The case was heard at Inverness Sheriff Court

Multi-millionaire Ann Gloag took former policeman Ian Hamilton and his wife Patricia to court over the use of disputed land.

She has now been granted an interdict preventing the couple from using an area measuring 20 yards by six yards and a nearby barn and car port.

Sheriff Donald Booker-Milburn accused the Hamiltons of lying during the three-day hearing at Inverness Sheriff Court and awarded legal costs to Mrs Gloag.

Mr Hamilton said the judgement was "completely one-sided".

"In the sheriff's eyes, she is right and were wrong. She was believed and we were disbelieved," he said.

'Unhappy saga'

"We are really bitterly disappointed in the judgement.

"I am in shock. It has cost us �10,000 already and we will be hit by a further legal bill."

However, he insisted that the couple would not be forced from their home following the defeat.

Mrs Gloag, 60, said she hoped the ruling would bring the "unhappy saga" to an end.

"We have been trying to resolve this issue for nearly three years but, sadly, every effort was rejected by the tenants involved," she said.

Ann Gloag and her brother founded Stagecoach

"It is a great pity that it had to end up in court. That was the very last resort as far as I was concerned but I was left with no choice."

Mrs Gloag and her brother Brian Souter made �250m from the Stagecoach bus company.

She bought the �1.3m Beaufort Castle estate in Beauly, Inverness-shire, in 1995.

Four years earlier the Hamiltons rented three-bedroomed Coach House cottage for �60 a week.

They claimed that the protected tenancy agreed with the previous owners had included rights to the disputed areas.

Mr Hamilton told the civil hearing last month that Mrs Gloag tried to regain the house in 1998 by offering them another property on the estate.

Planting shrubs

Two years later the couple received another letter from Gloag's lawyers stating they were encroaching on land and property not included in the lease.

Mrs Gloag told the hearing that she never speaks to the tenants on her estate.

She insisted her legal action to stop the couple mowing the lawn, planting shrubs and using property not in the lease followed an accident in 2000.

Mrs Gloag said she struck one of several huge red boulders placed by the Hamiltons without her authority.

She said she then discovered the Hamiltons were using property which was not part of their lease.