A controlling boyfriend sent to prison for breaching a restraining order handed to him for beating his partner rang her from prison 910 times in a month, a court has been told. Philip Smyth, formerly of Newquay, appeared at Truro Crown Court on Friday to be sentenced for a charge of controlling and coercive behaviour carried out between August 1 and September 12 of last year, having pleaded guilty to the offence. Prosecutor Philip Lee told the court how Smyth, 34, had been in a relationship...

According to figures released earlier this year by the Office for National Statistics, more than 22,000 crimes were reported in Cornwall alone in 2016 - with just a quarter resulting in convictions and up by just over 1,000 from the previous year. Devon and Cornwall Police have urged people not to panic and said the force area reports the third lowest crime rate in England and Wales. Read next: Newquay police would like to speak to this woman after a house was burgled in Mount WiseThis...

A gang that flooded Cornwall with drugs has been jailed for a total of 70 years for stabbing a rival dealer in a turf war. The court heard that the victim was left for dead with 18 knife wounds after two men were drove from Penzance and Camborne to lead the vicious assault. In total, five young dealers were sent to Exeter to attack a courier from London who had refused to heed an earlier warning. The five men recruited two local junkies to help their plot, one of whom bought the knives and...

If you want to know the name of a sex offender in Cornwall, chances are it could be Kevin. Equally, you may want to be wary of sharing too many personal details with a David, as that's the name of the person most like to rip you off. Emmas are most likely to be convicted criminals while watch out for Daniels - they're the ones most likely to settle scores with their fists rather than over a nice cup of tea. Devon and Cornwall Police has released the commonest first names of male and female...

A new shop stocking retro homewares has raised its shutters on Polmear Road in St Austell. Yummy Interior Design opened at the end of May and is working to provide wares from a variety of talented local artists, with some well known designers, such as Orla Kiely, also thrown into the mix. Read more: Man injured after being shot in the face with a paintball gun Predominantly selling home items, the shop also has a coffee bar and interior designer on hand with expert knowledge to advise...

So this weekend seems to have turned out nice. Saturday was always forecast to be decent, but today has seen more sun than we might have thought. The savvy among us will have prepared, of course. But some will have been taken by surprise. Have you got home to find your skin a little more tender than you'd planned? Sunburn is irritating, sore and itchy. But it is also really dangerous. A bit of a breeze can mask the dangers of the sun. Sunburn is skin damage caused by ultra violet...

This is a vision of the future for Newquay.With more and more construction sites popping up in the resort, it is becoming increasingly hard to keep track of what exactly is being built. And with further developments planned across the town over the coming months and years, Cornwall Live has highlighted how the town might be transformed if these plans come to fruition. Read next: This is when the A30 roadworks at Bodmin will be completed and the new lanes openHere we look at the developments...

Lavender sounds more like a crop you'd find in Provence, not the Lizard peninsula. However, Mark and Sam Hall-Digweed have found the perfect place to set up Cornwall's first commercial lavender farm. Sam and Mark were looking for a place that suited their small-scale and sustainable methods. They said the old farm at Roskorwell, above the coastal village of Porthallow near St Keverne, was ideal and the couple moved in last year. Read next: Audacious appeal to horse racing sheikh of Dubai...

Literary heritage will be celebrated and championed in Cornwall next week with the return of a much-anticipated writing festival. Cornwall is regarded across the globe for its association with the arts, but next week Penzance Literary Festival 2017 will explore the significance the town had in inspiring one of the most famous writing families our nation, and indeed the world, has ever seen the Brontës. Now in its eighth year the scheduled events will again draw book lovers to fourteen...

Cash-strapped health workers are being forced to take second jobs and use food banks to make ends meet, a Westcountry nurse has revealed. The news comes as Cornwall's MPs were among the those who voted 323 to 309, a majority of just 14, against a bid to end the 1% public sector pay cap in the first Commons vote since the general election.The motion, which would have improved pay for hard-pressed nurses and public sector workers, was proposed by the Labour Party but kicked out after by...

Foreign fishing boats could be kicked out of British waters within two years after a deal unveiled in Newlyn was put in motion, the Government has confirmed. Fisheries minister and Camborne and Redruth MP George Eustice announced in May, before the General Election, that the UK was set to withdraw from the 1964 London Fisheries Convention. Pre-dating Britain's membership of the EU, the convention allows vessels from France, Belgium, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands to fish within six...

Drugs, cash and mobile phones were seized by police after officers searched a Truro city centre premises. They discovered cannabis, ecstasy and MDMA at the house on Friday. Truro inspector Rick Milburn said: "We conducted a search of an address under the Misuse of Drugs Act. "A quantity of cannabis, MDMA and ecstasy were seized along with mobile phones and a quantity of cash. Read more: Drug dealer Dean Miller from Truro who takes MDMA for breakfast sentenced with Punita...

When we think of summer in Cornwall sitting on the beach with a book and enjoying some quiet time in the sun comes to mind, but it is not always that simple. It is inevitable that living in a Cornish town or village will see things occur in the summer holidays that make us question our decisions to reside in one of the most beautiful places in Britain. 1) Driving around the town or country lanes You can dread summer as a local. What once was your quiet Cornish village with not a soul in...

Anyone coming into Cornwall via the A30 today will need to give themselves plenty of time as the roadworks are still causing massive problems for motorists. There are reports that traffic is stationary over two lanes between Temple and the Jamaica Inn at Bolventor on the westbound lane. Accoriding to traffic service Inrix there is queuing traffic on A30 Westbound between Jamaica Inn Road (Bolventor) and A38 Launceston Road (Bodmin), in patches through the various sets of...

Kodi users continue to be hit by a tightening clampdown on add-on services. Many users are being blocked from streams as authorities crackdown on them. While the Kodi service itself is not illegal, it is used by many people to stream content that is not being legally obtained. Kodi is becoming increasingly popular with consumers, as TV and movie fans look for on-demand solutions to their viewing habits. But more and more add-ons for the service are shutting down amid the...

Film critic Barry Norman has died at the age of 83, his family has said. The journalist and former BBC presenter died in his sleep on Friday night. A statement from his daughters, Samantha and Emma, described him as "remarkable" and added: "He had a great life, a wonderful marriage and an enviable career." Norman hosted BBC One's show Film... between 1972 and 1998, its longest-running host, and wrote for the Daily Mail and the Guardian newspapers. Read more: Brewery...

People using trains through Bristol are facing major delays due to a fault at the city's Temple Meads station. Although the problem has now been resolved, trains throughout the west country are being cancelled or delayed and aren't expected to be back to normal until around 4pm. Cross Country trains said there had been multiple points failure at Bristol Temple Meads. National Rail Enquiries said that Crosscountry customers may use Great Western Railway services between Cheltenham Spa...

Cornwall's coastguard search and rescue helicopter made an incredible 500-mile round trip to rescue a desperately unwell yachtsman in the middle of a rough Atlantic sea. The pilot of the helicopter said every minute counts when "operating at the limits of your range and endurance in a potentially life and death situation such as this one". Mark Coupland said: "In the heavy sea state the vessel was obviously having difficulty maintaining a steady course which we required to...

A brewery has said one of its bankrupt and outdated pubs – which it has owned for more than 100 years - should now be demolished and replaced with houses. The company painted a sad picture of how the pub's 1970s rebuild was now considered ugly and how income crashed as punters deserted in favour of new exciting venues by the seafront in St Ives.St Austell Brewery closed the Sheft of Wheat, next to the Regal Cinema, two years ago, and is now asking Cornwall Council for permission to...

A dive to release 700 hundred juvenile lobsters off Falmouth led to a rescue mission to save other marine life trapped in a huge 100metre long net on the seabed. Mark Milburn led a group of volunteer divers off Rosemullion Headland in Falmouth Bay to release the young lobsters for the National Lobster Hatchery at Padstow. But he said they soon discovered dozens of crabs and lobsters stuck in the net, which they believe was about 100metres in length. He said the team dived in two groups and...