THE mother of a teenager who died after being hit with a spade and knocked off a motorbike said she is “disgusted” after her appeal to get the sentence of her son’s killer reviewed was rejected.

Sonny Stephenson, 17, was riding around Guisborough when he and his 15-year-old pillion passenger were knocked off the 600cc motorbike.

Matthew Buckworth, 34, threw a spade at the pair, hitting Sonny in the head causing him to slump over the handlebars before the bike crashed.

Buckworth denied murder but admitted manslaughter, and was sentenced to six years in jail.

Elizabeth Stephenson, Sonny's mother, was told earlier this week that the six year sentence will not be reviewed - a decision which she described as "disgraceful".

She is now in the process of launching a campaign to get tougher sentences for people convicted of manslaughter.

Speaking to The Northern Echo, she said: "You don't go out in the street, with a spade.

"Somebody has taken my child from me and they are getting a lesser sentence than somebody who has burgled a house or had a fight in the street.

"No sentence would ever be agreeable - that is how you feel as a mother."

Mrs Stephenson said she was "finding it hard" following Sonny's death.

“It is really hard – my little girl doesn’t go and play out in case someone tells her what happened to her brother.

“I don’t wash my hair because it brings memories of the spade hitting his skull.

“I just don’t leave the house."

Judge Simon Bourne-Arton QC said when sentencing Mr Buckworth, that he had been under "some degree of provocation" that night, because residents had put up with noisy bikers in previous weeks.

Mrs Stephenson accepts her son may have been causing a nuisance, but she said "he did not deserve to die".

A spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Office said: “The Solicitor General expresses his sincere sympathies to the victim’s family.

“After careful consideration the Solicitor General has concluded that he could not refer this case to the Court of Appeal because the sentence imposed fell within the range available to the Judge for this crime.

“A referral under the Unduly Lenient Sentencing Scheme to the Court of Appeal can only be made if a sentence is not just lenient but unduly so, such that the sentencing judge made a gross error or imposed a sentence outside the range of sentences reasonably available in the circumstances of the offence.

“That test was not met in this case.”