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Upsetting: Caroline Barrett's brother David Robertson, pictured, also lost out on a share of Bridget Gabrielle Murray's will

A Catholic pensioner’s disgust of couples living together before marriage has seen her granddaughter cut out of a £220,000 will.

Businesswoman Caroline Barrett, 28, spent 18 months cohabiting with her boyfriend before they wed and has now lost her share of her staunchly Catholic grandmother’s fortune following a High Court dispute with her aunt and two uncles.

Mrs Barrett, from Basingstoke, stood to inherit part of Irish-born Bridget Gabrielle Murray’s estate when she died aged 87 in July 2010.

It followed the matriarch’s last will, which was drawn up just months before she died.

But lawyers for Mrs Murray’s two sons, David and John Murray, and her daughter, Catherine Turk, have now persuaded a judge to 'rectify' their mother’s will so that her granddaughter is 'struck out.'

They argued Mrs Murray had vowed she would never include Mrs Barrett in her will, after she cohabited before getting married, and that the clause in the will bequeathing her a share had been a drafting 'mistake'.

Judge Robert Miles QC, sitting at London’s High Court, ruled the devout pensioner had indeed not intended Mrs Barrett, or her brother David Robertson, to benefit from her will.

Whilst accepting the old woman’s attitude could be viewed by some as 'capricious' and 'not particularly fair', he ordered that the will be rectified so Caroline and David are removed as beneficiaries.

The court heard Mrs Murray, originally from Roscommon, Ireland, maintained her firm religious beliefs after leaving her homeland.

She was still an active member of the Catholic Council when she died.

Her fourth child, Monica, died three years before her and Mrs Murray’s March 2010 will left a quarter share of her estate to Monica’s daughter and son, Mrs Barrett and Mr Robertson, of Kings Lynn, Norfolk.

But a rift developed when Mrs Murray’s surviving three children - David and Caroline’s aunt and uncles - disputed the document, on the basis that her 'intentions differed from those expressed in the will'.

Mark Dubbery, for the aunt and uncles, said Mrs Murray had not wanted Monica’s children to benefit under her will and they only did so due to an error in drafting.

Edward Hicks, for David and Caroline, said Mrs Murray had no logical reason to exclude them, calling the step 'very unusual,' and saying that the old lady had checked the will and was happy with the way it had been drawn up.

David Murray, 61, from Orpington, Kent, told the judge from the witness box that his mother’s religious feelings were so powerful she would never have been happy with her granddaughter benefiting from her will, having lived out of wedlock with a man.

'If you talk about the Irish way of living, quite a lot of people are religious and people are struck out of wills all over because of religion,' he said.

'My mother was a very religious person. She was a member of the Catholic Council. She didn’t believe in people living together before marriage.'

Mr Hicks put to him: 'Mrs Barrett did get married and her grandmother was clearly aware she had got married. One could go through the Bible and find many references to forgiveness.'

But Mr Murray replied: 'Some people have very strong religious beliefs.

'You might be living together for 20 years. Just because you get married for a few months, it doesn’t change people’s beliefs overnight.

'People’s beliefs are beliefs and you stick by them. You don’t change tack overnight.

'My mother was a very strong character, and she discussed this (with me) on several occasions. We had a very close relationship.'

Mrs Barrett, giving evidence, told the judge she married her partner in September 2008, after graduating from university with a masters degree in 2004.

The couple had been cohabiting for a year-and-a-half before tying the knot, she added.

Asked about her grandmother’s attitude to her living with a man out of wedlock, she said: 'I spoke to her about it. She would say things like “When are you going to get married? When are you going to get married?” like all grandparents do.

'But I wouldn’t ever say that she was stern about it.

Battle: The family feud over Bridget Gabrielle Murray's will was played out at The Royal Courts of Justice in London

'We spoke around birthdays and Christmas. We spoke more frequently after I got engaged and was planning to get married. After I got engaged she was very pleased,' she added.

Deputy Judge Miles ordered that the will be rectified after ruling that the two grandchildren had only been named as beneficiaries due to a clerical error which the court could correct.

He said John and David Murray had testified that their mother believed that leaving her estate to her surviving children was 'a fair division of wealth within the family'.

'An old-fashioned Catholic', they said she had also disapproved of Caroline having lived with her boyfriend before marriage.

Judge Miles said: 'It was a matter for Mrs Murray how she divided her estate even if, on one view, it might not have been particularly fair, or even capricious.'

The £220,000 estate will now be divided between Mrs Murray’s three surviving children.