A Green Howard private from Teesside who admitted killing a man was today sentenced to four years detention.

The solider, Wayne King, last month pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Glyne Agard at a trial at Bristol Crown Court.

Mr Agard, 34, was black. His family said that the assault was racially motivated. However, Mr Justice Steel, who sat at the High Court, London, said he did not deal with the case on the basis of a racial attack.

Mr Agard, a railway worker from Reading, Berkshire, suffered minor injuries outside a club called Reflections, in Westbury, Wiltshire. He was out with a brother Steven and friend Gary Belgrave.

But he died of complications from the injuries.

King also admitted causing Mr Belgrave grievous bodily harm. A second Green Howards soldier, Private Thomas Myers, 21, admitted causing Steven Agard actual bodily harm during the incident on June 18 last year.

King, originally from Middlesbrough, and Myers, from Hartlepool, also admitted affray. The judge sentenced Myers to two years in prison. To date he has already served 12 months in custody. He stands to be released soon on licence.

The trial began 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. Two other soldiers in the same regiment, Private Marc Hunter, 18, and Lance Corporal David White, 23, were both acquitted of murder.

Passing sentence in London, 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, he said.

Updated: 15.50, Wednesday, July 11.