AN ELDERLY woman evicted from her New Forest home last week claims she is now living in a caravan near Portsmouth without water, heating or light.

Cat lover Freda Williams, 70, threatened to shoot herself when police and bailiffs moved in last week to execute a court order evicting her from the Hunters Moon property at Furzehill, where she had lived for more than 40 years.

The desperate pensioner was disarmed, but then staged a four-hour sit in outside the ramshackle bungalow in a dispute about the disposal of her pets. After lengthy negotiations she drove off in her car loaded with chickens and pigeons.

Homeless Miss Williams said she briefly stayed at Sandy Balls Holiday Park, but now claims to be sheltering in a 10ft caravan on a farm at Waterlooville with her menagerie of animals.

She said she was struggling with social services to find somewhere permanent to live because they have no provisions for looking after her pets.

But she added that she had not given up hope of returning to Hunters Moon where she claims she still owns a small strip of land and a mobile home.

"At least we're all together and at least we're all alive, but how long that will last for I don't know," she said. "This kind of thing should not happen to an English woman of my age."

Miss Williams who had previously run a riding stables and cattery, breeding tailless Manx cats native to the Isle of Man where she was born, at the isolated Hunters Moon holding was evicted after a court rejected her claim to ownership of the property which she had sold to clear her bankruptcy following a series of failed legal actions involving land claims and disputed debts, including monies owed the Inland Revenue and New Forest District Council.

Following her eviction officers of the National Trust, which leases the common land around the Hunters Moon property, have been negotiating with the new owners over alleged encroachment by Miss Williams.

First published: October 20