FARMING brothers blamed sabotage by a neighbour for an incident in which fuel polluted a beck, a court heard yesterday.

Andrew Wilkinson, 39, and Nigel Wilkinson, 36, each pleaded guilty at Harrogate Magistrates' Court to a charge brought by the Environment Agency of allowing red diesel tractor fuel to pollute Broad Beck at Low Ellington, near Masham, North Yorkshire, on November 22 last year.

Each was fined £500 and ordered to pay costs of £615.55.

The court heard how a storage tank at Manor Farm, Fearby, near Masham, which the brothers run for their father, had leaked.

Up to 400 gallons of fuel had spilled from it, much of it going into the beck and into the River Ure, more than a kilometre away.

An Environment Agency investigation revealed fish and other wildlife in the water had died in the days after an incident which had cost £2,824 to clean up - a bill which the brothers had already paid.

Robert Stevenson, mitigating, said it was the brothers' contention that the leak had been due to an act of vandalism and, although they did not want to disclose names, they had strong suspicions as to who had been responsible.

Mr Stevenson said diesel had leaked from a figure-of-eight hole. It appeared someone had stuck an implement through the metal and then, having decided the hole was not big enough, had done it again.

After hearing the Wilkinsons described as ''two hard-working men who have never been before the courts before'' magistrates' chairman Lindsay Councell told them insufficient care had been taken of the tank.

But she said the brothers, who could have gone to prison or been fined up to £20,000, were in a difficult financial position and had taken speedy remedial action once pollution occurred.