Mum who left RSPCA £2.3m ‘mentally ill’ (From The Northern Echo)

Mum who left RSPCA £2.3m ‘mentally ill’

7:57am Tuesday 11th November 2008 in

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AN elderly woman who left £2.3m to the RSPCA – and nothing to her devoted daughter – was suffering a mental illness when she drew up her will, a court heard.

Joyce Gill was suffering from agoraphobia and panic attacks when she and her husband, John, made their wills, leaving their 287-acre North Yorkshire farm to the animal charity when they died, a medical expert told the High Court hearing in Leeds.

Professor Robert Howard, who is the dean of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said Mrs Gill may not have understood what she was doing when the will was drawn up in 1993.

The couple’s daughter, Christine Gill, 58, launched a legal battle in July to challenge the will, which she claimed her father coerced her mother into making.

When Mr Gill died in 1999, he left Potto Carr Farm, in Potto, near Northallerton, to his wife.

In 2006, when Mrs Gill died, everything was left to the charity.

Christine, her only child, got nothing.

The daughter claims her mother could have been coerced by her “domineering”

father into giving everything to the charity.

She also believes her mother would not have been able to digest and comprehend the will.

This argument was supported by Prof Howard yesterday at the resumed hearing.

He suggested Mrs Gill may have done or said anything that would have brought the meeting to a quick finish.

He told the court: “On the balance of probabilities, she would have found it a very frightening encounter and it would have precipitated her anxiety symptoms.

“She would have found it very difficult to follow what was going on.”

Prof Howard, an expert witness for the claimant, said he came to his diagnosis after reading witness statements from people who knew Mrs Gill Snr.

However, it is the RSPCA’s case that Mrs Gill Snr was merely eccentric and did not have a mental illness.

Elspeth Talbot-Rice, representing the animal charity, asked the professor why, if Mrs Gill suffered from agoraphobia, could she talk to tradesmen, the postman and, on one occasion, a double-glazing salesman.

In response, Prof Howard said sufferers of agoraphobia usually felt safer at home.

The barrister also pointed to occasions where Mrs Gill had confronted poachers and exchanged words with a woman who had backed into the family car.

Prof Howard replied: “In situations of extraordinary stress, people do things out of the ordinary.”

He added: “It is my conclusion that it (the mental illness) began in Mrs Gill’s childhood and was present, to a lesser or greater extent, throughout her adulthood.

“Agoraphobia is a condition that can wax and wane to a certain extent, even though the basic fears are there all the time.

“It’s a subtle illness, even though its effects can be very serious.”

Prof Howard agreed with Claire Royston, a consultant psychiatrist giving evidence for the RSPCA, that it was likely Mrs Gill would have conformed with the wishes of her husband when they made their wills in 1993.

The court heard previously that Mr Gill was stubborn and domineering towards his wife, who went everywhere with him and was dependent on him to make decisions for her.

But the two medical experts disagreed about Mrs Gill’s mental state.

In a joint statement, Prof Howard and Dr Royston said: “Dr Royston does not believe that Mrs Gill would have met criteria for any formal psychiatric disorder, but should most usefully be viewed as having been an eccentric woman.”

Christine Gill told the court she felt her “soul had been ripped out” when she found out she had received nothing.

She claims her parents had often suggested that she would inherit the farm.

The court has been told the claimant sacrificed her career to help her parents and then ran the farm and cared for her mother after her father’s death.

She and her husband, Andrew Baczkowski, also bought a dilapidated farmhouse adjacent to the farm in the belief they would one day be able to join the two properties together.

The hearing is due to last until the end of the week, when Judge James Allen is expected to reserve his judgement.