I AM writing to you in disgust after watching the Bobby Roberts Circus situated at Rossall near Cleveleys.

I recently went to watch the circus to find a terrible sight -- three elephants in a nearby field surrounded by an electric fence. As I approached I saw these elephants were in a terrible state.

They were skinny, black eyed, undernourished with discharge from the eyes. They were full of cuts and scars all over their heads, face and trunks. All had skin problems and all looked in a bad way.

As I stroked the elephants I saw a boy holding the electric fence and leaning over to stroke them. So this fence was clearly not switched on, which is highly unacceptable as no-one was around to watch the elephants.

One elephant was alarmed and smacked me on the arm with its trunk and then knocked a young girl standing next to me to the floor in tears. If I had not softened the blow for the young girl there is no telling what could have happened. I left to watch the show. This included horses, ponies, dogs, a parrot and elephants. The horses were underweight and appeared to be scared of their keepers who held a whip during their performances.

After the show I proceeded to see all the animals from the show. Here I found all ponies and horses had scars, scratches and old cuts on them, some of them recent. One jet black horse was covered in scars and upsetting to see.

I got a closer look at the elephants to find they all had large parts of their ears missing.

One elephant in the break had to stand for 15 minutes while pictures were taken of her. When she moved slightly Bobby Roberts smacked her trunk with a stick.

Frankly, I found the whole ordeal disturbing -- animals put on show and made to perform mindless tricks.

Elephants shouldn't go in circles and climb on stands when told to. They should be free. As I saw it, all these animals were mistreated and incorrectly looked after.

K Dodgson,

Cleveleys.