over Bank Holiday although it was my week.’

He told how after the soloist ‘things were amicable’ but then soured.’

He believes he is entitled to a portion of the Lotto winnings, telling MailOnline: ‘I don’t want hand of the money, that would be unreasonable but £1,000 – ten per cent – a month would be quite nice!”

He said he feels ‘very distressed’ by the relationship breakdown and the spat over the winnings, saying: ‘Laura was a nice person and good fun. We did a lot of things together.’

The couple had been due to set up a ghost hunting business as a team but that in now off as a joint enterprise

Kirk said: ‘It isn’t going to work together but she is hoping to carry on the business separately.’

There was no sign of Laura when a MailOnline reporter called at her new home today.

Her next door neighbour said: ‘She has gone away for a few days.’

Mr Stevens said he met Miss Hoyle through a friend in 2018 and she then moved into his three-bedroom home in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire.

Referencing letting Miss Hoyle live rent-free in his £240,000 home he said she had asked how much rent to pay him but ‘as far as I was concerned she was my girlfriend.’ 

He added: ‘I didn’t expect her to pay rent, I didn’t ask her for a penny.’

The couple are pictured here with their dogs Teddy and Barney but Mr Stevens said Miss Hoyle wants to take the beloved pets too

Mr Stevens said he met Miss Hoyle through a friend in 2018 and she then moved into his three-bedroom home in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire 

The engineer went on to say that the couple had instead made the arrangement that Miss Hoyle would buy the lottery tickets.

He said: ‘Instead, she told me she’d buy us Lottery tickets. She spent around £25 a week and told me that if we won, we would both live it up.

‘Our arrangement was never any more formal but I didn’t think I needed anything more. 

‘We were a couple, living together in my home. Besides, I never expected to win.’

‘Laura was out of work but had money from the sale of her house. She could have paid me rent but I didn’t want it. I was happy with the arrangement as it was.’

Prior to the arrangement Miss Hoyle had been let go from her job at a logistics firm, so sold her Wolverhampton home and moved in with Mr Stevens.

Miss Hoyle ignored the message telling her she had won the lottery for two weeks, thinking she had only won £5.

Mr Stevens added: ‘Both our names were on the cheque we posed with for pictures and every press release from [National Lottery operator] Camelot talked about both of us winning the prize together.

‘Laura immediately quit her job and we bought a Porsche Cayenne. It was a really exciting time.

‘I suppose you could say we were semi-sharing the money then. Laura was paying me £1,000 a month from the winnings and she encouraged me to pursue my master’s degree in mechanical engineering. I would never have done it but Laura said she would pay off my student loan.

‘We had plans for the future. We were going to buy properties together and build an empire.’

He added he was planning to propose to Miss Hoyle after their lottery dream came true, and even bought an engagement.

Mr Stevens said: ‘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.

‘I talked to Laura’s friends, bought an engagement ring and was going to propose — but then we hit a bad patch and I thought, ‘I can’t ask her now’. So I put it off. I even sent the ring back.

‘After a while, things were back on track between us so I bought another ring. I was going to propose and, just then, we hit another bad patch.

‘I felt Laura was reluctant to commit and that the money was part of the problem.’

Mr Stevens also said the ghost-hunting business was Miss Hoyle’s idea – with the pair buying cameras and making Youtube videos of ghost hunts.

After getting a night-vision camera from the National Lottery, Miss Hoyle decided she wanted to turn her passion for ghost-hunting into a career.

The couple would go ghost-hunting ‘all weekend’, and when Mr Stevens went to work during the week, Miss Hoyle would spend her time editing ghost hunt videos at home. 

Death, divorce and giving away millions to charity: What happened to UK’s previous biggest lottery winners 

August 2012: Adrian and Gillian Bayford

Jackpot:  £148m

Adrian Bayford and then wife Gillian, from Haverhill, Suffolk, pictured in August 2021 after it was announced they had won a jackpot of just over £148 million

In August 2012, Mr and Mrs Bayford won 190 million euro in a EuroMillions draw, which amounted to just over £148 million.

The couple used their winnings to buy a Grade-II listed estate in Cambridgeshire, complete with cinema and billiards room.

But within a year their marriage ended and Gillian moved back to Scotland with her half share of the winnings, where she launched a property company. 

She has since remarried and had her third child with her second husband. 

Bayford remained in the Grade 2 listed property but after a series of relationships failed he put it up for sale and moved north to be closer to his children. 

January 2019: Patrick and Frances Connolly

Jackpot: £115m

EuroMillions lottery winners, Frances and Patrick Connolly pose during a photocall at the Culloden Hotel near Belfast, on January 4, 2019

Former social worker and teacher Frances Connolly and her husband Patrick won almost £115 million on New Year’s Day in 2019.

She has already given away £60million to charity, as well as sharing her winnings with her friends and family, saying she is addicted to helping others.

Mrs Connolly, 55, from Northern Ireland, has already busted the charity budget she agreed for this year with husband Paddy – and has given away what they would have donated up to 2032. 

She said helping others, whether with money or by volunteering her time, lifted people’s spirits during lockdown. 

The lottery winner has set up two charitable foundations, one named after her late mother Kathleen Graham in their native Northern Ireland, and the PFC Trust in Hartlepool, where the couple have lived for 30 years. 

The couple, who have three daughters – Catrina and twins Fiona and Natalie – are not extravagant with their wealth and Mrs Connolly has no desire to buy a yacht.

Their biggest expenditure after their win was a six-bedroom house in County Durham with seven acres of land, while Mr Connolly drives a second-hand Aston Martin, but Mrs Connolly scoffed at the idea of spending £13,000 on a console table. 

When she saw a TV show where someone in Monaco spent £25,000 on a bottle of champagne, she immediately thought that could have put a young person on the property ladder.

July 2011: Colin and Chris Weir

Jackpot: £161.6m

Chris and Colin Weir, who were later divorced, celebrate after winning jackpot of £161.6million in July 2011 – the then record for a lottery haul

Colin and Chris Weir, from North Ayrshire, bagged a jackpot of £161.6million in July 2011 – the then record for a lottery haul.

Mr Weir sadly died aged 71 in 2019, eight years after he won the jackpot. 

Mr and Mrs Weir, 62, were granted a divorce during the summer after 38 years of marriage. It is understood that they had been living apart for nearly a year prior to his death.

They had two children together, Carly and Jamie. 

Mr Weir was known for his support for the SNP and his love of Partick Thistle Football Club. 

He secured a majority stake in the Glasgow club in a seven-figure deal – and promised to give the 55 per cent shareholding to a fans group.

Mr Weir also helped the Jags to set up the Thistle Weir Youth Academy and a section of the club’s Firhill Stadium was named the Colin Weir Stand in his honour.

A former STV cameraman, he also made a donation to a community football club in his home town of Largs after setting up the Weir Charitable Trust in 2013 with his wife.

They had both been forced to give up work early and nursed each other through years of ill health before they became the 22nd richest people in Scotland after their £161,653,000 win.

Overnight, they entered the Sunday Times Rich List above Beatle Ringo Starr and singer Sir Tom Jones but shunned the lavish lifestyle decided to go on holiday to Brighton following.

One of the first items Mr Weir purchased following the amazing jackpot win was a checked sports jacket similar to the one worn by Scotsport legend Arthur Montford.

The couple ended up buying a number of homes, including for their son Jamie, who was working in a call centre, and daughter Carly, who was studying photography. They also bought homes for their close friends. 

Soon after the life-changing windfall, they moved out of their own three-bedroom home into Knock House – a mansion set in 23 acres of gardens and woods in the hills above Largs, complete with cinema, pool and stables. 

They bought it for £850,000 before selling it in 2016 to an overseas trust in a £1.4million deal.

They also went on to replaced their humble Suzuki for a £160,000 fleet of cars for the couple, their family and friends. 

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