Roger and Lara Griffiths

Roger and Lara Griffiths, a Yorkshire couple, won a UK National Lottery jackpot in October 2005. The prize was widely reported as £1.8 million and put at £1.83 million by the Daily Mail in 2013; Roger was the named ticket-holder. Both gave up work — Lara had been a teacher — and began spending. They took a ten-day trip to Dubai, and over the following years bought a barn conversion in North Yorkshire, a £28,000 Porsche, around 30 second-hand cars and about 15 designer handbags, five-star holidays in New York, Majorca and Monaco, roughly £10,000 a year in private school fees for their two daughters, and a £150,000 beauty salon in which Lara worked without paying herself a salary. Roger spent £25,000 recording with his old university band. Speaking to the BBC in 2013, he attributed much of the loss to the financial crash. By 2013 the money had gone — Roger said he was left with £7 to his name and support from his parents — and the marriage ended the same year. In interviews published in 2023 Lara, then 53, said she had kept working full-time, flown economy and bought second-hand cars, and did not regret it.

As of interviews published in August and September 2023, Lara Griffiths was 53 and living in Boston Spa, West Yorkshire; she said the winnings and the marriage had both gone by 2013 but that she had 'a great time' and that the lottery did not ruin her life. Roger Griffiths said in 2013 that he had £7 left and was relying on his parents; no later status for him is documented as of 2026.