Our beloved horse was killed by a fallen electricity pylon in 'horrendous' incident

Jo Burke and Alistair Wright were left devastated when their three-year-old filly Fly was struck by the Northern Powergrid pole at their farm in Swainby, north Yorkshire.

They've accused the company of showing "no empathy" and offering compensation that falls short of the costs they spent raising the horse, as well as the emotional impact of losing her.

Alistair, 61, a business development manager, was working on the farm when the pole came down and recalled the horrific scene.

He said: "We noticed a lot of cars parked at the front of our drive, but we didn't know who they were. Then we saw two men walking back across the field in overalls. They said they were terribly sorry but there had been an accident and our horse had been electrocuted and died."

Sales manager Jo, 58, said: "It was just horrendous. We were in shock. You don't expect to come back to the farm at lunchtime on a Sunday to find your horse electrocuted. I loved raising Fly. I can't afford to buy a horse, but we had some land so we bred one with friends in London. This was the only way we, the little people, could afford to go racing."

They said the young horse was showing real potential in pre-training, after the couple had invested years and around £26,000 raising her - more than the £20,000 compensation offered by Northern Powergrid.

Jo said: “They just look at it as if it's a commodity. I can't afford to start the process again and spend another five years raising a horse."

Alistair added: "They are treating us with contempt. They haven't put any value on the emotional impact this has had, nor the costs associated with rearing a thoroughbred animal. They just don't recognise that. Given that there was recently an amber weather warning during a storm, it's only a matter of time before something like this happens again. If a cable came down near a group of cyclists on the road, we don't know what would happen."

The tragedy has left the family fearful for public safety. They said they were told in December that 12 other pylons on their land were unsafe in high winds, yet nearly a year later, that figure was amended to three. They said their daughter no longer rides horses in the field. Alistair also said that after the incident, Fly's mother was so shocked she lay down and would not get up.

Alistair said: “We want someone from Northern Powergrid to sit down with us, rather than standing behind solicitors, and come to a sensible resolution. They need to financially recognise all the work and effort we've put in. To dismiss that is plain wrong. They've admitted fault, there's no dispute about that - but if they've let us down, they should put it right."

What do Northern Powergrid say?

A spokesperson for Northern Powergrid said: "Whilst we cannot comment on any ongoing customer matters, we take our responsibility to provide a safe and reliable network to our customers seriously and invest £1m per day in maintaining and upgrading our network which supplies electricity to over 8million people across the North East, Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire. We will continue to discuss this matter with the parties involved."