The Maidenhead Advertiser has told how it fell victim to an elaborate hoax by a university student who claimed to have scooped £2.4m on the lottery.

The weekly newspaper reported how 21-year-old Dalip Singh was celebrating after becoming one of two winners to scoop all six numbers in the July 17 Lotto draw, and a share of the £4,896,956 jackpot.

But it has since emerged that the ‘win’ was a joke and Dalip had not won a penny.

Maidenhead Advertiser editor Martin Trepte said that although Camelot had failed to confirm the win, the paper had done a lot of background research which appeared to stand the story up.

He said: “Camelot didn’t tell us that he was not a winner – if they had then we would not have run the story.

“There was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing during the week and we felt there were three other sources which seemed to confirm the story.”

The story, headlined ‘Dalip hits the jackpot’ appeared down page on the front-page of the family-run tabloid title.

Alongside a photograph of Dalip clutching his ‘winning’ ticket – a photocopy as the Advertiser believed he had handed the ‘real’ one over to claim his prize – the paper told how Dalip could now say goodbye to student debt and was planning to take four of his closest friends on holiday.

Martin said: “Our reporter spoke to him a couple of times – he was very convincing.

“We also spoke to his family and friends who were convinced he had won, and the shop confirmed it had sold a winning ticket.

“We also had independent reports of him drinking in town and splashing his cash all week. It all seemed to add up – the circumstantial evidence was there.

“We spent a lot of time trying to stand it up and had to decide whether or not to run it. The whole town was talking about it and if he had been a winner and we hadn’t have run it everyone would have thought the Advertiser had missed the story.”

The Advertiser is now planning to run a follow-up on the hoaxer in its next edition on Friday.

Martin said: “We have spoken to him again since and have also spoken to his family and friends. It will be very interesting.

“I can’t understand why someone would go and do something like that and make themselves look a complete prat. It’s not big and it’s not clever.”

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