A JEALOUS boyfriend who killed a man with a single punch for kissing his girlfriend was jailed for 15 months yesterday.

Victim David Clare, 26, hit his head on the pavement in Middlesbrough and died in hospital nine days later.

Neil Collier, 25, a trainee gas fitter, told police at the scene: "I saw him kissing my girlfriend and then I punched him," said Peter Johnson, prosecuting.

Mr Clare, a welder of Selbourne Street, Middlesbrough, met his former girlfriend Julie Boyd, 35, in the Red Rose pub in Linthorpe Road, last July.

Collier saw Mr Clare give her "two pecks" on the lips in the car park. The men met up minutes later by accident, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Within seconds, Collier punched Mr Clare in the face and he fell to the pavement.

Mr Johnson said: "The defendant made no attempt to run away. He appeared shocked and horrified when he saw the motionless Mr Clare."

A brain scan at Middlesbrough General Hospital showed blood inside Mr Clare's skull.

Dr Hugh Sunter, a Home Office pathologist, said Mr Clare had drunk six pints of lager and even a minor blow would have knocked him off balance.

Collier, formerly of Tasmania Square, Marton, Middlesbrough, and now of Ferngrove, Crossmichael, Castle Douglas, in southern Scotland, pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Ken Gillance, defending, said: "He knows that there is nothing he can do for Mr Clare and his family. He wishes me to say publicly that he is deeply aware of the tragic loss, and he does have genuine remorse for that single blow, and he will regret it for the rest of his life."

Deputy High Court judge Sir Edwin Jowitt told Collier: "So many of the crimes of violence which this court sees are because the guilty person has had too much to drink.

"The deceased was entirely blameless. The fault for what happened was entirely yours."