Migrants attack top equestrian

Threatened: Lucy Phillips with Pitucelli, the horse she was transporting A LEADING equestrian has described the terrifying moment her horsebox was attacked by a gang of armed migrants in Calais.

Lucy Phillips, 26, was returning from a world championship event with her parents when their route to the ferry terminal was blocked by felled trees.

Up to ten migrants jumped out of the bushes on the roadside and threatened them with bats and branches.

Dressed head to toe in black, the young men started hitting the side of the horsebox and then smashed a passenger window. When Miss Phillips jumped into the back of the truck to calm down her 18year-old horse Pitucelli, she heard the migrants trying to get in through the side door.

The horsewoman, who is fifth in the equestrian vaulting world rankings, pulled the handle of the door towards her to stop the young men from getting inside.

She told her father Bill, 68, to beep the horn, which he did until French riot police arrived. Her mother Liz, 63, suffered cuts to her face and her father received cuts to his arm.

The rider, who also works as a model, decided to speak out to highlight the increase in violent attacks carried out by migrants living in The Jungle camp in Calais.

She said: ‘It was so scary and it seems that over the past couple of months the violence has got worse. It’s not just the big trucks they target, they don’t seem to care who they attack any more.

‘I don’t want to scare people but anyone going out there needs to be so careful on the way back. We’ve vowed never to travel back at night again.’

Miss Phillips, who lives with her parents in Solihull near Birmingham, said she had previously seen migrants running alongside lorries heading to the port but ‘never blocking the road or being that violent’.

The French police ‘chased the migrants away’ and escorted the family away from the area. An officer then took statements from them after the incident, which took place on August 22.

‘The violence has got worse’