Imagine how you would feel if you won £500 at the bingo.
Pretty darn pleased with yourself right? Ok, £500 won’t change your life, but it can buy a lot of cool stuff, or pay for a few fancy evenings out, or you could put it away for a rainy day if you are sensible like that.
Whatever you chose to do with it, it’s not an insubstantial amount of money so more or less anyone would be delighted to win it.
Now imagine that same £500, along with some money of your own, was stolen from you on the very same night that you won it.
This is exactly what happened to a resident of Dundee in Scotland, who had just enjoyed a very successful evening at her local Buzz Bingo.
It sounds like a terrible thing to experience, but this story does have a happy ending of sorts.
Here is what we know.
Bingo Winnings Stolen at 3am
The poor woman in question has asked to remain anonymous, and you can understand why, but whoever she is, she certainly had a rollercoaster of a night.
Having taken £250 from a cashpoint and heading to her favourite bingo hall, the Buzz on the Stack Retail Park of Harefield Road in Dundee, the lady went on to win a very tasty £500 prize.
This was paid to her in cash, so on top of the £250 cash she already had, this meant she was walking around with a whopping £750 in her pocket.
Somehow, local scum bag John Lawrie found out about her good fortune, and decided that he wanted her winnings for himself.
At 3am the next morning, with our bingo winner fast asleep beside her husband, Lawrie broke into their house via a bathroom window, and snuck into their bedroom where he began rifling through a handbag containing the cash.
The poor woman actually woke up while he was there, horrified to realise a stranger was in her bedroom, and after he left with the bag she woke her husband who went to check the house was no empty and that they were safe.
They were, Lawrie wasn’t there to do them any harm, but the money was gone.
DNA Evidence Snares Bingo Thief
Luckily, while Lawrie was ‘up to tricks’ he managed to leave DNA evidence on the window that he broke in through – perhaps it was a ‘tweak of his thumb’?
Since he already had a criminal record, the police had his information on file and could easily place him at the scene.
Two weeks after the crime was committed, a few ‘PCs’ turned up at Lawrie’s house, where he would have heard a ‘knock at the door’, before being arrested for burglary and taken
I’ll stop with the bingo call puns now.
The bingo thief was taken to HMP Perth on remand, and tried a few days ago, where he accepted responsibility for his actions and, according to his solicitor, John Caird;
“Mr Lawrie is quite frankly disgusted with himself.”
“He had a very bad drug problem at the time and he can’t recall any circumstances in relation to this matter.”
He has been put back on remand at HMP Perth until sentencing which will take place at the end of September.
As for how he knew about the win in the first place, well, who knows?
Perhaps he overheard a conversation as our winner left the bingo hall and followed her home? Perhaps another player knew him and tipped him off? Perhaps it was just one big coincidence.
However, considering John Lawrie had never been in trouble from breaking into someone’s house before it seems unlikely that he didn’t have prior knowledge, but we will probably never know for sure.