Lotto lout Michael Carroll going back to being a binman after blowing £9.7m win

By Daily Mail Reporter
Updated: 18:36 EDT, 30 May 2010

He became the self-proclaimed king of the chavs after turning up to collect his £9.7million lottery win wearing an electronic offender's tag.

But eight years on, having blown all that money, Michael Carroll is practising for a return to his old job as a binman.

The 26-year-old, who squandered his multi-million fortune on drugs, gambling and thousands of prostitutes, has since February claimed £42 a week in jobseeker's allowance.

Dress rehearsal: Michael Carroll practices wheeling bins near his Norfolk home

But he is keen to get off the dole and back to earning £200 a week collecting rubbish near his home in Downham Market, Norfolk.

The father of two told The People: ‘I can’t wait to stop signing on and start getting paid for doing a proper job like normal people.’

He also said he hoped to see some of his old friends back on the job, adding: ‘It was a good laugh when I was doing it before I won so I don’t mind going back to it.’

Carroll's jackpot win in 2002 disappeared with astonishing speed as the tattooed self-styled 'King of the Chavs' lavished several million pounds on family and friends and hundreds of thousands on drugs.

By the end of 2003, he was smoking £2,000 of crack cocaine every day and hosting drug and drink fuelled parties at his £325,000 home, the notorious Grange in Downham, Norfolk.

Lout and about: Carroll, who has been on the dole, visits his local JobCentre

Angry at his life of excess, his wife Sandra left him and took their baby daughter Brooke with her.

Rather than see the decision as a wake-up call, Carroll continued on his life of excess, turning to prostitutes.

He boasted about sleeping with four a day - a total of 2,000 at a cost of £100,000 over eight years - in order to sate his sexual appetite.

Carroll, who now lives with girlfriend Gemma Peake, a hairdresser with whom he has a child, once said: 'I could go for days without sleeping because of the drugs - so I would just spend night and day s****ing with all these hookers.'

Describing how he descended into a world of drugs and paying for sex, he continued: 'I only started to think about three things - drugs, sex and gold.

He spent a small fortune on his trademark chunky gold jewellery and a fleet of cars, including a black Mercedes van emblazoned with the phrase 'King of Chavs'.

Winning days: Carroll, aged 19, collecting his Lotto check for £9.7million in 2002

Repairs to properties he has wrecked with raucous parties have also cost him thousands and he reportedly lost an estimated £80,000 on a property deal in Dubai after the market fell.

Checkered past: Carroll arrives at court in 2004 giving his traditional salute

Carroll also lost £1million on the dogs and horses and even injected £1million into his favourite football team, Rangers.

He was down to his last £500,000 cash in 2008 and last year sold his £400,000 fleet of luxury cars and spent the proceeds.

But in February, as it emerged that he had been declared bankrupt, he told the Mail that he had no regrets about his lost fortune.

He said: 'The party has ended and it's back to reality. I haven't got two pennies to rub together and that's the way I like it. I find it easier to live off £42 dole than a million.

He said others had benefited from the win more than he had.

'I'm just glad it's over. There were also vultures everywhere after my cash. I started to see what people were really like,' he explained.

Carroll became notorious for his yobbish behaviour and answering any criticism with a one-fingered salute.

He arrived to collect his winnings wearing an electronic offender's tag, fitted after he was found drunk and disorderly and has appeared before the courts dozens of times for anti- social behaviour.

Madcap: Carroll fights ex-Gladiator Mark Smith in a charity boxing match in 2005

In 2004, Carroll was jailed for five months after failing to comply with a drug treatment order, imposed as part of a sentence for cocaine possession.

He was also handed an Asbo by magistrates in King's Lynn, Norfolk, for catapulting ball bearings at cars and windows from his Mercedes, causing thousands of pounds of damage.

Under its terms, he was not allowed to threaten, harass or intimidate anyone in the borough of West Norfolk, an area covering about 400 square miles.

The order also prevented him from threatening or attempting to cause criminal damage in the same area.

In 2008, thugs killed 12 of his dogs and ran him out of his lavish Downham, Norfolk, home and he has never returned.

Instead it stands vandalised and derelict with his pool filled with rubbish.