Hearing his distressed victim’s 999 call in court was enough to make a Falmouth man change his plea to guilty in a dramatic twist at Truro Crown Court yesterday.

Dean Lewis, 36, of Pellow Road, Falmouth, had denied charges of possessing an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear that he would use violence against Kim Gear.

His trial was approaching the halfway stage when Lewis was played the dramatic recording.

Judge Christopher Harvey Clark QC then called Miss Gear into court to hear, alongside the jury, the call.

It bore out, he said, the evidence she had given the previous day and confirmed that allegations made against her in cross examination by defence counsel Sean Brunton had been without foundation.

Prosecutor Ramsay Quaife had told the court that on September 8 last year Miss Gear was with friends in her bedsit in Tregothnan Road, Falmouth when “Taffy” Lewis banged on her door, pointed the BB gas powered handgun at her and threatened her.

Judge Clark told Lewis, a man with 26 previous convictions for 75 offences, mostly burglaries and thefts, that he had very sensibly accepted his guilt.

Lewis will be sentenced on Thursday.