One of four men on trial over the death of a disabled trained barrister who was sleeping rough in a Canterbury car park has admitted manslaughter.

Former trainee financial advisor Sobantu Sibanda, 27, today pleaded guilty to the charge at Canterbury Crown Court, where it is alleged 51-year-old Guy Malbec was murdered in a "brutal and sustained" attack in the early hours of Easter Sunday, April 9.

Mr Malbec suffered severe head and facial injuries, as well as several fractured ribs, after being assaulted with weapons said to have included a wooden gavel and a laptop.

His "bloodied and battered" body was discovered in a corner of the lower ground floor of Castle Street car park the following day, Easter Monday.

He was laying face down within a partially-zipped tent and inside a sleeping bag pulled tight around his face.

Mr Malbec, who relied on a wheelchair due to a leg injury he sustained while living in Israel, had also suffered a fatal brain injury and cause of death was later recorded as sustained blunt force trauma.

The prosecution allege Sibanda, of Albert Street, Whitstable, was the main perpetrator of the violence meted out on the "vulnerable and outnumbered" Mr Malbec, while Airidas Sakalauskas, 22, of Old Dover Road, Canterbury, Gavin Houghton, 50, also of Old Dover Road, and 51-year-old Keith Hall, of Athelstan Road, Thanington, "participated in or encouraged" the hour-long assault.

All five men knew each other through the Catching Lives homeless charity in the city. Sibanda and Houghton were also "neighbours" of Mr Malbec's, sharing a tent next to his in the car park.

Sibanda's guilty plea to manslaughter came at the end of the prosecution case and shortly before he was due to start giving evidence in the murder trial.

Explaining its significance to the jury, Judge Simon James said: "In his case, as it's not acceptable to the Crown, you are simply being asked whether he is guilty or not guilty of murder. If you find him guilty, his admission of manslaughter falls away.

"By pleading guilty he accepts he used unlawful violence towards Mr Malbec and that violence was a contributory cause of his death, and that a sober and reasonable person would realise when he used that violence it would cause some harm.

"But he maintains his denial that he intended to cause Mr Malbec to die or sustain serious injury."

Judge James also revealed that Sakalauskas, Houghton and Hall had pleaded not guilty to manslaughter. Like Sibanda, they too deny murder.

However, they have all previously admitted perverting the course of justice.

This is in relation to Sibanda, Houghton and Sakalauskas carrying out an "extensive clear-up" of the scene once they knew Mr Malbec was dead, disposing of at least 80 items including bloodstained bedding, the gavel, and laptop casing, and Hall deleting messages and call logs between himself and Houghton from his phone.

The trial continues.