Bank details of lottery winners found by side of road in appalling new security blunder

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Among the boxful of Prudential files relating to investments worth many millions of pounds were those reportedly belonging to three National Lottery winners.

In the box were cheques and other sensitive papers which criminals could potentially have used to hack into customers' accounts.

The documents were found by a vehicle recovery driver on a roundabout near a sliproad for Junction 11 of the M4 near Reading in Berkshire.

The box was meant to have been taken by a DHL courier from a Prudential building in Reading to a secure storage facility in Essex.

A source close to an investigation into the incident said: "He (DHL courier) appears not to have noticed that the door of his van was open and the box appears to have fallen out.

Account details of Prudential's millionaire customers fell unnoticed from a van

"The Pru is clearly not happy at all. It has suspended all use of DHL until the investigation is concluded."

The box of files are now safely back in the hands of the Prudential.

Letters were being sent out to all of the 200 customers affected, giving assurances that they would not lose out.

A spokesman for Prudential said: "Protection of our customers' data is of paramount importance to us and we are contacting them immediately.

"The key thing is that none of those customers will suffer any financial loss as a result of this."

He added: "It was a delivery being made on our behalf to a secure storage facility in Essex and basically the DHL van and the box parted company at some stage during that journey."

The Sun reported that three of the customers affected were National Lottery winners.

One, Karen Child, who won £8.4 million last year, told the paper after being informed of the blunder: "I feel physically ill."