Anger management order for Lotto lout

Friday, January 05, 2007 posted 10:28 AM EST

"LOTTO lout" Michael Carroll has been ordered to take anger management classes after threatening passengers on a Cambridgebound train.

The 23-year-old from Downham Market, who won £10 million in 2002, was ticked off when he appeared before magistrates in Cambridge yesterday (Thursday, 04 January), and was told he had acted "juvenilely" on the train.

Carroll had been listening to music and tapping his fingers on a luggage rail on the train from King's Cross on November 17 when a fellow passenger asked him to be quiet.

Emma Dmitriev, prosecuting, said Carroll had subjected the man to a "barrage of abuse" and she urged the magistrates not be swayed by Carroll's promises of good behaviour after 42 previous offences.

She said: "You can see from his previous convictions that outpourings of how sorry he is and 'it won't happen again' won't have a great deal of sincerity."

But Neil Meachem, mitigating, said his client had been trying to stay out of trouble since his last offence in 2004 and did not consider his reaction to be unreasonable.

He said: "He reports that although the man spoke to him, he perceived him as a threat and he dealt with that."

Paul Heavens, chairman of the bench, sentenced Carroll to a 24- month community order and told him to take part in an aggression replacement training programme and a substance abuse programme, and to pay £60 costs.

He said: "We hope you are coming to the end of a period where you may have behaved perhaps rather juveniely and when you look back you might regret some of your life."

Speaking after the case, Carroll said he had taken his niece to London to watch him take part in a magazine photo shoot and she was sitting on his knee when the man approached on the train.

He said: "I had my nine-year-old niece with me and she was frightened."

He added: "I sometimes regret winning the money, but I don't speak about the bad things. A lot of people hate you, there's a lot of jealousy."

Carroll's friend, Carl Chapman, who accompanied him to court, said the 23- year-old was "misunderstood".

He said: "The family go out for a quiet night or a meal and get set upon.

A lot of people don't see the background of it all. Every person who's met him has come back to me and said 'what a quiet and decent lad'.

They can't believe it's the same person they've read about."

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