Police release photo of Poppy Devey Waterhouse's killer Joe Atkinson

Joe Atkinson, 25, changed his plea to guilty at Leeds Crown Court today and will be sentenced for 24-year-old Poppy's murder at a later date.

Joe Atkinson pleads guilty to Poppy Devey Waterhouse's murderPoppy, who worked at the William Hill head offices in Leeds, was found dead in the apartment she shared with Joe at the Staxton flats development in Richmond Hill last December.

Atkinson is thought to have been in a relationship with Poppy since they first met as students at the University of Nottingham, where they both studied maths.

He attended Wetherby High School. Poppy grew up in Somerset, where she volunteered as a tennis coach before attending university.

Her Instagram account contains numerous photos of the couple travelling the world together. They had visited destinations such as South America, the US, Sweden, Iceland, Greece and Morocco. Other photos show them socialising in bars on Call Lane in Leeds and watching tennis at Wimbledon.

Atkinson originally denied murdering Poppy at an earlier court hearing in January, and would have faced trial in June had he not changed his plea.

He will be sentenced for murder next Friday.

A post-mortem found Poppy died from head and neck trauma. She had been working as a quantitative trading analyst at William Hill since 2017.