A Steyning farmer has shared her disgust at organisers of an illegal rave which has 'destroyed' the area.

2,000 people attended the unlicensed music event held in a field near Bostal Road in the early hours of Sunday (June 27),

Sussex Police has since confirmed that in excess of 50 people had been arrested in connection with the event, and the force expected to make more arrests in the coming days.

Read more: Sussex heritage group lashes out at 'irresponsible' rave held on ancient site

The owner of nearby Upper Maudlyn Farm has spoken out about the devastating impact the event has had on the farms in the area and the anger amongst the local farming community.

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Claire Bower said: "It’s been a nightmare.

"So I was woken up at around 1.30am with cars racing through the yard on Sunday morning, so I came out and shut the gate and put the car across so they couldn’t keep getting up and down.

"We thought that it was either joy riders or people trying to nick farm machinery."

The farmer said she also took pictures of the vehicle number plates while outside in case they were stealing, and had a car 'drive at her' to stop her.

"Then at about 6am the dogs wouldn’t stop barking and I had a message from next door saying there’s people over there, behind," she added.

"I’ve got two horse paddocks and they cut through, they were trying to cut through the farm buildings.

Farmers woke up to the "unbelievably loud" rave in the night and found their fields full of litter the following morning

"And then basically all day until 9.30pm I was trying to stop drug drivers and trying to clear people off the land."

Claire, who used to work in the Foreign Office, farms on both sides of the South Downs and had to have one of her employees at her second site, Upton Farm in Sompting, all day on Sunday (June 27) to keep people out of the horse paddock there.

"We’ve got human excrement over the other farm, we’ve had padlocks and chains broken, it’s disgusting isn’t it."

The damage and mess left behind by the ravers has had a devastating impact on the local farms, with whole fields now potentially unusable.

George Gorman, who rides out horses for Claire, said things had been "awful" in the aftermath of the illegal rave.

He said: "We've just not been able to get out and do things basically, not to mention the carnage that’s left up here, all the rubbish you can see in the grass up here, broken glass everywhere, it affects the horses.

George Gorman shared his horror at the mess left behind by the ravers

"Even over here, the damage, people walking through the fields, destroying the crops.

"The horses can’t really go more than a mile from home because you don’t know if they’re going to end up standing on a big shard of glass or something.

"Even if you’re just cutting it for hay, once the blade has hit a piece of glass you’ve just got powdered glass in your hay so I don’t really know what you can do.

"You have to find some way around it otherwise it’s thousands and thousands of pounds down the drain, especially with the prices of hay at the minute."

Caitlin Fulljanes, who was also out riding with George, says the rave has potentially ruined an important year for hay.

Multiple farms and fields had their locks cut through and fences pushed down

The cattle in nearby fields had also been severely disturbed by the event.

George said: "One of Claire’s friends said the cows that they have are just completely traumatised, they’re losing weight, they’re not eating.

"They’ve never seen anything like it, they’ve never heard anything like the festival speakers they had."

Caitlin, Claire's apprentice, added: "A video came out yesterday of a load of cows and calves literally bouldering through the sound systems.

"The people in the field looked like they were chasing, running at them."

Caitlin Fulljanes said there had been a shocking video on social media showing the spooked cows stampeding through the rave as attendees tried to run and jump on them

Claire was also in disbelief at the disregard shown for the cattle.

The mum said: "The thing that’s got me more than anything is the fact that where they’ve set it up is by some cattle.

"All over social media you’ve got ‘let them have a bit of fun’, ‘good on them for doing it’ what about those cows?

"Do you know what happened to those cows, they ended up in Wiston Woods, they managed to get them out on Sunday evening, and one of them was so stressed she gave birth and wasn’t due.

Although most of the rubbish has been cleared, it will be impossible to find every piece of broken glass in the fields, posting a risk to local cattle and crops

"The guy who owns them is shaking in disgust and anger at these people.

The former showjumper also noted that the cattle owners would have been deemed responsible if anyone at the unlicensed music event had been hurt, even though the ravers were the ones who cut the padlocks to the gates and let them out.

"If they would’ve hurt someone the cattle owner is responsible, it was a likelihood wasn’t it? And how could they do that to animals?

"Next door, they’ve had lots of padlocks broken and they’ve obviously gone through with bolt cutters to get those locks off, they escaped, their cattle."

Workers at the local farms have worked tirelessly to repair damage to their land though rubbish still remains in some fields

Despite the "pure anger" Claire, also a soft furnisher, says the local farmers have felt towards the rave and those attending, she says the community has pulled together in the aftermath.

"The one thing I will say is the fact that I’ve had a huge amount of people messaging me through various means asking if they can get a team out to do a big clean up.

"I’ve probably had about 40 different people who have messaged me saying 'can I do anything' which shows how strong our community is, and loads of different things on Facebook basically saying 'what can we do to help?' which I think is amazing, and the local farmer community has really pulled together."