PAT Smith is the lucky winner on the Evening Star's Win a Beach Hut competition after collecting more than a quarter of a million tokens to reach the final draw.

PAT Smith is the lucky winner on the Evening Star's Win a Beach Hut competition after collecting more than a quarter of a million tokens to reach the final draw.

The 35-year-old father-of-three from Felixstowe was busy in his job as an incident manager on the London Underground when he received the news.

He said: "It's fantastic to have won. The children love the beach hut already. On Saturday we were there from 9am and stayed out until 7pm, then we were straight back down there on Sunday. It's great."

Mr Smith collected an amazing 272,500 tokens after he pulled off his cunning plan. After reading that the token to be printed in the Star on the Saturday before the competition closed would have a bonus 5000 token in it, he ordered an additional 40 copies from his newsagent in the hope that would be enough to scoop the prize.

He said: "I had originally planned to order an extra 100 copies but thought this may be going over the top. However after I sent them in I thought others may have done the same thing and wished I'd ordered some more papers."

Readers were asked to collect tokens for a month from which were printed in the Star everyday from April 29 to May 31.

The top ten collectors were put in a hat. The winner would be able to use the beach hut free of charge for the whole of the summer.

Ben Collins, Newspaper Sales Manager, said: "The beach hut competition is always popular and this year was no exception.

"Several readers got together as groups to collect tokens and increase their chance of winning but Mr Smith is a deserving winner.

"I would like to thank all the readers who took the time to collect and send in their tokens and wish them the best of luck for next year."