Gary Conner, 23, will have to serve at least 16 years for the attack which left Hartlepool man Leigh Archer, 33, brain dead.

Judge Paul Worsley QC, sentencing at the Old Bailey told Conner: "You deliberately kicked a man down a flight of stairs so that he suffered fatal brain injuries.

"What you did was the wholly unnecessary taking of a life of a young man of who had his life ahead of him. He did not deserve to die at your hands.

"You have deprived his family of a son, a brother and his two young children (both under six) of a father.

"It is particularly tragic for his family that he is the third of four sons to die prematurely."

The family have stressed, in statements to the court that "their lives will never be the same", the judge said.

The jury took less than two hours to unanimously find Conner guilty of the "sudden and brutal" attack sparked by a row over a woman.

Conner, of Kelly Road, Hebburn, South Tyneside, Conner, had admitted manslaughter, but claimed he did not intend serious harm.

Both men were working for a company refitting a Sainsbury's supermarket in Hornchurch, Essex, and staying at a hotel in the area when Mr Archer was killed.

Jeremy Donne QC, prosecuting, said Mr Archer was found unconscious at the foot of a staircase at the hotel in the early hours of November 10 last year.

Conner had only recently joined the re-fitting company, RD Retail, and was not well-known to fellow employees who had been working at Hornchurch for a week.

He and a friend, who had been working for the company in Hemel Hempstead, arrived at the Palms Hotel on November 9, where they spent the afternoon drinking.

They both later went down to the nightclub in the hotel, where Mr Archer was also drinking, and started chatting to a girl who was also part of a group of workers involved in the refurbishment.

The court heard that she became upset when Mr Archer tried to warn her off talking to them.

Later Conner told a friend: "I have just kicked him down the stairs and he didn't touch any of the stairs from top to bottom."

The judge told Conner that since he is over 6ft tall and well-built that he had no need to resort to violence.

He also noted there was a "degree of premeditation" about the crime and that Conner had "bragged" about what he had done.

Conner also did nothing to help Mr Archer as he lay on the floor.

Instead he walked past on "at least two occasions" claiming not to know what happened.