Scottish student a shell of the girl she used to be after £10m Lotto winner smashed into her car
Shattered student Chloe Forbes, 23, could only look on as Jake Bowman's motor veered across the road and sped towards her - and now she says she dreads getting behind the wheel
A YOUNG car smash victim has been left a shell of the girl she used to be after fearing she'd be killed by a Lotto drink-drive yob.
Shattered student Chloe Forbes, 23, could only look on as Jake Bowman's motor veered across the road and sped towards her - and now she says she dreads getting behind the wheel.
Chloe’s mum Alison, 57, said: "It really upsets me to see her like this.
"She used to be such a bubbly and happy girl but the accident has changed her so much.
"It could all have been avoided if Jake had just taken a taxi home that night. A fare is nothing to him.”
The £10million jackpot winner, 61, crashed his Audi S3 into Chloe's car after a boozing session in Forfar - he was four times over the limit.
Chloe said the sozzled motorist had no idea her Toyota Yaris was there — and revealed she initially believed he had collapsed at the wheel.
Speaking after Bowman was fined just £500 and banned for a year yesterday, traumatised Chloe, from Forfar, said: "I thought I was going to die. I saw him coming towards me for a while but I felt so powerless.
"There was nothing I could really do. I couldn’t turn off the road because I would have ended up in a field.
"I thought it must be an elderly person who’d had a stroke or a heart attack because he didn’t seem to be aware of my car."
Chloe was driving two miles from her parents’ pad in Kingsmuir, Angus, to a pal’s in Forfar to pick up a textbook when she was struck.
Bowman, 61, was returning to his plush £360,000 villa at 10.30pm following a boozy pub session that left him over four times the legal limit.
The dad of two’s £33,000 Audi S3 slammed into Chloe’s four-year-old motor, sending it spinning and facing the wrong direction on the B9128.
Panicking Chloe was forced to clamber out of the passenger side window as the mangled driver’s door was jammed and the airbags had deployed.
Scottish lotto millionaire Jake Bowman charged with drink-driving following two-car smash outside Forfar
Recalling the April 8 trauma, she said: "I had to sit down on the pavement because I was hyperventilating.
"I thought I was going to faint. I was in shock and started having a panic attack.
"But I was so worried about the other driver that I shouted across to make sure he was OK. I had no idea he had been drinking.”
Passers-by stopped to help and Bowman confessed to one that he’d been boozing.
Mercy crews were called to the scene and Chloe was whisked off to Ninewells Hospital in Dundee with a suspected broken sternum and shattered rib.
She said: "The whole time I kept asking about the other driver. I couldn’t get him out of my mind. But the paramedics told me to forget about him and focus on myself.
"Now I think that must be because they knew he’d been drink-driving."
Medics revealed Chloe only suffered minor injuries, including cuts and bruises.
But she has been unable to sit through lectures on her occupational therapy degree at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, due to the mental scars of the ordeal.
She has also had to postpone a vital placement.
And Chloe, who passed her test at 17 and has never had a bump on the road, now dreads getting behind the wheel.
She added: "I can’t compose myself. I can’t get to sleep at night because as soon as I close my eyes I have flashbacks to the accident.
"Whenever I drive down the road where it happened I burst into tears. There are severe consequences to his drink-driving.
"This shouldn’t have happened. It’s affected me badly, I can’t stop thinking about it."
Forfar man who battered £10m Lotto winner Jake Bowman in bar room brawl facing jail
Forfar Sheriff Court heard Bowman, who knows Chloe’s parents, was breathalysed by cops at the roadside.
He had 111 microgrammes of alcohol per 100ml of breath.
That dropped to 92 microgrammes when he was tested again at the police station. The limit is 22.
Bowman told the officers: "I think that’s quite high for the amount I have had to drink today."
He told the court he was driving home to Kingsmuir because his flash motor had been damaged when he had left it in Forfar and he feared it would happen again.
Bowman also tried to pin blame on Chloe and said he clipped the kerb after being dazzled by her headlights.
He admitted drink-driving but was cleared of the more serious dangerous driving.
Passing sentence, Sheriff Gregor Murray told Bowman: "It might only have been two miles to your house and you knew the road but there are dangerous stretches and a series of nasty bends."
He added: "It could have been a lot worse."
CLIMBING THE LADDER TO NEW LIFE
BOWMAN earned £20,000 a year working in a ladder factory before he scooped the £10.3million lotto jackpot in April 2016.
The dad-of-two misread his ticket while hungover and reckoned he had won just £10,000 before a pal checked his numbers.
He vanished for days before meeting the media to announce his windfall.
Bowman moved out of his modest £95,000 two-bedroom flat in Forfar and snapped up a four-bedroom luxury home in nearby village Kingsmuir for £360,000.
He posed for snaps with the Audi S3 involved in the road crash, which he bought from a local car dealer to make sure the money benefited his town.
Bowman also told The Scottish Sun he was planning to buy a racehorse with his winnings after being a fan of the gee-gees for years.
Despite packing in his job, he continued to rise at the crack of dawn.
He revealed: “I wake up at 7am thinking I’ve got to work.”
Last year, his former colleague Marshall Baer, 61, was fined £400 after admitting battering Bowman in a pub rammy.
At the time the millionaire said the attack had made him think twice about going out for a pint.
Bowman’s lawyer Stephen McLaren told the court: "He had been at a pub in Forfar and very foolishly took the decision to drive home. He is deeply remorseful and apologises for the damage caused to the car. He’s deeply ashamed."
During the short hearing, first-time offender Bowman was described as retired.
The law dictates that fines are linked to "the means of the offender".
His life-changing Lotto win in 2016 was never mentioned.
The £500 penalty will be earned by the millionaire in interest in just two days.
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Asked about the paltry fine, Chloe said last night: "That’s the court’s job to decide."
But she appealed for the shamed lout to get in touch.
She said: "A sorry would be nice. I want to sit down with him to get across the impact this has had on me.
"He needs to realise what he’s done to me and take responsibility for his actions."
Bowman refused to comment outside court and he was driven away by a pal.
stuart.patterson@the-sun.co.uk
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