The ex-boyfriend of murder victim Cortney Lake appeared in Provincial Court this morning via video conference, and has acknowledged having contact with her the evening that she went missing.

Lake was last spotted on video getting into a black pickup truck, the description of which matches the one which was seized from Philip Smith’s residence on Alice Drive in the east end last month.

No charges have been laid against him in relation to the murder of Cortney Lake. Her body has yet to be found despite numerous searches in the metro region, the most recent of which happened on the weekend near the airport.

In an agreed statement of facts presented in court this morning, Philip Smith pleaded guilty to four charges of breaching court orders including one that was laid on June 7, the night that Lake went missing.

Smith admitted to picking up Lake in his black GMC truck on Michener Avenue in Mount Pearl that evening, just hours after the court ordered him to stay away from her.