Lottery to mother

Press, 25 June 1983, Page 1

Lottery to mother

PA Wellington Mrs Lisa Afoa said yesterday that she will be back house-hunting after a court decision awarded her the $109,000 Golden Kiwi prize won with a ticket she bought in the name of her son, aged three. Mrs Afoa said she and her husband bad been ecstatic when their “Our Son” ticket had been drawn for first prize in the lottery last October. “We decided we were going to buy a house,” she said. Then she said “the happiness just went out of me” when advised by the lottery organisers that the matter would be put before the courts for a decision as to whether the monev would

be paid to Mrs Afoa or held in trust until her son, Eni Eni, was aged 20. Mrs Afoa said she had been looking at houses while awaiting the court decision, but it had been only halfhearted. “Now we can buy one I am happy.” She had used her son’s name on the ticket “just for luck.” The intention had always been that the money would be for the family — her husband, her daughter Salealii, aged five, her son Eni, aged three, and another child which was yet to be born. Mrs Afoa said she had come to New Zealand five years ago to help her relatives in Western Samoa.

She had not been back to Samoa since. A family trip home to introduce her children to their relatives was also planned with the lottery prize money. But she said that would have to wait till Christmas, when her factory-worker husband had some leave. A celebration over the win was also planned. It had been delayed after the discovery that the matter had to be resolved by the courts. The High Court in Wellington yesterday ruled that Mrs Afoa was entitled to the money. The organiser of New Zealand Lotteries, Mr Warwick Kiddle, challenged the right of Mrs Afoa, a Newtown housewife, to claim the first prize of $100,009.