A 21-year-old man has been given a six-year prison sentence for manslaughter. After the jury had been in retirement for more than nine hours over three days, they unanimously acquitted Alec Pearn of the murder of 66-year-old Peter Seaman who died when clubbed by a piece of wood beside a bus shelter in Dobwalls on August 7 last year. They then unanimously convicted him of manslaughter, which Judge Graham Cottle said he interpreted as finding that Pearn had not intended to cause his victim really serious bodily harm.

To read more see this week's Cornish Times.