Rapist Iorworth Hoare's £7m National Lottery win has ingited a debate over who should be allowed to play. Sarah Foster asks if it should be open to convicted criminals.

IORWORTH Hoare's solemn mugshot accompanies headlines screaming "Rapist scoops £7m Lotto win" in many of yesterday's papers. It is guaranteed to provoke a reaction from even the most reticent readers. Who, after all, would condone such a huge reward for someone who has inflicted so much misery on others, who is such a danger to society that a judge once told him: "Every moment you are at liberty, some woman is at risk".

Yet there was nothing to prevent Hoare from buying his lottery ticket. Only those under 16 and employees of Camelot and the independent regulator, the National Lottery Commission, are barred from that privilege. And so it was that Hoare, while on weekend leave at Middlesbrough's South Bank bail hostel, was able to have a flutter just like anyone else.

Following news of his win, the Leeds-born lifer at Leyhill open prison, near Gloucester, is alleged to have bragged to fellow inmates: "I'm going to be sound for the rest of my life. I'll do well from here on in till the day I die." The newspapers' scorn is unmistakable, their pages abounding with descriptions of a "sex monster" and lurid tales of Hoare's "ferocious and terrifying" attacks, including one rape, three attempted rapes and three indecent assaults.

Yet while there are media reports that officials at Camelot, which runs the National Lottery, are less than pleased about its latest winner, the organisation, at least publicly, is avoiding the issue. A spokeswoman says: "It's the Home Office that dictates what convicted prisoners can or can't do and there's nothing in the Home Office rules that prevents a convicted prisoner from playing the lottery. It's not for Camelot to make up rules to prevent people from playing."

The latest embarrassing winner is by no means the first. In its ten years of operation, the game has turned up several undesirables among its 1,600 millionaires. Among the most notorious is Michael Carroll. Having won the £9.7m jackpot while electronically tagged for being drunk and disorderly, the 21-year-old from Norfolk has pursued his life of crime regardless. Only last month, Carroll, a former dustman, was jailed for five months for various drug offences after breaching a drugs testing and treatment order.

And then there's Michael O'Leary, who was so eager to prevent his wife from getting her hands on his £440,000 winnings that he strangled her. He was convicted of manslaughter after Liverpool Crown Court accepted that he didn't intend to kill her.

While O'Leary's criminal tendencies emerged after his lottery success, many are now questioning prisoners' and former prisoners' right to take part in the game. Responding to Hoare's win, Conservative leader Michael Howard highlights inconsistencies in the rules relating to inmates, saying: "Prisoners are not allowed to do the football pools, they are not allowed to buy Premium Bonds but they are allowed to buy lottery tickets. That doesn't seem to make sense.''

His sentiments are amplified by David Hines, chairman of the North of England Victims Association. He says: "If he's won £7m he wants to compensate his victims and if the victims don't want it, give it to some victims' organisations. I believe anyone on life licence shouldn't be entitled to purchase lottery tickets. Again, it proves that in this world there's no justice, when rapists can win £7m. Once again the victims come second and it's another strike for the criminal."

YET if there were to be restrictions on who could play the lottery, who would impose them? Not the National Lottery Commission, according to its spokeswoman. She says simply: "We operate under legislation that's set by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport."

Any attempt to specifically curtail prisoners' and ex-convicts' activities would have to be introduced by the Home Office, so should it change the law to ban them from the lottery in light of the public's unease? A spokesman says there are no plans to do so. "At the end of the day, it would be unenforceable to prevent a prisoner from buying a lottery ticket because if they didn't buy it themselves, they would get a friend or relative to buy it for them," he says. "If they are out on licence, they can buy a lottery ticket and if they are lucky, win. It's not for the prison service to advise on whether an individual plays the lottery or not."

But even if criminals were excluded from it, the National Lottery would no doubt continue to attract controversy. Not surprisingly, many former law-abiding winners have been corrupted by their wealth, using it to fund once-unobtainable drink and drug fuelled lifestyles. Nigel Gardner-Hale, for example, found himself in prison after spending some of his £3m fortune on a lavish party. The former RAF engineer, who was 30 at the time, pleaded guilty to supplying and possessing ecstasy and allowing the smoking of cannabis at his £300,000 home. Another unnamed lottery winner showed an unsavoury side by paying a domestic worker less than the minimum wage. He was made to pay more than £1,000 in arrears after the Inland Revenue caught up with him.

BUT there have been heartwarming stories alongside the scandals. All agreed that justice had been done, for example, when cancer sufferer Iris Jeffrey from Belfast last week scooped a record £20.1m win. The housewife and her family said they would use the cash to help find a cure.

So if the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has overall say on who can play and who can't, does it plan to change its criteria? The answer is a defiant "no". A spokesman says: "We have had different people win prizes and that's what the lottery is about. We can't control who wins and that's not something that we've ever been able to do over ten years. The lottery is there partly to raise money for good causes and has raised nearly £16bn towards them since it began. Our purpose is to maximise those returns."

When challenged about whether less-than-worthy winners like Hoare are bringing the game into disrepute he dismisses the idea, claiming that any negative publicity is outweighed by people's perception of the good the lottery does. Criminals may be able to win on the lottery, but more than £35m of lottery money has helped victims of crime.