Two businessmen have admitted employing three teenage schoolboys to remove asbestos from a factory.

Andrew Medley, 36, and Neil Medley, 37, who are brothers, also pleaded guilty to exposing other employees to asbestos at Howsham Hall School at Malton in 1994.

A further indictment of allowing their workers to deal with the poisonous insulation at Samuel Smith's brewery in Tadcaster without first training them was ordered to lie on the file, and they will not be sentenced for it.

The Medleys admitted the breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act and the Employment of Women, Young Persons and Children Act at Leeds Crown Court.

The court heard that the brothers had been directors of Guiseley-based Medleys Ltd, a company now in liquidation.

They admitted employing three schoolboys, two aged 14 and one aged 15, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, to strip asbestos from a turbine factory near Leeds.

Neil Medley also pleaded guilty to working with asbestos without holding a licence at the factory in February 1996, failing to ensure it was left in a clean state, and failing to prevent or reduce the spread of asbestos from the site.

He also admitted carrying out work at the Malton school without ensuring that a health record was maintained and adequate medical surveillance provided.

Other similar charges against both men were ordered to lie on the file.

Prosecutor Simon Myerson told the court that Neil Medley, of Main Street, Menston, near Bradford, was the "dominant brother", and that his brother, of Carr Lane, Rawdon, near Leeds, represented his country in athletics.

Adjourning sentencing until Friday, Judge John Cockroft said existing powers ruled out custodial sentences.

He added: "Only time will tell whether diseases caused by asbestos will cause Parliament to look again at the maximum sentences for these offences."

Court proceedings brought by the Environment Agency relating to the disposal of asbestos were adjourned until a later date.

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