A Lincolnshire farming company has been fined £10,000 after it admitted polluting a watercourse.

Staples Brothers Limited of Boston pleaded guilty to allowing sewage to enter a mile stretch of protected waterway at Wrangle between June and August last year.

The tributary was polluted through two separate pipes from the farm.

The firm was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay costs of nearly £5000 by Skegness magistrates.

A spokesman for the Environment Agency, who brought the case to court, said companies with treatment plants which discharged into watercourses had a responsibility to ensure they did not affect the environment.

“In this situation a protected waterway was put at risk and it was fortunate that we discovered the problem when we did,” he added.