A Briton has won the World Scrabble Championship in Lille, France, with his highest scoring word being 'braconid' – a type of parasitic wasp. Brett Smitheram from Chingford won the ‎€7,000 (£5,868) prize money after beating fellow Brit, Mark Nyman, over three rounds.

Along with 'braconid', Smitheram played 'variedly' for 95 points, 'gynaecia' – parts of a flower – for 95 points, and 'periagua' – a Caribbean canoe – for 76 points.

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Runner-up, Nyman, is a previous world champion and was formerly a producer on the Channel 4 word-based game show, Countdown. Smitheram told the BBC that Nyman was one of his "scrabble icons".

"He used to be the producer of Countdown and he got me on Countdown when I was 17, 20 years ago now. I was on Countdown about 10 or 12 times." Smitheram said that when Nyman interviewed him for the show he asked what his aspiration was, to which Smitheram replied: "I want to win the Scrabble World Championship".

"And today I beat him in order to do it. Quite a story behind it."

Scrabble played at World Championships
Scrabblers compete Reuters

The competition took place as part of the 2016 Mindsports International Championships which included events for Scrabble alongside Chess and Go, a game that originated in ancient China over 5,000 years ago.

The World Scrabble Championships were a 5-day event, starting on Wednesday 31 August, with the final on Sunday, 4 September. The final was a best of five games competition but Smitheram won in three straight matches.