A restaurant owner who won £1 million on the Euromillions lottery has been forced to share half the cash with one of his staff.

Hayati Kucukkoylu, who runs the Kapadokya Turkish restaurant in York, has been told by the judge that half the winnings is to go to Fatih Ozcan, a waiter at the restaurant.  Ozcan claims that if it had not been for him, his boss would never have entered the lottery draw.

Mr Ozcan argued it had been his idea to buy a ticket having predicted the jackpot win the night before in a dream. Mr Kucukkoylu insisted the jackpot was rightfully his because he had paid for the ticket and had chosen the winning numbers.

As the dispute became more bitter, the disgruntled waiter contacted the police and lottery organisers, Camelot, falsely claiming his boss had stolen the winning ticket from his jacket pocket.

Unable to settle the dispute the pair went to court and now a judge has ruled in Mr Ozcan’s favour, accepting that his explanation about the dream was entirely “plausible”.

Handing down his unusual ruling, Judge Mark Gosnell said Mr Ozcan had had a premonition about the win on the night of January 29 2012.

“He dreamt that he was holding a large bundle of cash and standing in front of him was his boss.

“Mr Ozcan is a strong believer in the power of dreams and interpreted this to mean that he and Mr Kucukkoylu would win the lottery,” the judge explained.