Betfair emailed Leicester man to log into account after he took his own life
A trial is underway
A man who took his own life after losing thousands of pounds gambling was sent an email from Betfair “prompting” him to log into his account after his death, the High Court has been told.
Luke Ashton was 40 when he died on April 22 2021, with a coroner later concluding that a gambling disorder was a contributing factor.
His widow, Annie Ashton, is bringing legal action against TSE Malta, which trades as Betfair in the UK, at the High Court, saying the company failed to adequately protect her late husband.
Betfair denies that it owed a duty of care towards Mr Ashton and is defending the claim.
Lawyers for the company said Mr Ashton was also gambling elsewhere and that it had a “sophisticated set of safer gambling procedures” which “were at all times correctly applied”.
In a witness statement used in the civil trial, which was originally written for an inquest in 2023, Mrs Ashton said she logged into her husband’s gambling and bank accounts after his death.
She said: “I also had a look at Luke’s email account and saw he had received an email from Betfair after his death prompting Luke to log into (his) account in order to access his ‘rewards’.
“This made me very angry and I feel strongly that these kind of communications from gambling operators would have contributed to Luke being unable to escape his gambling problems.”
In a separate witness statement for the High Court trial, she said the “vast majority” of Mr Ashton’s gambling in the three years before his death was with Betfair, as opposed to other companies.
When she looked at his phone after he died, “the only gambling-related app” on there was from Betfair, she also said.
She added: “I was also able to log into Luke’s William Hill account via the browser on his phone.
“I cannot recall the details of what I was able to see on the account, but I recall that it was clear that Luke had used the account much less than the Betfair account.”
Jonathan Hough KC, for Betfair, suggested while cross-examining Mrs Ashton that her husband had other worries beyond gambling in the lead up to his death.
He had taken extra work as a delivery driver to supplement his income from the print company Greenshires, in Leicester, which had reduced during the lockdown periods in 2020.
Shortly before he died, Mr Ashton expressed his concern to friends and colleagues about the company going bust, Mr Hough said, as well as putting on weight.
Reading from Mr Ashton’s Whatsapp messages, Mr Hough said: “Could do with going back to work, nearly 15 stone now, spend all my life eating in service stations.”
Mrs Ashton replied: “Well, he was quite a big person anyway.”
Mr Hough said: “But internally, people can sometimes feel unhappy about putting on weight. He didn’t make those kind of comments to you?”
Mrs Ashton answered: “Not really, no. It didn’t look like he had put on lots of weight.”
The barrister went on to say: “Preying on Luke’s mind over all those months, in late 2020, early 2021, was the risk that Greenshires would get into trouble, that he might have to face redundancy or take a pay cut.”
Mrs Ashton replied: “Those were conversations between him and his mate, but as far as I knew he was going to go back.”
Mr Hough: “So, he didn’t share any such worries with you?”
“No.”
The trial, before Mr Justice Swift, is expected to finish on June 19.