A MAN is facing life in jail after a vicious attack on a student resulted in death.

The court was told it was the second time Christopher Woolley had brutally assaulted a student.

Wolley, 24, was convicted yesterday of the manslaughter of Patrick Brown.

Mr Brown, 21, was attacked by Woolley and fell 20ft over a steep railway embankment to land on the A690 dual carriageway.

The attack happened after a drunken brawl broke out on a late-night train from Newcastle to Durham City, in March.

Newcastle Crown Court heard yesterday how the incident was Woolley's second attack on a student.

After the jury delivered its guilty verdict, John Milford, prosecuting, told the court that, in February 1997, the defendant was convicted at Durham Crown Court of wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm after he joined an attack on two students in Durham Market Place.

The court heard that Woolley was sentenced to two years in a young offenders' institution for the attack.

Mr Milford told the court that the seriousness of the first attack, together with the manslaughter conviction, made Woolley subject to a mandatory life sentence.

Mr Justice Bennett asked for a pre-sentence and psychiatric report on Woolley.

He will be sentenced in approximately six weeks at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

The court heard how Mr Brown, a second-year student, and four of his undergraduate friends, all attending Durham University, were on their way home from a birthday celebration in Newcastle city centre.

The group boarded the 1.50am train to Durham City, where they were joined in the same carriage by another group of men.

A brawl broke out on the train, which continued on the platform at Durham after a member of Mr Brown's group lost his wallet.

Andrew Zepher, a third-year undergraduate at Durham's New College, had spent the evening in Newcastle with Mr Brown.

He said: "I just have small memories, almost flashbacks. An image I do have is of my friend, Patrick Brown, dying in a pool of his own blood."

Mr Brown, who was from the Chopwell area of Gateshead, attended Newcastle Royal Grammar School and was studying Russian and European studies at Durham.

He was hoping to enter the armed forces and was a very keen athlete.

Woolley, of Newton Hall, County Durham, was cleared of murder. He was remanded in custody.