A heartbroken daughter clung onto her father's lifeless body after he died from horror head injuries inflicted by a drunken thug.
Ella Dixon, six, refused to believe her dad Mark had died as she screamed by his hospital bedside.
She had to be dragged away by her mother Lorraine after the tragic 32-year-old dad suffered fatal injuries inflicted by boozed-up killer Paul Sutton.
Emotions ran high in court as family members and legal representatives failed to fight back the tears as a haunting account of Mark's final moments was read to a judge.
Mrs Dixon revealed Ella still talks out loud to her father, begging him to come home and describing her heart-rending plan to 'go on a journey' to find him.
A judge said Sutton, 29, who trained as a boxer when he was a teenager, robbed Mr Dixon of his life for nothing as she jailed him for six years.
He killed the father-of-one with a single punch when he questioned Sutton about a remark he made to a friend as they walked past each other Hartlepool, at 4am on October 5 last year.
The unprovoked attack knocked him unconscious. He hit his head hard on the pavement, and died in hospital six days later.
Sutton, of Hartlepool, was found guilty of manslaughter after a trial at Teesside Crown Court earlier this month and was sentenced at Newcastle Crown Court.
In her victim impact statement read to the court, Mrs Dixon said: "Mark and I were together for 10 years and married for seven. We have a six-year-old daughter Ella.
"They both idolised each other and were inseparable. Mark wasn't just her daddy, he was her best friend. They were so close they did everything together.
"Due to Mark's shift patterns it was he who spent most of his time with Ella. He took her to and from school and it was he who read to her at night.
"Ella is totally devastated without him as am I. The hardest thing I have ever done was when we were in hospital and I had to tell my six-year-old daughter her daddy won't be getting any better and it was time to say goodbye.
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