£45m lotto winner ‘killed gran in crash on Xmas Day’
Motorsport fan in court over ‘dangerous driving’
A £45MILLION l ottery winner killed a grandmother when his powerful BMW hit her car on Christmas Day, it is alleged.
Matt Topham – just 22 when he scooped the jackpot in 2012 – appeared in court yesterday over the death of Mary Jane Regler, 75.
Mrs Regler was killed and husband Ronald, who was at the wheel of their Ford Fiesta, suffered major injuries in the crash.
Yesterday Topham appeared in court via videolink accused of death by dangerous driving.
The case was listed for a plea hearing and trial preparation. But Topham, 31, did not enter a plea and the hearing was told an application to dismiss the case
‘Much loved wife, mum and nan’
will be made by his legal team at a hearing next month.
The maximum sentence for causing death by dangerous driving is 14 years’ jail.
Topham also faces a second charge of causing serious injury by dangerous driving in his BMW X6 SUV in relation to 78-year-old Mr Regler.
After the hearing at Lincoln Crown Court yesterday, a driver believed to be Topham was seen in sunglasses at the wheel of a Land Rover leaving the gated mansion he shares with 31-yearold wife Cassey and children.
The Reglers are believed to have been on their way home from a Christmas visit to relatives at the time of the collision near t heir vil l age of North Cockerington, Lincolnshire, l ast December. An obituary later described how Mrs Regler had been taken ‘tragically’ from her family, describing her as a ‘ much l oved wife, mum, nan and friend’.
Former painter and decorator Topham scooped the Euro-Millions lottery win with Cassey, who was then his girlfriend.
At the time he drove a Peugeot 107 city car. He is now a motorsport enthusiast who owns and races a fleet of Aston Martins.
Seven weeks ago, Topham won a sprint win at the Donington GT Cup Championship event at Donington Park, Leicestershire, in his £240,000 Aston Martin Vantage GT4.
Last week it emerged that the Tophams had spent £600,000 on a petting zoo near Louth for Mrs Topham’s mother Jane to run with her other daughters Jade, 27 and Alicia, 22.
Topham’s siblings Samantha, 27, and brother Craig, 23 live in their own houses – with the elder’s house bought for her in cash by her brother and sister-inlaw. When they landed the jackpot the Tophams l i ved in a £ 90,000 ex- council home in Stapleford, Nottingham.
They bought a seven-bedroom home with some of their winnings later in 2012, with plans to turn it into a Teletubby-style eco home with underground pool.
But the plans never got off the drawing board and five years later the £5million property on the outskirts of Nottingham had fallen into disrepair and become a magnet for drug users.
Gangs of youths have smashed up the interior with police called a dozen times after trespassers breached a 12ft fence.
A former neighbour of the Reglers last night described the grandmother as a lovely woman who had ‘a passion for gardening and horses’.