THREE travellers have admitted to conspiring to commit burglary after they broke into a historic brewery and caused more than £250,000 of damage over a bank holiday weekend.

Thomas Ward, 43, John Ward, 33, and a 17-year-old who cannot be named for legal reasons, also pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit criminal damage after ransacking Thwaites in Blackburn.

Thomas Ward also pleaded guilty to blackmail after demanding £20,000 from brewery bosses to leave the site.

More than 100 travellers descended on the brewery in Penny Street over Spring bank holiday weekend.

Offices were ransacked, copper wires were stripped out and human excrement was spread around the site.

The two men and the teenager appeared together in the dock to admit the charges yesterday. But a further defendant, Patrick Ward, 32, of Banner Street, Ince, Wigan, failed to appear. A warrant was issued for his arrest.

Thomas Ward and John Ward, both of Stables, Aspull Common, Leigh, have been remanded in custody and will return to Preston Crown Court on Thursday to be sentenced.

Judge Andrew Woolman ordered a report from the Youth Offending Team for the teenage defendant.

As reported by the Lancashire Telegraph earlier this year, travellers moved onto the land and occupied it for several days.

In the aftermath of the incident the site was left without power, the brewery’s electrical copper cables were stolen, vending machines were smashed and the offices were ransacked.

Computers and other electrical goods were also removed from the site. Doors were ripped off their hinges and the site was left in a ‘disgusting, squalid mess’, according to brewery bosses.

A total of 1,700 pints of beer were poured down the drain because of contamination fears. The incident brought 211 years of brewing in the town to a premature end, as Thwaites was preparing for relocation to an £8million headquarters in Mellor Brook in August.