Colleagues sue £52m lottery winner

Four work colleagues of one of the winners of the £210m US Powerball lottery jackpot are suing for a share of the prize.

They claim the woman's winning ticket had been bought as part of an office pool.

The lawsuit also asked that at least part of the winnings be frozen, but a judge in Portland Maine, refused to do that, saying she does not believe the co-workers can win their action.

Altogether, four winning tickets to the jackpot were sold around the US before Saturday's draw. One of those tickets was turned in this week by Pat and Erwin Wales of Maine.

In the suit, four people who worked with Mrs Wales in Portland claimed the ticket had been bought as part of an office pool. They said 19 members of the pool kicked in £7 apiece to share 190 Powerball tickets.

Each winning ticket is worth £52.5m, a quarter of the third biggest jackpot in US lottery history.

The Waleses' lawyer, Terrence Garmey, insists the winning ticket belongs to the couple, offering as proof sales records from the store in New Hampshire where the numbers were bought.

He says Pat Wales bought 190 numbers for her office pool, then a few minutes later bought 20 for herself and her husband. And the winning number, Mr Garmey says, was among those 20 tickets.

Mr Garmey says Pat Wales was "devastated" when told her co-workers might sue: She put her head on the table and sobbed. When I comforted her, her first words were, 'Let them have the money."'

The lawsuit asked that at least £6m of the winnings be frozen, but Justice Nancy Mills rejected that request. Based on an affidavit filed by one of the co-workers, Mills wrote that she does not believe the workers can produce enough evidence to win their suit.