AN Australian judge has ruled that best-selling author Colleen McCullough’s widower was the sole beneficiary of her estate following a fierce contest in court.

The author of the novel The Thorn Birds, which sold 33 million copies worldwide, died on Norfolk Island in 2015 aged 77.

Her husband of 32 years, Ric Robinson, had been battling the executor of the author’s estate, her close friend, Selwa Anthony, in the New South Wales state supreme court over who was entitled to her £1.15 million estate.

McCullough wrote a will in 2014 leaving everything to the University of Oklahoma Foundation, of which she was a founding board member.

Anthony alleged Robinson took advantage of his wife’s ill health to change her will in October 2014, leaving him everything, before her death four months later.

She said the foundation was the rightful beneficiary according to the earlier will signed in Sydney, around the time McCullough said she had “kicked Ric out for good” because he had a mistress.

Justice Nigel Rein decided McCullough had intended to bequeath her entire estate to Robinson. He found the foundation will was later revoked following the couple’s reconciliation, when McCullough agreed to leave everything to her husband.

Robinson testified that he had not bullied his wife into leaving him her fortune. He said his wife had suggested he take a mistress, and he had told her of his affair in 2010.