Villagers in Portugal accused of hounding English family out of their dream ... trends now

A family of British ex-pats who have been crowdfunding for help after claiming they were forced to flee their dream home in Portugal after a hate campaign by locals have been subjected to an angry backlash from their former neighbours.

Lynn and Richard Appleby-Brisco and their two daughters are back in Britain leaving behind the life that was featured in Channel 4's 'Our Wildest Dreams' which spotlighted the story of their new beginning.

Mrs Appleby-Brisco has said her neighbours turned on her after the TV show with her their pets being murdered and hurtful accusations made that she was selling sex for 5 Euros and was a devil-worshipper.

But villagers in Figuerio da Serra today responded by consistently saying they were unaware of any hostility to the family - and had no knowledge of any harm coming to their pets.

One villager said: 'We welcomed them to our village and this is how they repay us? By painting us as backward animals! This is not medieval times. None of us have any idea what they are talking about. I'm certain no one touched a hair on the head of any cat, dog or goat of theirs.'

Mrs Appleby-Brisco has claimed she was called a 'whore' and her children branded 'English Pigs' by locals who were angered by their appearance on the TV show.

Their 'Good Life' was abandoned after she fled back to Britain with her daughters and was followed a fortnight ago by her husband who locked up their home after failing to sell it.

She told MailOnline that one woman who had abused her and called her a whore was a neighbour called Fatima whose home is behind the three-bedroom 40,000 Euro house she and her family lived in.

But Fatima said: 'She is acting crazy. I did not call her a whore. It was Lynn who called me names.

'I was in a café drinking coffee and she and Richard were passing and she started calling me names and making insults.'

The public row, she said, was the culmination of a fall out from initial close friendship.

Fatima, 44, who is married and has two children, added: 'I was okay with them in the beginning and Lynn would call my mother her own mother.

'We were friends. I don't know what happened or even why she left from here.'

Another neighbour, Helena Esparance, who owns five properties in the same street Rue Da Capela where the Appleby-Brisco family lived, said Lynn had been unfriendly which in turn had gradually made her unpopular - but denied any hostility.

She said: 'I would say good morning or good afternoon to her and she would ignore me. They were never such people who were willing to talk or lend a hand to anyone.'

She said she did not believe that the family's pets had been killed by locals and insisted no proof had ever been established to support these claims.

The British family's former close friend Anita Ruigrok also said she was mystified by claims that the Appleby-Briscos had been abused - claims she said she only learned of after they had left.

It was in her two bedroom cottage that the TV show was filmed after the family had first arrived in Portugal. They moved twice more in the picturesque village before buying their property which was their home until they left.

'They lived in my home for around six or seven months and paid the rent on time. They were good tenants and they became friends. The TV show was filmed in my home.

'My partner Agostinho and I did not know that the filming had taken place in our home until much later. We have not see the programme, only read about it on the internet.