A former Maidstone United footballer has admitted killing his ex-girlfriend more than six years after he was cleared by a jury.

Mario Celaire, 31, battered 19-year-old Cassandra McDermott to death in November 2001.

He was cleared of murder and manslaughter the following year after claiming he left her "alive and well" minutes before her death.

Then in 2007, having changed his name by deed poll from Mario McNish, Celaire attacked 19-year-old lover Kara Hoyte with a hammer.

She survived the vicious assault but sustained brain injuries and now suffers from the language disorder aphasia.

In a landmark case lawyers for the Crown applied to the Director of Public Prosecutions to re-open the inquiry in to Miss McDermott’s killing and successfully got Celaire’s acquittal quashed in the Court of Appeal under the 'double jeopardy’ laws.

Defender Celaire was playing for non-league Maidstone United before his arrest in the autumn of 2007. He won the fans’ player of the year award in their Kent League title-winning season of 2005/06 after signing from Beckenham Town.

He admitted Miss McDermott’s manslaughter and the attempted murder of Miss Hoyte and was warned he faces a 'very significant sentence’ when he return on July 3 after reports have been prepared.

Celaire, of Sydenham Road, Sydenham, had been due to face trial for murder and attempted murder at the Old Bailey this week but admitted manslaughter and attempted murder, which were accepted by the Crown.

The CPS applied to the Court of Appeal to have the 2002 acquittal quashed so Celaire could be tried again under the 'double jeopardy’ law, first introduced in this country in 2005 under changes in the Criminal Justice Act 2003.

The ruling allows suspects, who have been acquitted of a crime by a jury, to be re-tried if 'new and compelling’ evidence can be produced.

On November 26, 2001 Celaire, then 24, beat Miss McDermott unconscious at her mother’s house in Norbury, south London, and covered her half-naked body with a quilt. The 19-year-old then choked to death on her own vomit.

Prosecutors admitted there was no evidence to directly link Celaire to the scene, but he admitted seeing her that night and was caught on CCTV washing his clothes in a nearby launderette after the killing.

In November 2002 an Old Bailey jury acquitted Celaire of both murder and manslaughter after less than three hours deliberation.

The case remained unsolved until December 2007 when Celaire was charged with the attempted murder of partner Miss Hoyte at a flat in Walthamstow, London, 10 months earlier on February 11.

Celaire also served a nine-month jail term for possessing a knife.

In a bizarre twist Celaire appeared as a prosecution witness at the Old Bailey in September last year after a motorist tried to run him down in a road rage row while he was on police bail in connection with the Hoyte case.

Aaron Mullis, 25, drove at him three times after a fist fight at a set of traffic lights in Sydenham on October 17 2007.

Celaire, who was on his way home from training in a Mercedes, escaped injury after diving out the way as Mullis’ Ford Mondeo smashed into the roadside barrier.

In the fist fight Celaire punched his attacker, breaking his jaw.

Mullis was convicted of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm and dangerous driving, but a 51 week jail term was suspended for two years and he was put on an aggression replacement therapy programme.