Family hounded out of Portugal by villagers who branded them 'English pigs' ... trends now

Family hounded out of Portugal by villagers who branded them 'English pigs' ... trends now
Family hounded out of Portugal by villagers who branded them 'English pigs' ... trends now

Family hounded out of Portugal by villagers who branded them 'English pigs' ... trends now

A British family who were hounded out of Portugal by locals who branded them 'English pigs' were told their situation 'wasn't desperate enough' for them to be deserving of help after they fled back to the UK, a friend has revealed.

Lynn and Richard Appleby-Brisco moved to the Mediterranean country's Guarda district in 2016 with plans to start a more 'affordable' life with their two young daughters.

But the family, who featured on Channel 4's Our Wildest Dreams, were forced to return to the UK not long after the show aired when their life in a remote village became their worst nightmare. 

Lynn's close friend Denny Lewis told MailOnline: 'She landed at Heathrow with her two young girls and had to get the night bus to Bedford and went to a local Premier Inn.

'I went to see her and we got her some clothes sent down by a friend and by other people. But the local housing authorities said, and I quote, that their situation 'wasn't bad enough".'

Lynn and Richard Appleby-Brisco moved abroad in 2016 to start a more 'affordable' life with their two daughters (all pictured together) in Portugal's Guarda district

The family's move to the remote village was filmed for Channel 4's Our Wildest Dreams. They are pictured on the show in 2018 here

The family's move to the remote village was filmed for Channel 4's Our Wildest Dreams. They are pictured on the show in 2018 here

Lynn said she was 'scared to be in the house' on her own and would 'carry a knife' when she went down to the farm

Lynn said she was 'scared to be in the house' on her own and would 'carry a knife' when she went down to the farm

Ms Lewis added: 'She wasn't in a desperate state enough to be helped apparently, so she started to go to food banks and we have now started a GoFundMe page.

'Lynn had no money, nowhere to live and she would have been on the streets. The local government would have left her on the streets with two young girls and they still won't help her now.

'She had paid her taxes for 30 years before she went to Portugal. She was literally on the streets and with very little money.

'So as they wouldn't help her, a friend and me found her a little place in Kempston. It is like a little holiday chalet.

'So she and the girls moved into there, but she couldn't get any Government help.

'But Lynn is not a shirker, so the minute she got into the hotel , she was setting up interviews to get herself a job.'

Ms Lewis said her friend was joined by her husband who had made the journey back from Portugal by road and with some of their possessions.

She said that the mother-of-two is now working as a chef in a pub restaurant and doing 12 hour shifts. 

'It hasn't been good, she and Richard were certainly left by the wayside,' she said.

The couple's harrowing experience in Portugal reached a chilling climax when angry locals attacked the family's dog Cu - an estrela mountain cross retriever - which later died at the age of four.

The Appleby-Brisco's ordeal has chilling echoes to that of Orla Dargan, who faced years of

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