A man has admitted killing a popular market stall trader in Truro by manslaughter.

Paul Robert George Lyal-Venables, aged 35, of Fordh Tobmen, St Agnes, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of market trader Luke Pocock when he appeared at Truro Crown Court this morning (Friday).

It happened during an incident outside the Railway Workers Social Club, Station Road, Truro on July 2, 2022.

Mr Pocock, who ran a gaming and trading stall called Faceless Monkey in Truro's Pannier Market for many years, and was also well known as a taxi driver, suffered serious head injuries.

He was taken to hospital in a serious condition but died just over three weeks later, on Thursday, July 28.

At the plea hearing this morning, Lyal-Venables was told that a prison sentence was “inevitable.”

However, Judge Simon Carr agreed to a probation report before sentencing.

In response to defence barrister Dieter Kehler’s request, Judge Carr said: “I think inevitably it will a custodial one and he knows that.

“Given the nature of the offence and the lack of previous convictions I will allow a probation report.”

Lyal-Venables will be sentenced on Wednesday, May 10.

Until then he has been released on bail, with conditions not to contact a number of named people and not to enter Truro, apart from to attend court hearings.

Judge Carr also imposed an electronically-monitored curfew until the date of sentencing, between 7pm and 7am.

Following Mr Pocock's death, his family raised more than £8,000 through a public fundraiser on Go Fund Me, to help cover the cost of a Celebration of Life. 

His family later said that so much had been raised that they planned to put a bench, with plaques in his memory, at the back of the Pannier Market where he used to sit.