'Check out girl's' tears of joy for £8.5m lottery win

A Manchester United fan who scooped more than £8 million on the National Lottery said today she dropped to her knees and cried on finding out.

Tesco check-out assistant Karen Child, 33, whose £8,471,383 fortune would still not be enough to buy players such as Wayne Rooney and Rio Ferdinand, was presented with her winning cheque at the Old Trafford ground on Tuesday morning.

The mother-of-two, from Chesterfield, Derbyshire, said she and her fiance Wayne Smith, 24, could not believe they had won the Lotto rollover jackpot on Saturday when they checked their numbers on Teletext.

Miss Child said: "When I found out, I dropped to my knees and cried. That night I daren't go to sleep because I thought I'm going to wake up and it's going to be a dream."

The couple, who now plan to bring forward the date of their dream wedding to this summer, plan to leave their jobs.

Mr Smith works as a customer adviser at his local B&Q in Chesterfield.

Miss Child, who netted the win after buying one lucky dip ticket, has been told she will receive £176 an hour from the interest on her winnings alone - more than 30 times what she earned at her local Tesco.

The couple's first purchase will be a Mini Cooper in bright red Manchester United colours. They plan to buy a larger house than their current three-bedroom semi but want to remain in Chesterfield.

Miss Child, a long-standing Manchester United fan who has never been able to afford to see her football heroes play, said: "It's really too early to say what I'm going to do with the win but I would love to come to the Theatre of Dreams to see United play."