Bungling conmen targeted a Shropshire man in a European lottery scam – but he had been dead for seven years.

Tony Barnfield, of Munslow, near Ludlow, said that the conmen had sent a letter to his uncle Leonard Brown saying he had won £935,470 in a European lottery.

Mr Brown, who lived in nearby Broadstone, died in 2002, aged 79. Mr Barnfield discovered the ruse when the current occupant of his uncle’s house took him the letter.

He said: “It would have been quite a win if he had entered the lottery, but you have to be in it to win it and he certainly hasn’t entered anything since then.

“We all know it’s a big con. They’ve made a bit of a booby there because it’s gone to a dead man. It’s a bit of a laugh.”

Mr Barnfield said he made the connection after reading about a similar scam in the Shropshire Star about fraudsters targeting Powys residents.

He said: “When I read that, I thought, this is what it’s all about.”

Mr Barnfield said the letter informed Mr Brown that he was a winner in the Loteria Nacional Spanish Sweepstakes Lottery International Programme which supposedly held a draw on August 24. It said his name has been attached to a ticket number which had won in the third category.

The letter contains instructions to contact Antonio Gomez in order to process his claim  and warns that five per cent of the total will be kept by the “claim agent”.

Mr Barnfield said: “I thought when you won the lottery, you won the lottery and you got to keep it. But if you haven’t bought a lottery ticket, you can’t win the lottery here or abroad.”

By Hannah Costigan