The Traitors: Edinburgh woman Meryl Williams wins BBC show with Claudia Winkelman

Edinburgh woman Meryl has won BBC show The Traitors alongside her faithful friends Hannah and Aaron

An Edinburgh woman is “delighted” to have been part of the winning team of a hit new BBC show. After four weeks of gruelling gameplay, Meryl Williams managed to banish The Traitors and win the cash prize alongside fellow contestants Aaron Evans and Hannah Byczkowski in the grand finale on Thursday night (December 22).

The 26-year-old said: “I think I might be the first person with my condition to win a reality show which I’m so delighted about. Overall, I can’t believe it. I still genuinely can’t believe it. I feel very grateful. I feel ecstatic.

“It feels very surreal. I never in a million years thought I was going to win the show. I never went in there to win the show. I went in there for new experiences, to meet everyone. I feel still pinch me about it!”

Meryl from Edinburgh has won BBC show The Traitors (BBC/Studio Lambert Associates/Paul Chappells)

Meryl, a call centre agent, says she is hoping to make a career change with the prize money – £120,000 split between the three winners. Hosted by Claudia Winkelman, The Traitors was filmed in Ardross Castle in the Scottish Highlands. It saw the contestants take on a number of challenges while they tried to discover the traitors in their midst – or be killed off.

Describing how she felt when she won, Meryl said: “Shocked. I was genuinely in shock. I think my knees fell to the floor when I found that Wilfred was a Traitor too! I was in shock with it all. I never expected to win so I never prepared myself for it. My brain was in overdrive.”

Meryl said her strongest friends on the show were Hannah, Aaron, Wilfred and Alyssa. She said: “At the end of the day, I’m really happy with the outcome. In a way I wouldn’t want to change anything because it probably wouldn’t result in the same outcome. I was myself the whole way through and watching it back I’m proud that I was truly me the whole time.”

Meryl was among three Edinburgh contestants in the new BBC One show – but she was the only Capital resident who made it to the final.