ESSEX has continued its lucky Lotto streak with a second winning ticket in a week.Tracey Orton and her family from Thaxted scooped the jackpot of nearly £3 million on Saturday.

ESSEX has continued its lucky Lotto streak with a second winning ticket in a week.

Tracey Orton and her family from Thaxted scooped the jackpot of nearly £3 million on Saturday.

The win follows hard on the heels of a syndicate of nine in Tilbury, who won £7,190,550 on the Lotto Double Rollover draw the previous Wednesday.

The Orton family were at home on Saturday with friends when daughter Sophie, 12, encouraged her dad to check the numbers.

They missed part of the live draw and so matched three of the numbers, but a check on Teletext revealed they had the top prize of £2,966,481.

When postman Timothy, 44, told his wife the news, she says they did not know what to do.

Mrs Orton, 40, said: "When we realised we'd won we were so excited.

"It's a good job our friends were here as we were so excited we did not know what to do. We then called Camelot and validated our ticket. We were just stunned."

Mr Orton was so nervous while waiting to find out if any other ticket-holders had won a share of the jackpot, he could not keep still and went for a walk.

His wife, who bought her Lucky Dip ticket as she queued at a Thaxted newsagent's, said: "Timothy was out walking until 10.30 in the evening. By the time he came home it was all confirmed - none of us got much sleep that night.'

Mrs Orton, who works in the human resources department of a law firm, went in to work on Monday morning although she is now planning to give up her job.

Her husband could now be the richest postman in Essex, as he plans to continue with his postal round in Great Dunmow.

The family say they are likely to spend some of the cash on a holiday, which may include mountain biking in New Zealand.

Sophie has also requested "a nice bedroom in a nice house with a collie dog and a horse".

The winning national lottery Lotto numbers on Saturday were 17, 19, 20, 35, 43, 45.