A beloved £15,000 alpaca is set to be killed after a farmer lost a last-ditch High Court bid to save the animal, who was sentenced to die for contracting bovine TB four years ago.

Helen Macdonald’s alpaca Geronimo was ordered to be slaughtered after twice testing positive for bovine tuberculosis (bTb) at her Wickwar, Gloucestershire, farm in 2017.

She has always disputed the original test result – claiming The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is ‘relying doggedly on flawed science’.