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I'm delighted that it's going to the SC, not because I particularly want the RSPCA to benefit, but because I believe in testamentary freedom.

The paternalistic attitude of the CoA was all about their own value judgments. They were all from silver spoon backgrounds, where it wouldn't have been the done thing to disinherit one's child, even if they were rather a black sheep.

Having no experience of life amongst the lower orders they made the rather naive conflation of poverty with virtue, not realising that many people are poor simply because they are feckless and idle.

The CoA,, no doubt consisting almost entirely of Europhiles, have been drifting to a dangerously European view of such matters for years. Of course under the Napoloeonic Code one can't disinherit one's family, but the CoA need reminding that this does not (yet!) apply in English law.

There are many people who have the misfortune to have produced wholly obnoxious children, and there is absolutely NO justification for forcing them to leave such children a single penny.

If the SC side with the daughter (sadly predictable) then the result will be that many elderly people will simply give large chunks of their estate away during their lifetime, possibly leaving them impecunious in their old age and, ironically, dependent on state benefits.