LIZ JONES: The worst has happened, so what are they going to do to me?

When you lose what is most important to you – in my case my home, most recently Mini Puppy – it isn’t that you become brave. You simply no longer care. The worst has happened, so what are they going to do to me?

It was late May Bank Holiday weekend. I got home on Friday, having not won the Columnist Of The Year accolade (that’s £500 I’ll never see again: I spent £135 just on taxis, resorting to taking the Tube the next day, something I’ve not done since 1977), to see my village green dotted with tethered horses and caravans. Hmmm. The next day, I watched out of my window as children swarmed around a small pony. They clambered on him, bothered him, shouted and leapt about, before hitching him up to a cart. Six children were in the cart – with a whip, of course – and (I timed and filmed this), despite the nearly 30-degree heat, proceeded to race the pony in circles for four hours. The animal was then tethered again; I didn’t see anyone offering him water. The pony and several of the horses were tethered without shade. The pony had no respite, respect or empathy: into the night, children and toddlers thumped him, smacking his surprised face. I’m so glad I’m not a mother: there is nothing sweet about these infants, particularly an obese boy who took great pleasure in punching the pony on his tender tummy.

No one walking past with dogs challenged them. I spoke to a neighbour who said, ‘I suppose they have permission from the council.’

What have we come to when we assume officialdom will intervene? What about doing what we know is right? I am afraid when it comes to animal welfare, I am a force to be reckoned with (I have just succeeded Joanna Lumley as patron of The Farm Animal Sanctuary). In Kerala

I posed as an insane tourist to be the first white woman inside the notorious ‘training’ camps for baby elephants. The sound of a baseball bat walloping a baby’s trunk still gives me nightmares. In Ethiopia, in a market in 40 degrees, I stood among 400 men. I wrestled a whip from one of them, challenged them to a fight if they did not give the tiny donkeys water and shade, did not remove the 20-stone sacks of grain from their backs; all the while, the charity worker kept saying, ‘They need education, give them time!’ I replied they are an ancient civilisation. They’ve had plenty of time.

In a Romanian kill pen, I smuggled out an elderly dog clearly dying on concrete in cold water: that was Hilda, then aged about 13, who had lived her life on a rubbish tip but came to live with me in Yorkshire for three too-short years. Living in Swaledale, I took on a group of ‘men’ who were flushing rabbits from warrens, then bashing them with shovels. ‘Do you have children?’ I yelled. ‘You should be ashamed.’

By Saturday afternoon, I’d had enough. I strode on to the green, approaching a group around a fire pit. They were drinking cans of beer, smoking, vaping, the women with pillows for lips.

‘Hello. Who is responsible for looking after the horses?’

A man in a baseball cap and shorts, ‘We all are.’

‘OK, well, it’s very hot, and the horses don’t have water. The pony has been driven at speed for four hours and is not allowed to rest. It’s too much.’

‘I don’t like your attitude. I’ve had horses all my life. We are travellers.’

‘I don’t care who you are. If I don’t see a tub of water by each horse, I will escalate this.’

The women were like statues: shocked, speechless – goodness, Botox actually works! The ‘men’ were aghast that someone, especially a woman, was not intimidated. As I walked away, the children were pulling on the pony, vicious, vile.

‘And don’t pull on his head!’ I shouted.

When you live in a city, you don’t see any of this. I was shocked at my local organic farm shop to see row upon row of barren cages, border collies barking inside. That’s the reality for working dogs: they don’t live indoors, on Vispring beds. Do you think for one second those collies will receive the end of life care I gave Mini Puppy? I think of all the messages between me and Nic, who looks after my rescued horses. ‘Do you think the rug will be warm enough? Have you soaked Swirly’s hay, so she doesn’t cough? Can you make sure the carrots are organic?’ and so on.

I began to wish those awful children were indoors addicted to smartphones, not outside tormenting a poor defenceless creature. I hate people. I hate children. I really, really do…