The relatives of a property magnate who left the bulk of her multimillion-pound fortune to the owners of her favourite Chinese restaurant appealed to the High Court yesterday to overturn the will.

Golda Bechal’s reward to the creators of her favourite £3.70 leek and beansprout dish was almost £10 million - a bequest, her relatives say, that was made while she was of unsound mind.

Kim Sing and Bee Lian Man, the owners of the Lian Chinese restaurant in Witham, Essex, said that Ms Bechal had been like part of the family to them.

Mr Man said that Ms Bechal had been an “upper-class posh lady” who took pride in her appearance, had “always liked her pickled leeks and beansprouts”.

“She always had her own way of doing things,” he told the court yesterday. “I just respected what she did.”

Mr Man, who is in his early 50s, said that Ms Bechal, who died a widow in January 2004, aged 89, had told him that her family were only after her money and had described them to him as a “bunch of hooligans”. Her husband, Simon, died in 1971 and her son, Peter, died aged 28 in 1974. She also bequeathed money to various Jewish charities and left £10,000 for a window in her close family’s memory at Marble Arch synagogue.

Ms Bechal’s nephews and nieces, Sandra Blackman, Barbara Green, Laurence Lebor, Louise Barnard and Mervyn Lebor, asked Sir Donald Rattee, the judge, to rule that the will was invalid and that she died intestate, which would allow them to inherit.

The judge was shown a photograph album dating back to the late 1960s to counter any suggestion that the Man family did not “arrive on the scene” until the 1990s. Penelope Reed, counsel for Mr and Mrs Man, said that Ms Bechal and the Mans had a “long-standing and very close, affectionate and loving relationship”.

Mr Man met Mrs Bechal in 1967 when he was 13, she said. She pointed to pictures of Mrs Bechal and her husband at the launch of the Man family’s restaurant, which was started by Mr Man’s father in 1969 at a property owned by the Bechals in Braintree, Essex. There were photos over the years of many get-togethers – at Mr and Mrs Man’s own restaurant in Witham and on holidays, at Mrs Bechal’s invitation, in Jerusalem and Cannes, as well as annual Christmas Day celebrations at her home in Mayfair, Central London.

Ms Reed said: “Mrs Bechal virtually became part of the family – she appears in the photographs as if she is the grandmother.” There was evidence to show that Mrs Bechal’s relationship with her real family had deteriorated and that she did not want them interfering in her affairs.

Ms Reed said that one of the issues was whether the final will, dated August 1994, was made in “suspicious circumstances”. Mr and Mrs Man, who have three children and who went bankrupt in 1992, gave evidence that they were not present when the will form, supplied by Barclays Bank, was filled in, nor when the will was drawn up by the bank and executed.

Mr Man said: “Mrs Bechal said to me ‘My family are only interested in my money, they are not interested in caring for me’.”

Mrs Man said: “She said, ‘I’ll leave it to Kim and you – you are the people who look after me’. “She was really worried about her family trying to take control over her business.”

During evidence from the relatives, the court was told that an inquiry agent had been employed to check on Ms Bechal because her family were unable to keep in contact with her.

One of the nieces, Mrs Blackman, said: “We were prevented from communicating with her. Telephone calls were not returned. I have no idea who was stopping us.”

A nephew, Mervyn Lebor, said that his parents were never really interested in Mrs Bechal’s money but that his Aunt Golda was “always very suspicious that people were after her for her money”.

The hearing continues.

Test of will

— Three children of a millionaire solicitor won back their inheritance in July 2004 after the High Court ruled that Richard Sherrington had been pressurised by their “aggressive and intolerant” stepmother to sign a will leaving his £10 million fortune to her

— In February this year a farmer’s will, leaving his £18 million estate to his illegitimate daughter, was declared a forgery in the High Court. No finding was made over who forged the will but the judge described the daughter, Lynda Supple, as a “cunning, amoral, selfish and vindictive woman”

— In October this year the Conservative Party was forced to give up a claim on a £10 million bequest from a businessman when the High Court ruled that the donor was mentally unfit when he signed the will. Branislav Kostic, a pharmaceutical tycoon from Ealing, left his entire fortune to the Tories after claiming that Margaret Thatcher could save the world from a satanic plot

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