FOUR "disastrous" Welsh poachers admitted killing and attempting to steal three partridges during a bungled night time hunt on an Evesham estate.

That quartet - Gavin Warner, Tristan Carey, Mark Wilkes and Calvin Lewis, all from Merthyr Tydfil - all pleaded guilty to a single charge of taking and destroying game birds.

Worcester magistrates heard that the men were found at 12.40am on Wednesday August 31 on private land on the Overbury Estate in Evesham.

All four had lurcher dogs and the group also had two headlights and three dead French partridges. They were arrested and immediately admitted poaching with dogs.

Clive Rees, defending, said: "They have all been before the courts before and this was an attempt by them to spend their time doing something more constructive.

"You may have your own views about going out in the countryside and chasing animals but the fact that they were caught so easily shows they haven't done this kind of thing before.

"That's the end of their poaching career. It's something they've tried and were so disastrous at they don't want to repeat."

Warner, aged 24, 26-year-olds Carey and Wilkes and Lewis, 32, were all ordered to pay £23.80 compensation for the birds, court costs of £43 and given a conditional discharge.