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Get you up to speed: Woman wins £115,000,000 lottery – and gives half of it away | News UK
Frances Connolly, who won £115 million in the EuroMillions lottery in 2019, is launching a charity initiative to raise money for her PFC Trust at Middlesbrough Velodrome. To honour her 60th birthday, seven athletes will participate in the “60 for 60 Challenge,” culminating with the Great North Run.
Frances Connolly’s charity, the PFC Trust, has initiated the 60 for 60 Challenge, which will see athletes run, swim, or cycle a total of 60 miles, culminating in the Great North Run. The challenge was launched in conjunction with a family fun day at Middlesbrough Velodrome and aims to raise funds for local causes in the North East of England.
Frances Connolly is commemorating her 60th birthday by launching the 60 for 60 Challenge, where seven athletes will engage in endurance events to raise funds for her charity, the PFC Trust. The challenge culminates in the Great North Run, with participant Paul Hewitson emphasising its importance for promoting healthier lifestyles among young people.
What remains unclear — The total amount of money raised for Frances Connolly’s charity through the 60 for 60 Challenge has not been disclosed.
Woman donates half of £115 million lottery winnings to charity
To most people, it would be obvious what you’d buy if you won the lottery: yachts, a mansion (or two), luxury clothes and a lot of champagne.
Yet when Frances Connolly won the £115million jackpot with her husband Paddy in 2019, she decided to give more than half of it away.
The social worker and teacher handed piles of cash to friends and family before setting up a charity to help local causes where she lives.
PFC Trust has, among other things, bought caravans so young carers can take a break, funded loneliness projects, taught older people how to use new-fangled technology, delivered food parcels and installed defibrillators at sports clubs.
Before her life-changing win, Frances helped others from a young age while growing up in Northern Ireland.
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She moved to Hartlepool for work in 1990, planning to stay for only a year or two, only to live there for more than 25 years, the trust website says.
Within three years of scooping up the life-changing money, Frances had already spent up to 2032’s allocation, she told the BBC at the time.
With her father a fan of country and western music, Frances named the late Dolly Parton, who died aged 80 last month, as her ‘inspiration’ for her philanthropic work.
Parton gave vast amounts of her wealth to good causes, including child literacy.
‘Maybe if we had been younger I’d have kept more, maybe you’d be a bit more nervous about how much you could give away,’ Frances said.
‘But unless I intended to live forever – I was 50-whatever when I won it – so even being generous, I was well over halfway through.
‘So as long as the kids are sorted and they had enough to live comfortable, nice lives, I didn’t see the point.’
The couple insist they live the same life they did before their huge win, with Paddy still running plastics businesses, but say they have a ‘lovely life’.
Frances said: ‘I always tell people, we have the same life, we just live it bigger.
‘You know, we haven’t particularly changed, if you talk to my friends.’
As charitable as she is, Frances knows all too well that she can’t single-handedly ‘cure poverty’.
‘I get help and support every single day,’ she said of the hundreds of people she works with.
‘I think people just need to be asked, and they just need to have that opportunity to do exactly what I do and change lives.’
In honour of Frances’ 60th birthday, seven athletes are to undertake a series of gruelling challenges to raise money for her charity.
The 60 for 60 Challenge will see the team run, swim or cycle a total of 60 miles.
Following family fun day today at Middlesbrough Velodrome, the team will tackle a series of tough events, culminating in the Great North Run, the world’s largest half marathon.
Paul Hewitson, who will take on the Great North Run for the trust, said of Frances: ‘She has set such an example, and we wanted to help through sport, as we all know how vital it is for young people to live healthier lives.’
October 12, 2024
6:18 am
‘Cheer up, you caught the bad guy,’ says killer Virginia McCullough as she is arrested for murdering her parents
A woman who murdered her parents “in cold blood” before hiding them in makeshift tombs for four years told officers to “cheer up, you caught the bad guy” as she was arrested in her home.
Virginia McCullough, 36, poisoned her father John McCullough, 70, with prescription medication and fatally stabbed her mother Lois McCullough, 71, shortly afterwards in 2019.
She ran up large debts on credit cards in her parents’ names and after their deaths, she continued to spend their pensions until she was finally caught in 2023.
In body-worn video footage released by police, a handcuffed – and eerily calm – McCullough told officers: “I did know that this would kind of come eventually.
“It’s proper that I serve my punishment.”
She said she had slipped something into her father’s drink then put his body under a bed on the ground floor, and put her mother’s body in an upstairs wardrobe.
McCullough, having been arrested on suspicion of double murder, told an officer: “Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy.”
She added: “I know I don’t seem 100% evil.”
At the police station, she told officers where a kitchen knife was, which she described as a “murder weapon”, and a hammer which she said “will still have blood on it”.
McCullough, of Pump Hill, Chelmsford, Essex, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday with a minimum term of 36 years at Chelmsford Crown Court, after she admitted to their murders between 17 and 20 June 2019 at an earlier hearing at the same court.
Chelmsford Crown Court heard how she hid their bodies in makeshift tombs at the family home in Great Baddow in Essex, then told persistent lies to cover her tracks.
The court heard she cancelled family arrangements and frequently told doctors and relatives her parents were unwell, on holiday or away on lengthy trips.
But concerns over Mr and Mrs McCullough’s welfare were raised in September 2023 by a GP at their registered practice, and Essex County Council’s safeguarding team referred these to police.
The GP had not seen the couple for some time and said Mr McCullough had failed to collect medication and attend scheduled appointments. It was found McCullough had frequently cancelled appointments, using a range of excuses to explain her father’s absence.
Police said a missing persons investigation was initially launched and McCullough lied to officers, claiming her parents were travelling and would be returning in October.
It became a murder investigation, and when officers forced entry to the house in Pump Hill on September 15 2023, McCullough confessed that her parents’ bodies were in the house and that she had killed them.
Nicola Rice, a specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “McCullough callously and viciously killed both of her parents before concealing their bodies in makeshift tombs within their home address.
“She spent the next four years manipulating and lying to family members, medical staff, financial institutions, and the police, spending her parents’ money and accruing large debts in their name.”
She added: “This was a truly disturbing case, which has left behind it a trail of devastation, and I can only hope that the sentence passed today will help those who loved and cared for Lois and John begin to heal.”
To downplay the genocide, the israelis claim there’s only 20,000 people left in north Gaza, says
@MahaGaza
: the real number exceeds 400,000
Man of the right wing Nigel Farage taking more second jobs and freebie helicopter rides
Gosh he’ll soon be a true blue Tory at this rate
Or far far worse
The cost-of-living crisis is far from over, yet the government’s 50% increase to the bus fare cap is a political choice, adding hundreds to annual costs.
To address hardship & the climate crisis, the government must keep the £2 cap & make public transport accessible for all.
G20 waters down support for Ukraine amid pressure for peace talks
The Tech Titan Who Led His Company From a 68-Square-Foot Jail Cell
November 23, 2024
8:25 am
Defense alliance NATO chief Mark Rutte has met US President-elect Donald Trump to discuss global security issues, according to a NATO spokesperson.
The meeting took place in Palm Beach, Florida.
During his first term as US president, 2017-2020, Trump pushed for European NATO countries to spend more on defense and described the alliance’s cost-sharing as unfair to the US.
Rutte took over as NATO chief from Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg in November.
Before taking office in January, Trump has nominated Pete Hegseth for the post of defense secretary, which has raised eyebrows among many allies.
Hegseth, 44, has served as an infantry captain in Iraq and Afghanistan, but has no senior military or government officer experience.
November 23, 2024
8:25 am
November 23, 2024
8:17 am
Multiple missiles were fired in an airstrike towards a densely populated part of Lebanon’s capital early on Saturday.
The huge airstrike targeted Beirut’s Basta neighbourhood, and no prior warnings were given by the Israeli military. The largely residential area was struck last month.
At least one violent explosion was heard across the city, Reuters witnesses said, and plumes of smoke could be seen. Scenes of massive destruction at the site were shared online, including a massive crater in the ground.
“Beirut, the capital, woke up to a horrific massacre, as the Israeli enemy’s air force completely destroyed an eight-story residential building with five missiles on Al-Mamoun Street in Basta,” the state-run National News Agency reported.
The health ministry put the initial death toll at four, with 23 wounded. The number is expected to climb in the coming hours as search and rescue efforts continue.
It came after a long day of Israeli airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, which have been non-stop since last week.
The cross-border fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group escalated into a full-blown war in mid-September.
Israel has bombed southern Lebanon, Beirut’s southern suburbs and the eastern Beqaa region, and has sent ground troops across the border. Hezbollah has continued to fire rockets deeper into Israel.
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