Missing sentences B2


You are going to read a magazine article about a criminal who won a lottery. Eight sentences have been removed from the article. Choose from the sentences A-I the one which fits each gap (1-8). There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use.


 

What happened next?
 

Lee Taylor-Ryan was a lifelong criminal who won nine million euros in the British National Lottery eight years ago. He was facing a conviction for handling stolen cars at the time of his win and ended up in prison for nine months. This is his story in his own words.
 

Even though I won the Lottery nearly a decade ago, I still haven't got over the incredibly strange feeling I experienced at the time. I don't believe these things happen by accident and that we randomly picked those winning numbers. …1… When my wife told me we had won, I knew that's what had caused my feeling. I wasn't at all surprised and that freaked me out even more.


The timing of the win wasn't brilliant because I had a court case pending for handling stolen cars. I knew I would have ordinarily just walked away from it, but I wasn't so certain it would be the case now I had won the Lottery. I thought: 'How inconsiderate to win at such a time. Couldn't it have waited?' That also meant the news of our winning leaked out. …2… They told other people, and before you knew it, the press were all over us.


We bought a new house with our winnings, but didn't even get a chance to sleep in it on the first night. …3… As we couldn't even get out the front door, we decided it was the lesser of the two evils.


I was like a kid in a sweetshop at first. I bought the Bentley and the Ferraris, and did lots of showing off. The press gave me a hard time, but I was just trying to drown the misery of winning by surrounding myself with all these toys to take my mind off the real issues. I was trying to make myself happy, but it was making me miserable, really. …4… You can't win.


Despite all the money, I just knew I was going to prison. …5… As far as I was concerned, I couldn't see how I was supposed to get a fair trial after everything the press had printed about me.


...6… I was a bit rusty because I'd been away from prison for nine years. The hardest thing about it was that I couldn't run away from anything there. It seemed there were references to the Lottery every day, with guards picking out their numbers every time I set foot outside my cell.


I'm glad I had the experience of going back, though, because it sorted my head out. …7… You end up shackled to an expensive house. You cage yourself in for security until it’s as much like a prison cell as prison itself. I didn't want to go when the doors opened after nine months because I was afraid of what would follow.


Eventually, we bought another house and, despite all the security, we were burgled from the inside by our cleaner. …8… Altogether, she stole nearly €60,000. It wasn't the money that was at issue, but the trust.


 

A The press were jumping over the walls, taking things out of the bins and eventually we took the advice of an advisor to do a press conference.


B Being sent to prison after winning was a real roller-coaster ride.


C We told some family members about the win because I was in such a difficult situation with the court case coming up.


D It was then that I decided to do something worthwhile with my winnings.


E I had a perspective from both ends, from the millionaire's mansion and from prison, and they're both designed to imprison you.


F Winning was outside of my control, but if I had tried to fix it by giving the money away, the press would have attacked me for that as well.


G She took cheques from our chequebooks and made them out to herself.


H First I had to go to court, which was interesting considering I was richer than the judge who sent me to prison.


I The week before we won, I had a feeling something was about to happen but with anything good, bad things come with it, so it also brought a feeling of foreboding.