A kindly builder who cleaned out a lonely pensioner's gutters for free - and was rewarded with a £500,000 inheritance - can hold onto the cash following a High Court ruling.

Ronald Butcher, a "private and quiet" man, died at his Enfield home, aged 73, in March 2013, but his body lay undiscovered for weeks.

Two months before his death, he signed a will leaving everything he had to builder Danny Sharp, 45, of Welling, Kent.

Mr Sharp said his friendship with Mr Butcher flowered after he helped him out for free with a leaking gutter six years before his death.

Members of Mr Butcher's family attacked the validity of the will, insisting that Mr Sharp's story was "ludicrous and absurd", and that the builder "knew more about the will than he is letting on".

However, Judge Lesley Anderson QC today described Mr Sharp as "a truthful and straightforward witness".

By the time he died, Mr Butcher's sole surviving blood relative was his elderly cousin, Joyce Gilkerson, from Plymouth.

His only other "family" were swimming teacher, Evelyn Hutchins, 53, of Southgate, and Peter Rogers, 57, the daughter and son of a close school friend.

The three of them would have inherited everything under a 2011 will, but that was superseded by the document Mr Butcher signed shortly before his death.

The family's barrister, Araba Taylor, said Mr Butcher’s decision to cut out his loved ones was incomprehensible and his relationship with Mr Sharp was "clearly not a friendship".

But Mr Sharp told the court he had called in on the pensioner whenever he was in Enfield.

Initial claims that the signature on the will was a forgery turned out to be wrong and suspicions about Mr Sharp's honesty were backed by no evidence, the judge added.