A FORMER Comet country resident is celebrating after a trip to the supermarket for two bottles of squash netted her more than £2.5m. Kerri Cartwright, 28, formerly of Ripon Road, Stevenage, scooped £2,543,691 in last Wednesday s Lotto draw. She had bough

A FORMER Comet country resident is celebrating after a trip to the supermarket for two bottles of squash netted her more than £2.5m.

Kerri Cartwright, 28, formerly of Ripon Road, Stevenage, scooped £2,543,691 in last Wednesday's Lotto draw.

She had bought the winning Lucky Dip ticket after buying juice for her three-year-old daughter Stephani.

Kerri said: "I had promised to get Stephani some blackcurrant juice and some orange juice so I went into Tesco to buy them.

"The juice was on a buy one get one free offer, so with the money I saved I decided to buy a lottery ticket for the draw that night. The win means the world to me as I won't ever have to worry about things again.

"I'm planning to take all the family away on holiday to Disney World.

Kerri, who was a pupil at John Henry Newman school, has already spent some of her fortune, buying a house for her mum and a Mercedes for herself.

She moved to near Glasgow from Stevenage three years ago after growing up in the town.

She is studying for an HNC in administration and IT and works part time in a golf club.

Kerri only found out about her big win the day after the draw.

She said: "I was in bed later when I realised I had not checked my ticket. It was downstairs and I really didn't want to get it, so I put the TV on in the bedroom and tapped the numbers into my mobile and saved them as a text message.

"It was only when I was in the canteen at college the next day that I remembered to check them.

"I thought at first I had four numbers, then five and I was really pleased. I asked my friend Jo to check for me.

"She had my mobile and the ticket and she said 'you're playing a joke on me, aren't you? You have all six."

This week Kerri returned to Stevenage to take family and friends out to the West End to see Mama Mia.

"It's friends that have been really close and stood by me and it's to say thank you to them really," she said.

"I don't feel any different at all really, just happy."

Kerri is the third lottery winner from the St Nicholas area of Stevenage. Darren Nash, who won £15m on Christmas Eve 2005, lived in the same street as Kerri, while Sharon Creighton, who scooped £8.8m in February 2005 lived one street away in Durham Road.