Four set to face trial over travellers’ camp damage at brewery site

THREE MEN and a teenage boy are to face trial after large-scale damage was caused to a historic brewery in the North of England when travellers moved on to the site.

Thomas Ward, 43, pleaded not guilty to charges of blackmail, burglary and criminal damage when he appeared via video-link at Preston Crown Court yesterday.

Ward, of Aspull Common in Leigh, Greater Manchester, is alleged to have demanded £20,000 from staff at Thwaites Brewery in Blackburn in Lancashire, after travellers set up camp there on May 26, with the promise that the group would leave within an hour if the money was paid.

More than £200,000 of damage is estimated to have been caused to the brewery when a group of about 100 members of the travelling community set up camp over weekend.

Patrick Ward, 32, John Ward, 33, and a 16-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared in the dock yesterday and denied charges of burglary and criminal damage.

John Ward also denied a charge of theft from a Morrisons supermarket.

The four are expected to stand trial on November 19.

Production at Thwaites had to stop following the damage, after 211 years of brewing on the site, although it is due to move to new premises in the coming weeks.

Thomas Ward was remanded in custody ahead of the trial while the other three defendants were granted conditional bail.

The brewery was founded in 1807 by Daniel Thwaites in Blackburn, and the firm still operates from its original town-centre site. the bank holiday