A COUPLE who sold 46,000 tickets at £25 in a raffle to sell their £1m Devon home have drawn the winner.

Brian and Wendy Wilshaw faced months of delays after their competition to win the Oldborough Mansion estate at Morchard Bishop was investigated by the Gambling Commission.

Last week the commission gave the raffle the all-clear and yesterday morning a winner was picked.

The winner has been identified although the details have not yet been made public.

The estate, near Crediton, includes a five-bedroom house and fishing lodges.

The Wilshaws decided to run the competition to win their home when it went down in value because of the property slump.

But the competition was put on hold while the Gambling Commission investigated whether to allow the draw to go ahead.

The draw was made at the offices of an Exeter solicitors just after 10am.

For the draw, five small bags were each filled with 10 pieces of paper with the digits zero to 10 on them. One piece of paper was drawn from each bag to form the five-digit winning ticket code.

Wendy Wilshaw said: "We didn't want anyone to have any qualms whatsoever that the draw was not absolutely 100 per cent legitimate."

The result is due to be posted on the competition website, www.oldboroughretreat.com.