A car manufacturer has been fined for allowing harmful chemical pollutants to escape into a stream.

MG Rover pleaded guilty at Oxford Magistrates' Court yesterday to two charges of letting trade effluent escape into controlled waters.

The offences took place in Cowley, Oxford, between August 1999 and January 2000, when the company was known as the Rover Group.

On August 2, 1999, an environment agency inspector monitored a white-coloured substance in Northfield Brook, which runs past the former Rover plant in Cowley.

Janet Fedrick, representing the Environment Agency, said that the source of the substance was traced to a disused paint shop, where water containing paint residue was escaping through cracks in pipes.

Rover repaired the cracks, dammed the stream where it reached the surface and pumped out the contaminated water.

Mrs Fedrick said that tests done on the Northfield Stream in August 99 found that chemical oxygen demand - an indicator of pollution - in the water was 2110mg per litre. A typical level for controlled waters is 10-30mg per litre. Chemicals found included aluminium and lead. In January 2000, the stream had to be pumped out again when acidic ferric oxide corroded a hole in a pump at the Rover plant and escaped into the brook.

Kevin Elliott, representing MG Rover, said that the company took its environmental responsibilities seriously and had acted promptly to rectify the damage it had done.

Magistrates fined the company £6,000 for the August 1999 offence and £10,000 for the January 2000 offence because the pollutant that escaped was more harmful.