A HOLIDAYMAKER has told how she filmed a handler appear to poke a docile elephant with a sharp spear in a Thai safari park.

Kelly Ackerman filmed the mahout - the Thai name for elephant handler - appearing to lunge at the animal with a hooked stick as he washed him.

The attack seems completely unprovoked and continues as the worried animal backs away and the handler responds by sharply stabbing it in the face.

Miss Ackerman, 24, came across the scene by chance on the way back from a trip to the Namuang waterfall on the island of Ko Samui. The footage is apparently captured at the same park where Scottish tourist Gareth Crowe was mauled to death by an elephant just a week later. He was riding an elephant who tossed him to the ground in anger and stabbed him in the chest.

Miss Ackerman, a civil servant, of Chichester, captured the footage while on a ten day break with her partner.

She said: "It was really upsetting.

"I started filming as we walked past because he seemed aggressive and then started to hit the elephant. The elephant wasn't doing anything.

"When the handler realised we were filming he told us to back off.

"The elephants seemed to be in a really poor condition. I saw an adult and a baby kept in a tiny enclosure. They were in there when we walked to the waterfall and when we came back, about four hours later, they were still there. Their skin appeared to be broken."

Miss Ackerman wondered if animal cruelty was a factor in Mr Crowe's death, adding: "I thought if that is the way animals are being treated then they could be unhappy and lash out unexpectedly."

She made a complaint to Namuang Safari Park Samui but never received a response. No-one from the company responded when contacted by The Argus yesterday.