Betrayed: Daughter who devoted her life to parents sees £2.3m inheritance left... to the RSPCA

For 30 years, Christine Gill devoted her life to caring for her parents and helping them run the family farm.

She became a university lecturer so she could help out during the busy summer months, spent nearly all her spare time at the farm and even lived in a caravan nearby so she could be with her mother, who could never be left alone.

Dr Gill willingly made the sacrifices on the ‘clear and unequivocal’ understanding that she would eventually inherit the 287-acre farm.

But a court heard yesterday that following her widowed mother’s death at 82 in 2006, Dr Gill discovered to her ‘immense shock’ that the entire £2.34million estate had been left to the RSPCA.

‘It was as if her soul had been ripped out of her,’ said her lawyer, Tracey Angus.

Yesterday Dr Gill, 58, began her High Court battle to challenge her mother’s will and claim the inheritance.

Miss Angus said Dr Gill was repeatedly assured by her parents that she would one day get the farm.

Even when she discussed working part-time, her mother Joyce told her she ‘didn’t need to worry about money.’

It was claimed Mrs Gill would not have understood what she was doing when she made the will in 1992 and would have felt ‘coerced’ by her husband into signing it.

Miss Angus said it was a ‘very close family’ and there were ‘no significant rifts or alterations in behaviour’ to explain the decision to cut out Dr Gill.

Her father John, who died in 1999 aged 82, was described as a ‘rather stubborn person’ who behaved in a ‘domineering’ manner, particularly towards his wife.

His wife was described as ‘unusual’ and suffered from conditions and phobias which were never diagnosed during her lifetime.

She had a ‘social phobia’ which meant she couldn’t talk to strangers unless she was with someone she knew, and was frightened of open spaces.

Mrs Gill couldn’t be left in the house alone and often spent the day in the car, which was covered by a tarpaulin, while her husband worked in the fields.

She wouldn’t speak to anyone she didn’t know over the phone.

Mr Gill was forced to ‘entertain his friends and business associates’ in his car rather than allow anyone into the house.

Mrs Gill also had an obsessive compulsive disorder and would wear rubber gloves and take her own cup and saucer if she went out anywhere.

Because of her problems she relied on her husband to make decisions for her and would have ‘deferred’ to him in the making of the will, it was alleged.

The court heard that after training to be an architect Dr Gill became a lecturer in statistics at Leeds University-instead.

The job was relativelypoorly paid and came with few promotion prospects but it gave her more time to help her parents.

Although she bought a flat in Leeds, she did many hours of unpaid labour at the farm and sat with her mother while her father got on with his work.

Miss Angus said: ‘She selected and arranged her career and her work to suit the demands of the farm.

'She wouldn’t have done this had she been told she was not going to inherit.’

The pattern continued after she married university lecturer Andrew Baczkowski in 1986.

The couple bought a dilapidated neighbouring farmhouse and six acres of land for £33,000. For seven years they lived in a caravan while the farmhouse was renovated.

Dr Gill’s parents put £13,000 towards the purchase but that was allegedly the only financial help they ever gave her. White House Farm is now worth around £560,000.

Over a 20-year period Dr Gill allegedly spent just 32 nights away from home because of the demands of caring for her parents.

Husband Andrew also did thousands of hours of unpaid farmwork.

Mr and Mrs Gill had bought Potto Carr Farm for £87,000 in 1975 and ran it themselves until 1997 when they contracted another farmer to run the arable farm.

The court heard that Dr Gill took over the administrative work when Mr Gill died.

After giving birth to her only son Christopher, now 11, she returned to work part-time – making a £246,000 sacrifice in lost earnings as a result.

Elspeth Talbot-Rice QC, for the RSPCA, said Mrs Gill had been mentally capable of making her will.

She said the RSPCA was ‘extremely grateful’ when people made bequests in their will and it was ‘right and appropriate’ to stand up and back these decisions.

The case continues.