Video: Reprieve for Boxy, the champion bull condemned to death over a flawed TB test

Hallmark Boxster, known as Boxy, faced being destroyed after testing positive for bovine TB, but Ken Jackson, of Forlorn Hope Farm in South Yorkshire, and his daughter Kate McNeil challenged the validity of the test that condemned their “unique and irreplaceable” showground champion.

And at the High Court in London yesterday Mr Justice McCombe quashed the notices of intended slaughter, ruling that the test taken in relation to Boxy was flawed and ordered £15,000 to be paid towards court costs.

Mrs McNeil said she and her father were “absolutely delighted” by the ruling and they were waiting to hear what the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) intended to do next.

She said: “We are just so happy, we feel we got justice. We have taken it stage by stage and not looked too far forward. It is a relief to have got a positive outcome.”

A positive blood sample was taken from the bull in April last year and officials from Defra issued notices of intended slaughter, leading to the legal battle to save Boxy’s life.

Mr Jackson, whose farm is at Stubbs Walden, north of Doncaster, argued that the officers who took the sample mixed two half-full vials in the field, contrary to written procedures.

The judge refused Defra permission to appeal, but the department could still make an application directly to the Court of Appeal in a bid to take the case further.

A Defra spokesman said: “We are naturally disappointed by this judgment and will carefully consider its implications and our next steps, including whether to appeal.”