A FORMER scratch card jackpot winner has been spared jail after assaulting a 14-year-old girl.

Simon Rowland, from High Legh, hit the headlines in 2017 after netting the huge £44,000 prize.

Warrington Guardian:

The 49-year-old was handed a 12-week imprisonment suspended for two years at Warrington Magistrates Court on Saturday, August 28, after admitting two counts of assault against female victims – including the child – as well as resisting arrest.

These charges related to an incident in June this year which was ‘committed whilst in drink’.

Rowland told the Warrington Guardian four years ago that he had to have his leg amputated and suffered a brain injury after being run over by a forklift truck during the industrial accident in Dallam, and had not worked since.

But he hoped that the 60p Foxy Bingo scratch card win, which coincided with St Patrick’s Day, would change his life by investing in a catering van having had a ‘torrid time’ since the incident in 2014.

Warrington Guardian:

He added: “At first I didn’t believe it – I ran upstairs and woke the wife up who confirmed that I’d got the numbers right.

"I've never really been a gambling person but you've got to be in it to win it I guess.

"A 60p scratch card can change your world – it must have been the luck of the Irish.”

Rowland – of Woodlands Crescent – was also handed a six-month alcohol treatment requirement and a 33-day programme requirement, as well as being ordered to pay a £128 victim surcharge and £85 in court costs.