Ben Whitehead was found with a stab wound

Edward Kitts, 59, stabbed Ben Whitehead through the heart with an eight-inch kitchen knife in St Austell in March.

Truro Crown Court heard how the incident happened after the young man complained about the defendant's dog fouling the pavement outside his home.

Kitts had been due to stand trial for Mr Whitehead's murder until he admitted manslaughter on Tuesday.

Kitts, of Dobell Road, St Austell, had been walking his dog when he bumped into his 80-year-old uncle, Peter Kitts, outside Mr Whitehead's ground floor flat in Polkyth Road, St Austell, on the evening of 16 March , the court was told.

I'm coming about the stabbing last night. I'm the one that did it Edward Kitts

Prosecutor Sarah Munro QC said Mr Whitehead and his 19-year-old girlfriend, Donna Mohammed, had been returning from a day visiting friends when they saw Kitts and his uncle.

She said: "There had been a history of people allowing their dogs to foul the pavement immediately outside the flat.

"Donna, and indeed Ben's family, are utterly convinced that one of those responsible for allowing his dog to defecate in that way was the defendant."

The court heard that Ms Mohammed approached Kitts and his uncle and asked him not to let his dog foul outside their house.

Mr Whitehead, who was carrying a can of lager, repeated his girlfriend's words before pushing Kitts's uncle.

Ms Munro described the ensuing scuffle: "She (Ms Mohammed)was aware of the defendant withdrawing something from the pocket inside his jacket and then Ben stumbling towards the door of his house, clearly having been stabbed."

'Decent and respectable'

Mr Whitehead stumbled as far as his living room before collapsing.

Passers-by and paramedics attempted to revive him, but he was pronounced dead at the Royal Cornwall Hospital.

Kitts "simply walked home", washed the blood off his knife and told his wife he had had "a nice walk with the dog", Ms Munro said.

The next day, when he heard a radio news bulletin about Mr Whitehead's death, he gave himself up at St Austell police station.

He told the sergeant on duty: "I'm coming about the stabbing last night. I'm the one that did it."

Geoffrey Mercer QC, defending, said Kitts was a "thoroughly decent, respectable, hard-working family man" who had been married for 39 years and was "quite clearly not a man of violence".

Kitts had seen something metallic in Mr Whitehead's hand - probably the can of lager - and taken out the knife to defend himself, he said.

Mr Mercer added: "He took it out and he held it out towards the deceased coming towards him. The deceased tragically came or fell or stumbled on to the blade."