Christine Gill wins case, RSPCA will appeal

Christine Gill wept with relief after a judge ruled that the will which handed 287- acre Potto Carr Farm, in Potto, North Yorkshire, to the animal charity was invalid.

Judge James Allen must now consider who will pay the £1.3m legal costs incurred by both parties.

Speaking to The Northern Echo after the hearing, Dr Gill, 59, said: “I’m happy, but it’s also a tremendous relief to get this decision.

“I now want to get back to a normal life. We have been in limbo for three years waiting for something to happen, waiting for Court appearances and waiting for the judgement.”

Dr Gill said she hoped to begin farming again at the farm and one day hand it to her 12-year-old son, Christopher.

She said: “I’ve fought so hard to prevent it from being sold and I will not give it up lightly now.

“I have never stopped thinking of the farm as mine.”

Dr Gill’s mother, Joyce, and her father, John, signed mirror wills in 1993 that left the farm to each other and then to the RSPCA after they both died.

Mr Gill died in 1999, but Dr Gill only found out she had received nothing when her mother died seven years later.

The judgement, handed down at the High Court in Leeds, ruled that Dr Gill’s mother suffered from agoraphobia and was “coerced”

into signing the will by her “domineering” husband, John.

The judge accepted that Mrs Gill Snr signed the will leaving everything to the Daughter wins in the battle of wills RSPCA despite having “an avowed dislike” of the charity.

He said: “Mrs Gill’s fear of the risk of Mr Gill losing his temper and of him withdrawing his crucial support for Mrs Gill, combined with her timid and shy personality, her traditional deferment to him and the severe anxiety consequence upon the agoraphobia from which she suffered, unduly influenced her to make the will she did.”

During the case, the court heard how Dr Gill 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, bought a dilapidated farmhouse adjacent to the farm in the belief they would one day be able to join the two properties together.

Previous hearings heard how Dr Gill – an only child – had been given repeated assurances she would inherit the farm when her parents died.

It emerged in court yesterday that Mr Baczkowski had written letters to several RSPCA patrons, including the Queen and the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The letters urged the patrons to persuade the charity to settle out of court.

The University of Leeds lecturer last night said she did not bear any grudge towards the RSPCA, but added: “This has taken three years out of my life and I don’t understand why they’ve behaved the way they did.

“We tried our best to settle out of court but they weren’t interested.

“I’ve never seen the bosses, only their solicitors. Everybody has seen me, but I have never seen the people who have made the decisions that this must go to court.”

Dr Gill was represented by high-profile London law firm Mishcon de Reya.

Her solicitor, Mark Keenan, said they took on the case because they believed the lecturer had suffered an injustice.

After the judgement was handed down, the judge listened to legal arguments over costs after he was asked by the RSPCA to consider ordering Dr Gill to pay some of their legal fees.

The animal charity’s costs stand at nearly £400,000, while Dr Gill’s are £900,000.

In court, Dr Gill’s barrister, Tracey Angus, described the RSPCA’s position on legal fees as “astonishing”.

The judge will announce his decision on costs at a later date.

He gave the RSPCA permission to appeal against the judgement, although the charity has not revealed if it will do so.

It said in a statement it was “surprised and disappointed”

by the judgement.

It added: “Throughout this, the RSPCA has been in an extremely difficult position.

“The will left by Dr Gill’s parents was very clear – in one sentence they left their entire estate to the RSPCA, and in the next they said their daughter should receive nothing.

“In that situation, the RSPCA cannot just walk away, in fact we are legally obliged to seek the funds under charitable law.

“That said, we are a compassionate organisation, and that’s why we have tried to settle this matter amicably before it even came to court.

“Unfortunately, our offers were rejected.”

The charity said it had offered £650,000 as well as costs to Dr Gill before the case came to court.

In response, the lecturer said she believed the offer was not a “fair reflection” of the value of the farm.

She said it was the farm that had been important to her. Her legal team added that they had repeatedly asked the RSPCA to agree to take part in mediation to settle the dispute.

The court heard how, in 2007, the lecturer had initially asked for £300,000 as well as two fields to settle the matter out of court.

Commenting on the case, John Low, chief executive of the Charities Aid Foundation, said: “I would urge everyone who is planning to leave money to charity in their will to explain their plans to their children or other next of kin long before illness and care needs come to dominate relationships.”

After yesterday’s hearing, Dr Gill was asked to appear on ITV programme This Morning on Monday.

When you’re at war, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do - Christine Gill

A DAUGHTER’S legal fight to reclaim a farm left to the RSPCA by her parents gave a compelling insight into the far-from-ordinary lives of a North Yorkshire farming family.

During the two-week case at the High Court in Leeds, a succession of witnesses told of the bizarre behaviour of Christine Gill’s mother, Joyce.

The court heard Mrs Gill Snr would wear rubber gloves and take her own cup and saucer when visiting her daughter’s house.

Witnesses, including her daughter, told how she would often hide when visitors came to the farm and would sit in a car covered in tarpaulin in a field while her husband worked.

Claire Royston, a consultant psychiatrist called by the RSPCA, said she believed Mrs Gill senior was eccentric.

Crucially, Professor Robert Howard, called by Dr Gill’s defence team, went further, saying he thought the pensioner was agoraphobic and had a compulsive obsessive disorder.

In contrast, her father, John Arthur Gill, was painted as a hard-working but stubborn and domineering man.

His brother, 82-year-old Willie Gill, from Boosebeck, near Saltburn, east Cleveland, described him as “very, very tight”.

However the question of why he and his wife left the farm to the RSPCA was never fully answered.

Dr Gill suggested that it might have been because she had married a man of Polish descent.

The will said Dr Gill “had been well provided for” by the couple over the years. However the lecturer denied this.

Other witnesses said they had discussed the issue of inheritance with Mr Gill.

One possible clue came from Philip Armstrong, who killed vermin on the Gills’ farm for 20 years.

He said Mr Gill had told him he “couldn’t wait to be a grandfather”.

However, he claimed the farmer also said if this didn’t happen, he would leave everything to the dogs’ home.

Mr Armstrong suggested that Mr Gill had done exactly that – but had failed to change his will, possibly because of poor health, when Dr Gill’s son, Christopher, was born.

Although several witnesses said they were shocked the farm had been left to the charity, Steven Dawson, who farmed next door to the Gills, said he was not surprised.

Describing Mr Gill as “an eccentric”, Mr Dawson, who was called by the RSPCA, said he had never seen Dr Gill or her husband work on the farm as they claimed they had done.

After yesterday’s judgement, Dr Gill admitted the spotlight shone on her family by the court case had been difficult to bear.

She said: “It’s been a very painful experience, especially considering my mother’s condition and her behaviour.

“It’s been difficult to do, but I’ve been fighting for the future and the future of my son.

“When you’re at war, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.”