The look of anticipation on Lucy Fensom's face betrayed a mixture of extreme emotions.

Those of frustration, anxiety, fear and, most of all, hope.

The 27-year-old air hostess from Hove was waiting with her family at the quarantine control centre next to Heathrow Airport.

In just a few minutes' time it was all going to be over. She had spent five years trying to rescue a little grey donkey she had nicknamed Donk from a life of cruelty in Israel.

A ten-hour journey had just ended and a lorry carrying a specially-made crate, with two long ears sticking through the top, was winding its way towards the group.

As the crate door opened a bewildered-looking Donk made his first steps onto British soil.

Lucy rushed up to him and placed her arms round his head.

The calming bond between the two was almost palpable. This was not a pet-owner relationship, but something far deeper.

Donk went to the Wood Green animal shelter in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, to start a new life where he would be cared for properly.

Her efforts, vindicated by Donk's happiness, Lucy made it her mission to rescue as many Israeli donkeys, working for years in blistering heat before, sometimes literally, being thrown on the heap, as she could.

A battle against animal rights indifference in Israel has consumed her ever since.

Sadly, Donk died of a heart attack last August, but his 11 months of happiness at Wood Green shelter remain an inspiration.

Lucy wants to create a similar facility for donkeys in Israel, where they can spend their final days in comfort.

She needs to raise £43,000. One charity has already donated £10,000 and another is considering doing the same.

Lucy, now 29, said: "When Donk was here alive and well I had the thought of doing something similar for other donkeys. The first time I saw him we struck a bond, but I never thought anything like this would be happening. It feels like this is my chosen destiny and I couldn't give it up now.

"Now he's gone, it makes me even more determined. It's almost as if it is all being done in his memory.

"I miss Donk terribly. I can't describe how I felt when he died. It was just such a shock.

"Everything happened for a reason, though. He was happy for a short while, really happy. Eleven months is not a lot of happiness in ten years, but it's something. After all that upset he died happy and I want to do the same for other donkeys."

Lucy has made 15 trips to Israel to look for suitable mesheks, or small farms, to start a sanctuary.

On her next visit in March, she hopes to get things underway.

It is almost seven years since Donk and Lucy first met.

He was owned by a group of Bedouin Arabs near Jerusalem, who forced him to carry heavy loads in the midday sun, sometimes for hours without a rest.

They tied his legs with wires to prevent his escape, causing permanent scarring.

Donkeys sell for as little as £16 each among the tribes, so Lucy bought Donk and took him to what she thought was a good sanctuary.

She went to see him almost every day of her two-year working trip and returned to Britain thinking he would end his life in comfort.

But at the beginning of 1998 her parents visited the sanctuary while on holiday to find the owner had died and Donk was living in a cramped cage. His hooves had overgrown, causing deformities in his legs.

Lucy was determined not to let the same thing happen again and spent the next eight months campaigning to bring Donk back home.

That September day at Heathrow was both the end and the beginning.

Lucy, who has started her own charity - Safe haven for Donkeys - spends four hours a day in her office writing letters to the Israeli authorities and animal welfare organisations

The horror of what she sees on every visit pushes her on.

At one zoo in Israel, Lucy found donkeys were being suffocated to death before being fed to lions.

She said: "They were donkeys that had broken their legs or backs and were no longer of any use.

"A lot of people in Israel care, but they have no driving force for a concerted campaign to alleviate the situation.

"It's frustrating because so many things need doing. Our priority is education. We need to go into schools and tell the children how to treat animals."

The lack of an animal-loving culture is told most graphically by what Lucy saw on her most recent trip there last month.

"We saw lots of donkeys in an awful condition. One had been knocked down by a car on a Friday evening and had had its back broken. On the Sunday morning it was still alive at the roadside.

"A group of roadworkers saw him lying there and picked it up in a JCB. They took him to the nearby dump and dropped him 20 feet onto the rubbish. Someone saw he was still alive and called in a vet, who gave him an injection to put him to sleep."

Lucy hopes her sanctuary will house about 40 donkeys.

She said: "We are going to be inundated when we start, that's for sure, because there's nothing else.

"One day the joy Donk knew in his last days might be shared by hundreds of thousands of animals."

To make a donation to Safe haven for Donkeys call 01273 416601.

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