Michelle Loveridge (second from right), along with family and friends, leaves the NSW Supreme Court after the sentencing of her son Kieran Loveridge. Credit:Kate Geraghty "No matter what he got, it would never be enough. But four years? It's a joke, it's a joke, an absolute joke and we're horrified, absolutely horrified." Mrs Kelly cried, "Oh God! No!" as Justice Stephen Campbell handed down his decision over the crime, in which Loveridge ran from the shadows and king hit Mr Kelly in the face as he walked to a friend's birthday party. Loveridge, who was on conditional liberty at the time of the offence, assaulted four other strangers on the same night. In a decision that is set to reignite debate about the sentences handed down for manslaughter offences in NSW, Justice Campbell sentenced Loveridge to a maximum of seven years for the manslaughter and the assaults.

Kieran Loveridge is escorted from the NSW Supreme Court after sentencing. Credit:Kate Geraghty Loveridge was sentenced to a total non-parole period of five years and two months for all of the offences, and will be eligible for release on November 18, 2017. Mr Kelly's father, Ralph, demanded that the state government take immediate action to stop such "senseless" crimes from happening on the city's streets. Sentencing shock: parents Ralph and Kathy Kelly. Credit:Nick Moir "It's time that this state finally did something about alcohol-fuelled violence, to make a difference, to make us all safe, so that we don't have to see these situations continuously happening in the city," he said.

"Until the state government stands up and says something and does something, instead of avoiding the questions of alcohol fuelled violence, then these types of attacks are going to continue again, and again and again. Thomas Kelly: killed during a night out in Kings Cross. "I can't tell you what it's like to lose a child – 18 years old – who had his whole life in front of him and for his life to be considered meaningless by the state because this verdict is so shocking." The NSW Attorney-General, Greg Smith, immediately announced that he had asked the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions to consider an appeal against the sentence. "Drunken assaults are a terrible scourge, and every weekend we hear about attacks by intoxicated irresponsible people on bystanders who are lucky to escape with their life,” Mr Smith said.

“I have contacted the Director of Public Prosecutions and asked him to review the sentence handed down today to Kieran Loveridge and consider if there are grounds for an appeal.” According to an agreed statement of facts tendered in the hearing, Loveridge was heavily intoxicated, having shared a case of Smirnoff Ice Double Black drinks with his friends, and was in a volatile, violent mood. After initially being charged with murder, Loveridge was allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter in June, a move that brought an emotional and at times angry reaction from Mr Kelly's parents. "Since Thomas' death, a whole new world has been revealed to me that I never wanted to see," Mrs Kelly told Loveridge's sentencing hearing last month. "A city where there's no longer respect or decency towards others, courtrooms full of murderers being arraigned for taking the lives of others, and a justice system that's crying out for sentences that make people accountable for what they've done.

"He should have been able to get out of a taxi and walk to a party in safety. Instead, he was hit by a complete stranger who attacked him in an act of total cowardice. "How are the rest of us supposed to go on and have normal lives? They say life gets easier little by little, but every day I'm here without my beautiful Thomas gets more and more sad and more and more complex." The day after the killing, Loveridge was watching TV with a friend when he saw a report about Mr Kelly. "Was that one of my fights? I don't know," he said to the friend. "It fits my description ... but wouldn't they see my tattoos? I am not 'athletic build'. Do I look in my late 20s?"

The court also heard that Loveridge's father was incarcerated for much of the teenager's childhood, and that, when he was at home, he whipped the youngster with a bamboo cane on at least one occasion. "The attack can probably be seen as being the result of the impact of alcohol on a young and not very thoughtful young man, who has perhaps been exposed to violence by his peer group," psychologist Richard Champion said of Loveridge following an assessment this year. Loveridge reportedly expressed remorse to the psychologist, telling him: "It's hard ... someone has died you know? "When I see things on the TV about Thomas Kelly, I feel bad; I feel sorry for the family. He did nothing wrong. My stupidity caused him to lose his life." Following the downgrading of the charge against Loveridge from murder to manslaughter, NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell called on the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions to explain its decision to the community.

The Kelly family also expressed frustration at the decision. "Our family has lost a son, brother, grandson, nephew and cousin," Mrs Kelly said at the time. "We will never forget our darling Thomas. We will never stop missing him and our lives will never be the same. What has the perpetrator lost?" In handing down his decision on Friday, Justice Campbell referred to a significant number of other recent manslaughter sentences in which the offender received a similar jail term. "The total effective sentence should not be so large as to be crushing to a young offender, stifling his prospects of rehabilitation," Justice Campbell said.

"This is in the community's interest, as is well known. "I have borne in mind the offender's relative social disadvantage and the difficulties of his upbringing. Loading "I find that the combination of the offender's youth, remorse, prospects of rehabilitation and the need to structure sentences for multiple offences constitute special circumstances." - with Sean Nicholls