How ‘dream life’ TV family ended up homeless and living off food banks on fleeing back to UK from Portugal – after being hounded out by villagers who called them ‘English pigs’ and killed their pets

A British family chased out of Portugal by locals who branded them ‘English pigs’ were told their situation was ‘not desperate enough’ to merit help after fleeing back to Britain, a friend has heard 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 performed Channel 4‘s Our Wildest Dreams, were forced to return to Britain not long after the show aired when 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 catch the night bus to Bedford and go to a local Premier Inn.

‘I went to her and we got her some clothes, sent by a friend and other people. But local housing authorities said, and I quote, that their situation ‘wasn’t bad enough’.”

Mrs Lewis added: ‘She was apparently not in a desperate state to be helped so she started going 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 street. The local government allegedly left her on the street with two young girls and they still do not want to help her.

‘She had paid her taxes for thirty years before she went to Portugal. She was literally on the street and with very little money.

‘So because they didn’t want to help her, a friend and I found a place for her in Kempston. It’s like a small holiday chalet.

“So she and the girls moved there, but she couldn’t get any help from the government.

“But Lynn isn’t a pushover, so from the moment she walked into the hotel she was arranging interviews to find a job.”

Mrs Lewis said her friend was accompanied by her husband, who had made the return journey from Portugal by road and with some of their belongings.

She said the mother-of-two now works as a chef at a cafe-restaurant, working 12-hour shifts.

“It hasn’t been good, she and Richard have definitely been left behind,” she said.

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

Appleby-Brisco’s ordeal has chilling echoes of that of Orla Dargan, who faced years of threatening behavior from a neighbor and found her rescue dog dead in a shallow well after moving to Portugal in 2016.

The family of four, from Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, say their goats were poisoned after a local resident admitted stealing their cat Ponyo and her kitten Bubbles in January.

Ms Appleby-Brisco, 51, said that when she confronted a villager about the mysterious deaths, she was told: ‘We took your pets and you’re next.’

She said The sun: ‘I just couldn’t take it anymore and it was my absolute low point.

‘I was afraid of being alone in the house, so I hung around the main local town all day to feel safe.

“It was so bad that when I went to the farm I had a knife with me, and I consider myself a pacifist.”

The family believes they accidentally put a target on their backs after their episode aired in 2018.

Among the scandalous incidents of harassment, the family were spat at and called ‘English pigs’ – while rumors spread that Mrs Appleby-Brisco was a devil-worshipping prostitute after planting flowers outside their home.

The family flew to Britain in February with a small suitcase containing a change of clothes and pajamas.

Mrs Appleby-Brisco and her children, Emily, 12, and Yvie, 10, now live in a one-bed apartment, while their father is still trying to sell the property in Portugal and float back all their belongings.

It comes after a former City investment banker who retired told the Algarve MailOnline of her years of hell after an ‘aggressive’ neighbor took over her land and forced her out of her home, forcing her into hiding.

Orla Dargan bought her dream Portuguese villa in 2016 for around €600,000, and happily lived there for several years before her neighbour, a real estate agent she describes as a ‘dangerous’ man, moved in next door.

The mother-of-two said she was warned about his “temper” and endured years of threatening behavior, including an alleged attempt to run her off the road near her home.

Her beloved rescue dog was also found dead, floating in a shallow well with horrific injuries.

The Appleby-Briscos have raised £3,800 through a GoFundMe page to try to recover from the failed plan to move abroad.

On the page, Ms Appleby-Brisco wrote: ‘We arrived in Portugal almost eight years ago, full of excitement about starting a new, sustainable life. We were followed by the film crew of Channel Four’s Our Wildest Dreams because we wanted to inspire others.

‘Initially our life was great, we wanted to integrate locally, so we didn’t hang out with the expats so much, we put our girls in the village school, bought a small farm on the edge of the village, started to learn the language better, did everything what we liked.

‘We didn’t know that there was a storm of resentment against us in the village. We hadn’t done anything wrong, so why should we even question that?’

Channel 4 has been contacted for comment.