Emergency Escape back to UK for Lynn and Richard

Hello everyone. I'm Denny and am raising funds for Lynn and Richard Appleby-Brisco and their lovely family. They are in desperate need of help to return to the UK. This has been arranged by a Charity but travel to, and accommodation is still needed and there is no money for this due to their circumstances.

They have been victims of terrible abuse and racism whilst trying to set up a life in Portugal for the last seven years and now desperately need to return home before the Portuguese authorities try to take their two little girls away from them. They removed their girls from school, informing the school in the correct manner, giving all the correct documentation and began re-educating them ready for the UK. The school have lied to the authorities, 'lost' their documentation and Lynn has had to go into hiding.

This week, she found out that the villagers had killed her cats, including her little daughters beloved kitten. How cruel is this treatment?!

PLEASE, all of you who know Lynn and even those who don't, help me to help a fellow human being return home. Here is their story...

We arrived in Portugal almost eight years ago full of excitement of starting a new, sustainable life. We were followed by the film crew from Channel Fours Our Wildest Dreams as we wanted to inspire others. Initially our lives were great, we wanted to integrate locally so didn't mix as much with the expats, put our girls in the village school, bought a little farm on the edge of the village, started to learn the language better, did everything we thought right. Little did we know there was a storm of resentment in the village towards us, we had done nothing wrong so why would we even question it.

The tide started to turn, racists comments were made, threats of violence, damage to property but still we kept trying to ignore it and make good of the situation. Things reached breaking point last March when I was attacked for planting flowers outside my house. People were turning their backs when we walked down the street to shun us and my kids were spat at and told to go home English pigs. I had a breakdown and tried to take my life, we couldn't stand it anymore.

We came back to England on a scouting trip with a view to return. On deciding where we wanted to live we went back to Portugal with a view of selling the land and all we owned so we could hit the ground running when we arrived. Our priority naturally was transitioning the girls who had spent most of their lives here. Their taught language was Portuguese, Yvie has autism and ADHD and due to being let down by the system couldn't read or write at the age of ten. There were also big gaps in Emily's learning especially in science and maths. We decided that as we had already asked for them to be deregistered from school we should home educate them especially as we hoped to not be here long.

Within weeks Yvie thrived, she was reading by herself, writing, happy and a totally different child. We bought a the resources, registered with an online school and Richard is a qualified teacher so there should not be a problem. The school board claimed we had fraudulently created the online school registrations and enrollment certificates, they also claimed Richard's degree was not real and was forged. We were shouted out, called names and finally we asked them to leave us alone to sell and settle our affairs.

On Wednesday of this week two police social workers came to our home with a view to taking the children. Fortunately we had been moved to a safe house by a charitable organisation that protects families in Portugal and Spain and out of the country. They have been amazing, organising flights and help for the girls sadly at this time Richard has had to stay behind in Portugal for now. So here we are, an English winter, homeless and lost. I want to work, I want to support us, everyone that knows me knows I don't let the grass grow under my feet. We are afraid, Portugal has taken everything we had and not that I want to I can never return. My beloved dog, my rescue cat and all I have is still there, we are literally left with the clothing we stand in and we don't know how long this could take to solve. We have never liked asking for help but right now we need an absolute miracle.