It was an extraordinary situation. Christine Gill, 59, was set to inherit the farm that belonged to her parents – the farm that she had worked on all her life. When her parents died, and the will was read, she discovered that the entire inheritence – farm, cash and all, would be bequeathed to the Royal Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA).

The court case cost over £1m, and finally went the way of an emotional Mrs Gill, who told Breakfast TV last week that she had felt she had lost “everything”, and that the will was “highly unusual”. Her parents had never given any indication that the inheritance would go to the RSPCA – in fact, they had never even spoken about the RSPCA.

The judge found that Christine’s father had coerced his wife into signing the farm to the RSPCA. Christine had worked on the farm all her life and was the main driver behind the farm’s huge success, raising its value to about £2m. Her father died in 1999, but the mother did not change the will that she was coerced into signing before she died in 2006.

The RSPCA has said that it will appeal.

We say: A very strange case indeed, and in the end, perhaps the right decision. However, a donation to the RSPCA would perhaps smooth things over?