THE devastated family of a loving father who died after a one-punch attack told a court they feel they have been given a life sentence of pain.

Brodie Groome, 27, threw a punch after a late-night confrontation between two groups in Vineyard Street car park, in Colchester, in August last year.

Steven Warburton, 46, was struck and fell to the ground, suffering a fractured skull when his head hit the floor.

He died weeks later in hospital as a result of a cardiac arrest, which medical experts concluded was a direct result of brain injury he sustained after being punched.

Groome, of Sydney Street, Brightlingsea, denied manslaughter and said he was acting in self-defence, but was convicted at Ipswich Crown Court.

Mobile phone footage captured the altercation and Mr Warburton’s head hitting the ground, but did not show the punch connect.

Mr Warburton had stepped in to pick up his wife from the floor moments before he was struck by Groome.

Nicola May, prosecuting at a sentencing hearing yesterday, said: “Steven Warburton had no idea the punch was coming towards him, because he did not change his stance, he did not make any attempt to break his fall.

“We say the blow delivered was an act of deliberate, unlawful violence.”

Statements from Mr Warburton’s family were read to the court yesterday as a sentencing hearing began.

The victim’s daughter said her dad had always been “the person we would turn to whenever we needed support, advice or a shoulder to cry on”.

“I wish time would just stand still so I wouldn’t have to miss him anymore,” she said.

“I will never be able to put into words how amazing my dad was and how much I miss him.”

Mr Warburton’s widow said her husband used to buy her a bouquet of lilies every week.

“I never doubted, in all of our 30 years together, the love he had for me,” she said.

She told the court she had been given “a life sentence of pain”, adding: “'You and me’ was always ‘us’, but there is no ‘us’ now”.

Mr Warburton’s son, an officer in the Parachute regiment, said his father was his “ultimate role model, the best man at his wedding and the best man in his life”.

“He taught me the value of hard work and discipline,” he said.

The hearing continues today.

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