A British family who were expelled from Portugal by locals who branded them “English pigs” and spread rumors of devil worship have told how their dream life turned into a nightmare.
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.
The family’s move to the remote village was filmed for Channel 4’s Our Wildest Dreams, but soon turned into their wildest nightmares when a group of Portuguese villagers launched a hate campaign against them.
During what became a “storm of resentment,” her dog Cu, a star mountain retriever, died at age four after being attacked.
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, also claim a local man admitted stealing their cat Ponyo and kitten Bubbles in January after their goats were poisoned.
Appleby-Brisco, 51, claims that when she confronted a villager about the mysterious deaths, she told him: “We’ve taken your pets and you’re next.”
Lynn and Richard Appleby-Brisco moved abroad in 2016 to start a more “affordable” life with their two daughters (all pictured together) in the Portuguese district of Guarda.
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 “afraid to be home alone” and “carried a knife” when she went to the farm.
She said Sun: ‘I just couldn’t take it anymore and it was my lowest point.
‘I was afraid of being alone at home, so I stayed all day in the biggest city to feel safe.
“It was so bad that when I went down to the farm I carried a knife with me and I consider myself a pacifist.”
The family believes they inadvertently put a target on their backs after their episode aired in 2018.
Among the scandalous bullying incidents, the family were spat at and called “English pigs”, while rumors spread that Appleby-Brisco was a devil-worshipping prostitute after she planted flowers outside their home.
The family flew home to the UK in February with a small suitcase containing a change of clothes and pajamas.
Appleby-Brisco and her children, Emily, 12, and Yvie, 10, now live in a one-bedroom apartment, while their father is still trying to sell the property in Portugal and recover all his belongings.
It comes after a former city investment banker who retired in the Algarve told MailOnline about her years of hell after an “aggressive” neighbor seized her land and evicted her from her home, forcing her to hide.
Orla Dargan bought her dream Portuguese villa for around €600,000 in 2016 and lived there happily 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 “bad temper” and faced years of threatening behavior, including an alleged attempt to run her off the road near her home.
Their beloved rescue dog was also found dead, floating in a shallow well with horrific injuries.
Orla Dargan in Portugal with her rescue dog Henry, who she claims was “killed” amid an ongoing border dispute
Orla Dargan bought her dream Portuguese villa for around £600,000 in 2016
Richard is shown building their house in Portugal before they were forced to return to the UK.
The family have raised £3,700 through a GoFundMe page to try to recover from their failed plan to move abroad.
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 enthusiasm to start a new and sustainable life. We were followed by the film crew from Channel Four’s Our Wildest Dreams because we wanted to inspire others.
“At first our lives were great, we wanted to integrate locally, so we didn’t mix so much with the expats, we put our daughters in the village school, we bought a small farm on the outskirts of the village, we started to learn the language better, we didn’t everything we think well.
“We didn’t know there was a storm of resentment in the town towards us, we hadn’t done anything wrong, so why would we question it?”
Channel 4 has been contacted for comment.
