A man who lost his job almost four months ago is celebrating after scooping £500,000 on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

Peter Spyrides, from Hutton, near Brentwood, was the fifth contestant to win half a million pounds in the three-year history of the TV quiz show.

The 33-year-old father-of-one was made redundant from his job at Deutsche Bank at the end of June and chose not to answer the last question, for £1m, as he did not want to gamble the £500,000.

Mr Spyrides still had his 50:50 option on last night's (Tuesday's) show but passed on the final question - ''What was the profession of the composer Borodin?''

He said: ''I knew that with only a 50:50 lifeline if I didn't know the answer to the question immediately I wouldn't gamble, as £500,000 is too much to risk losing.''

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