A charity worker has blasted “irresponsible” people for letting horses that could face being killed out of their field in Wooburn Green.

Some of the horses on Slate Meadow escaped on Friday at around 8am, with some making it as far as the Wooburn Park Lawn Tennis Club before police and members of the public managed to round them up and return them to their field.

The horses are also believed to have escaped again on Friday night.

The animals faced being destroyed if their owners did not remove them from the field by February 3 after an abandonment notice was posted at the site a week ago – prompting an outpouring of anger from residents.

The notice appeared outside Slate Meadow on January 30 saying that the horses in the field were being “detained” and if the owner did not move them within five days, the horses would be rehomed, sold, or “humanely destroyed.”

However, Helen Evans, regional welfare officer at The British Horse Society, says she believes the land-owner and the owner of the horses have “come to some sort of agreement.”

She also criticised “irresponsible” people for damaging the fence and letting the horses out.

She said: “I understand people are upset about the situation, but letting the horses out of their field is not saving them, it is putting them and other people at risk.

“Although people mean well, the last thing we would want is for them to end up in the wrong hands.”

There are currently at least 20 horses in the field, some of them pregnant and some of them foals.

It is believed that the horses have been on Slate Meadow for at least ten years, however charities backed the land owners, praising them for taking a "strong position" on fly-grazing.