A FAMILY yesterday hit out at the "incomprehensible" three-year sentence given to a teenager who killed their son with a single punch.

Thomas Watson, 17, will be free in 18 months, despite admitting killing promising student Daniel Crowther, also 17, on a night out last May.

Daniel was hit with such force that it sounded "like a nut cracking", one witness said. The punch fatally ruptured one of his arteries

He was outside a takeaway when Watson – high on drink and drugs – accused Thomas of trying to start a fight and threw the killer punch.

At Leeds crown court Watson, of Guisborough, North Yorks, pleaded guilty to manslaughter

Daniel's parents, from Stokesley, North Yorks, where the attack took place, said: "The person responsible will be free in a relatively short period of time.

"We have to spend the rest of our lives trying to come to terms with Daniel's death."