A university lecturer has won a three-year legal battle to inherit her parents’ £2 million farm which they had bequeathed to the RSPCA.
By Paul Stokes
Published: 6:42PM BST 09 Oct 2009
Christine Gill, 59, claimed that her late father coerced her mother into making a will which cut her out and left everything to the animal charity.
She described yesterday’s ruling as a "great relief".
The RSPCA said it had been legally obliged to contest the case. It said Dr Gill had rejected an offer made just before the trial was due to start a year ago of £650,000 plus costs to settle the matter.
It was "concerned at any implications this could have for charities and other groups".
During previous High Court hearings in Leeds, judges heard how Dr Gill’s father, John Gill was a "bully" and "domineering" with an explosive character.
He and his wife Joyce made wills in 1993 in which they left 287-acre Potto Carr Farm, near Northallerton, North Yorkshire, to each other and then to the RSPCA.
Mr Gill died in 1999 and his wife, who was described as eccentric and with "an avowed dislike" of the charity, seven years later. Both were 82. Their only child, Dr Gill, a Leeds University statistics lecturer, had spent most of her spare time helping out voluntarily at the farm for more than 30 years.
She and her husband Andrew Baczkowski moved into a nearby property and Dr Gill received repeated assurances that she would inherit the estate when her parents died.
She only became aware of the will on the death of her mother who stated that no provision was being made for her daughter "because I feel she has been well provided for by me over a long period of time".
Deputy High Court Judge James Allen QC found that Mrs Gill had been coerced by her husband into making the will against her wishes and it would be "unconscionable" for their daughter not to inherit.
Dr Gill said: "The will was not just, there was nothing right about it, it should never have been made and I’m not sure it was made with the intention of it being carried through.
"Mum had no time for the RSPCA."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/6284625/Woman-wins-inheritance-battle-after-parents-left-2-million-farm-to-RSPCA.html
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