IT should not need to be spelled out that punching someone in the face, with the intent of knocking them out, is a highly dangerous thing to do.

Anyone who does it should be aware that they risk seriously injuring - or even killing - their victim.

Alfred Welch may not have meant to kill Darlington father-of-two Paul Simpson when he mindlessly thumped him as part of a game he thought to be amusing. But it was a risk he took.

Paul Simpson is dead as a result of Welch's mindless game. His children were left with no father; his mother with no son.

Welch was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter - a sentence which is wholly inappropriate.

The Government has sent out strong signals that it wants to see the punishment fit the crime. It wants to see victims given a stronger voice - and the grieving family of Paul Simpson are victims who will suffer long after Welch has been freed.

If the judiciary has been listening to those signals, then Alfred Welch will be told today that he has to serve a lot longer than three years in prison.

We believe the Appeal Court judges considering the challenge to the leniency of Welch's sentence must ensure that justice is done.

And we have no doubt that the vast majority of our readers will agree.

WE warmly welcome the comprehensive case presented by William Hague last night as he argued in the House of Commons for a public inquiry into the Richard Neale scandal at The Friarage Hospital in Northallerton.

He did so with the aid of a dossier of damning material on the case, published in The Northern Echo over several years.

In reply, Health Parliamentary Secretary Yvette Cooper acknowledged the "clear failings of the NHS" in protecting Mr Neale's patients from his incompetence - incompetence that earned him a glowing reference to work at another British hospital.

She added that Health Secretary Alan Milburn had wanted the inquiry to be held in private so that it could be thorough, and the case scrutinised in a fair way.

Which is exactly why we believe it should be held in public.