A developer faces unlimited fines and having its assets seized for illegally cutting down protected trees.

Bulldozers felled three elms, a purple beech and a sycamore at the Anston House site in Brighton.

They were removed in June last year despite Brighton and Hove City Council placing tree preservation orders on them in 1988.

At Hove Crown Court developer Bridgetown Properties and company director Timothy Harding pleaded guilty to destroying the protected trees.

A financial investigation will be held under the Proceeds of Crime Act into how much the company stood to make as a result of its actions.

Harding, 37, of Lloyd Road, Hove, and the company could be ordered to pay any amount they are considered to have benefited by in addition to an unlimited fine.

The hearing will take place on January 22 when they will also be sentenced for cutting the trees down.

Clifford Wake, 48, of Lyndhurst Road, Hove, a director of contractor Memetco, pleaded not guilty. He was formally cleared after Rowan Jenkins, prosecuting, said it would not be in the public interest to prosecute him and offered no evidence.

The destruction of the trees at the site near Preston Park on June 23 and 24 last year sparked outrage. More than 600 people signed a petition urging the city council to prosecute the developer.

The trees were on wasteland next to Anston House in Preston Road.

The site was sold to Bridgetown Properties in May last year for £10.5 million.

Councillor Geoffrey Theobald, cabinet member for the environment, said: “This was a deliberate and calculated act of environmental vandalism.

“I hope this sends out a message loud and clear that the council will always pursue developers who think they can get away with this sort of behaviour.”