Callie Rogers on being Britain's youngest lottery winner / ITV
There are some things that all the money in the world can't change. Callie Rogers's six-year-old son Blake has cerebral palsy and is disabled. Although he has the widest of smiles and loves a cuddle, he can't walk unaided, talk, or even swallow properly.
The trauma he suffered at birth, which his mother believes led to his brain being starved of oxygen, also killed his identical twin. It is likely that Blake will need care for the rest of his life.
But Callie knows that, had things been different, Blake's path through life could have been smoothed a little. Had she been a little more shrewd with money, for example.
"A lot of the time, I don't care about money," she says. "I was never one for designer clothes or flash cars. But it's my one big regret that the money isn't here for Blake. He loves sensory stimulation. If I had that money, I'd give him the biggest sensory room you could buy." She certainly should have been able to.
For 15 years ago, Callie, who had just turned 16, became the youngest Lottery millionaire in Britain, winning £1.8 million (NZD$3.45m), reports The Daily Mail. She had, everyone assumed, set herself up for life.
It was not to be. Within a decade, the money was gone, frittered away on . . . well, she's not entirely sure. There were holidays, houses — one for her mum, one for her grandparents, several for herself — and boob jobs.
There were flash cars, too — several of them bought for boyfriends who barely lingered long enough for the new-car smell to wear off. And there were drugs, although not, she insists, the £250,000 (NZ$480,570) worth that has been reported. "That's ridiculous," she says. "As if I could have spent that on drugs!"
All that remains of that massive, life-changing windfall is money tied up in her grandparents' home, which is theirs for their lifetime. Then it will revert to her.
"It's in a trust," she says, a little vague on the details. "But it does mean I haven't lost it all. There will be something for my children."
What else will there be? Well, from here the legacy looks rather pitiful. This week came the latest instalment in what can only be described as Callie's car-crash life: she was in court to give evidence against two acquaintances who beat her up in an ugly incident last year.
The pair — Marie Hinde, 37, and Jade Quayle, 26 — had been dog-sitting at the home of Callie's then-boyfriend, and when she headed there in a taxi after a night out, a scene developed. She was dragged around the living room 'like a rag doll' and needed hospital treatment.
The pair are now facing jail after admitting the assault. The case, at Carlisle Crown Court, was adjourned for sentencing on September 14. Today, she talks of her nose having been broken, and seems shaken by the ferocity of the attack.
But it's not the first attack she has endured. Our conversation is littered with examples of times she has been attacked in the street, or targeted by one-time friends (she uses the inverted commas air sign when she utters the word).
There are lurid stories of her windows being 'put in' and paint daubed on her property.
Is this linked to her Lottery win? She certainly thinks so. 'It meant that suddenly everyone knew who I was. Everyone wanted a bit.'
There is little outward sign of her one-time wealth now, though. Today, Callie lives with her son, Blake, and his two-year-old sister, Georgia, in a small cul-de-sac in Workington, Cumbria, in a modest house rented for £400 a month.
She shops at Asda, works as a carer (since her Lottery loss she worked as a cleaner, then went back to college to study social care). While not exactly on the breadline, she admits that, like most single mums, she has to budget all the time.
"My kids don't want for anything," she says. "At the end of the month there is usually enough for a few treats, but I couldn't go out and buy a new car tomorrow. If I want a holiday, I have to save."
That it has not been an easy life since her win, money aside, is patently obvious.
She has two older children, Kian and Debony — aged 13 and 11 — who do not live with her (although she sees them every week). Their father has custody. The reason? In 2009, when the money was still there, but much depleted, Callie hit rock bottom. She attempted suicide not once, but twice, in the years after her win.
Would any troubled 16-year-old have done better with the money, though? Should teenagers even be put in that position? "I don't think any 16-year-old should be able to win the Lottery, because at that age you just aren't equipped for it," she says. "And you can't do any other gambling until you are 18. Why is the Lottery different?
"I was buying houses when I didn't have the first idea about the responsibilities involved. I didn't know how to pay a bill because I'd never had to. I didn't know what council tax was.
"I'd go as far as to say anyone under 21 should have a win like that given to them in stages, like in America."
Even today, however, Callie still isn't a natural with money. During our interview, she answers a knock at the door and has a conversation with a woman about missed payments.
Someone wanting money? "It's nothing," she says. "Just the sofa I'm paying up. I lost my bank card and I just have to sort the direct debit." She jokes: "I'm always losing my bank card. I'm a bit dippy like that."
You have to be very dippy indeed to lose £1.8m (NZ$3.45m) , though.
Understandably, she is somewhat defensive. "It's not as if I lost it in a year. It was over nine years. Look at Michael Carroll [another Lottery winner who famously squandered his fortune], he lost £9.7m [18.6m] ."
Callie adds: "And I did have living expenses in that time. I mean, I couldn't work because of all the attention. And it costs a lot to live. People don't understand that."
Nonetheless, it is a staggering amount to lose by any standards.
"Yeah, I lost it, but it doesn't make me a loser," she says. "I'm working hard now to provide for my kids. I might not have all that money, but I'm a happier person for it. People don't believe that, but it's true. I was never even interested in money."
To understand what went wrong with Britain's youngest Lottery winner, you have to go back and look at Callie's life beforehand.
It was dysfunctional to say the least. Her parents split when she was young, and her mum was an alcoholic. She describes herself as a "very angry teenager", and ended up in care.
Ironically, though, by her 16th birthday she had found a certain stability, living with Brian and Sheila Holmes, foster parents she adored.
"Looking back, I was really happy. I had a job [she was working in her local Co-op, earning £3.60 an hour]. I was enjoying going out with my mates when I got paid. I was fine."
It all changed on that June evening when, dog-sitting at a friend's house, she checked her Lottery numbers.
"I thought I had five. I couldn't believe it." She now wishes she had landed five numbers, rather than six. "It would have been a manageable amount," she says.
Callie Rogers was left needing hospital treatment after being beaten up by two dogsitters, a court heard. Photo / Instagram
The clues that all would not go well were there even then. She recalls that her boyfriend at the time was on the phone to all and sundry. "I remember hearing him say he had won £1.8 million. We hadn't even been together that long. I thought: "You haven't won anything, mate." "
Perhaps if she had been from a more stable background, Callie would have done things very differently. But what she did next was, with hindsight, catastrophic.
She appeared at a press conference, dressed in a mini-skirt, being publicly hailed as Britain's youngest Lottery winner. Why did she tick the 'yes' box to publicity?
"I didn't," she insists. "I didn't know I had an option. I just opened my front door and the photographers were there. From then, I couldn't walk down the street."
Her memory of the weeks that followed is hazy. She talks of someone from Camelot arriving with a suitcase with £3,000 (NZ$5,770) in it, and then being helped to open a private banking account.
Callie had never been further than Blackpool when those numbers came up, but suddenly, she was heading to Greece for a holiday with her mum. It was a disaster.
"I hated it. I wanted to come home. Camelot arranged for me to come back and I remember flying first class — the first and last time I've ever done that.
"I hated that, too. There were all these men in suits and me in my joggers. I thought: "What the bloody hell am I doing here?" "
Soon, she bought herself and her mum a house and then started handing out money to her wider circle. She makes mock-quotes with her fingers as she says 'friends'. It sounds rather like locusts descending.
"It was my own fault. Some lad said he owed £13,000 [NZ$24,000] and was going to be in trouble if he didn't pay it, so I paid it. I was handing out £200 [NZ$375] here, £300 [NZ$577] there, sometimes more."
Gifts or loans? She shrugs. She didn't keep records. 'My grandparents were doing a clear out recently and they gave me a box of stuff. There were old cheque books in it. I couldn't believe the cheques I had written for people.
"I remember sitting in a room drinking and people were using my card to buy MacBooks."
So, is this the ultimate case of getting in with the wrong crowd? Certainly her choice of boyfriends is questionable. In August 2003, she met unemployed Nicky Lawson, who went on to father her first two children. Together they ploughed through the cash.
There was a boob job or two. There were lavish holidays, more cars, designer gear for the children. But there were also drugs. Back then, she was painted by some as an out-of-control cocaine addict.
"I was never addicted," she says. "It was recreational stuff. It looks worse than it was."
She rejects that £250,000 (NZ$480,570) figure, but can't put a number on what she actually spent. On anything.
There may be an element of distancing herself from the blame here, but she says she was never interested in the money, only in "getting people to love me".
When I ask about the good times, she has to think.
"I mean, there were some. I'll never forget being able to take the kids to Disney. That was amazing. And going diving at a coral reef in the Bahamas. That was good. But inside, I really wasn't happy. The problem was with me."
By 2009, her relationship with Nicky was over and she wanted her life to be, too. 'There was still some money. I still owned a few houses, but I lost my kids. I didn't want to live.'
Incredibly, at this point she struck up a friendship with another Lottery winner who contacted her after his big win. "He lived down South. He won £8 million. He wanted my advice — probably about how not to do it," she says.
She went to stay with him for a week, "to get my head cleared". He wanted a relationship, she says. "But I wasn't interested. He was a lovely guy, but no."
Most would leap at the chance of finding love with a 'lovely guy' who happened to be a multi-millionaire. 'I didn't want his money.' She says her 'fight back' began in 2010, when she met Paul Penney, a fireman who went on to become father of Blake and Georgia. "He was different because he didn't care that I'd been a millionaire."
By 2011, she was pregnant with twins, but was devastated to lose Mason at birth.
So much of her life has been a car crash, and it still doesn't seem stable. She and Paul split last year, and there is a new boyfriend, Tom, a joiner, "although we aren't rushing it. He doesn't live here".
She's still naive about money. Chatting about the split, she says the house she and Paul owned — "I put down the £30,000 deposit. It was the last of my money" — is now his. Wasn't it in joint names? "No, just his, because he was earning so it was easier with the mortgage," she says.
"But it's OK because that house will go to the kids one day."
What of all those people who could have helped but didn't? "It wasn't their fault," she says. "I was 16. I thought I knew best!"
She says she is "closer than ever" now to her mum. And what about her foster parents?
"I should get back to see them. But I feel I let them down."
