A North East soldier who admitted killing a man in a brawl outside a nightclub was sentenced to four years detention yesterday.

Green Howards private Wayne King, 20, had pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of 34-year-old railway worker Glyne Agard during a trial at Bristol Crown Court last month.

The family of Mr Agard, who was black, had claimed the attack was racially motivated.

But Mr Justice Steel, sentencing King yesterday at the High Court in London, said he was not dealing with the case on that basis.

And afterwards relatives told of their outrage at the sentence given to King, which could mean he is free in less than 18 months. A family spokesman said: "We feel justice has not been done."

Mr Agard, from Reading, Berkshire, was punched, kicked and headbutted outside a Wiltshire nightclub in June last year.

He had travelled there for a night out with his brother Stephen and a friend, Gary Belgrave. Mr Agard died from complications after the attack.

King also admitted causing Mr Belgrave grievous bodily harm, and a second Green Howards soldier, Private Thomas Myers, 21, admitted causing Stephen Agard actual bodily harm. King, originally from Middlesbrough, and Myers, from Hartlepool, also admitted affray.

The judge sentenced Myers to two years in prison. He has already served 12 months in custody and stands to be released soon on licence.

The trial at Bristol Crown Court had begun with both soldiers charged with Mr Agard's murder, but the jury was directed to acquit Myers of murder and accept King's manslaughter plea.

Passing sentence in London yesterday, Mr Justice Steel said the two soldiers, based at Warminster, Wiltshire, became "thoroughly steamed up" about a girl's complaint that she had been hit in the stomach by a black man.

Their "exaggerated sense of chivalry and propensity to overreact and exact vengeance" was fuelled by drink. Neither seemed the sort of person to be motivated by mindless hostility to black people.

Although Myers had been grossly offensive in inviting his colleagues to "give the black bastards a good kicking", it was possible he was merely giving voice to the fact that their potential victims were easily identifiable.

The judge said he would not use his powers to increase their sentences on the grounds of racial motivation