The violent death of Purley football fan Matthew Fox was shown on film to a hushed courtroom on Thursday as his killer admitted throwing the fatal punch.

A police video of the aftermath of the Gillingham-Fulham game on March 28 showed how Matthew, a printer from Old Lodge Lane, turned his back on a fight moments before the blow that killed him almost instantly.

Gillingham supporter Barry Cullen, 30, from Whitstable, Kent, denied murdering Matthew, 24, but admitted a charge of manslaughter when he appeared at Maidstone Crown Court. The court heard that more than a dozen men were prosecuted and banned from the ground for life after the violence which followed the match, which Gillingham won in the last minute.

Medical experts concluded that the single punch just below the ear had produced artery trauma and haemorrhage. Death was virtually instant, the court heard.

During interviews Cullen told detectives: "Those few seconds ended a man's life and I cannot say how sorry I am to this man's family."

Cullen will be sentenced in October.

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