They should have been celebrating their son's 18th birthday - instead they spent it beside his grave in Bristol.

For the family of teenager Joe Dymond- Williams, Saturday should have been full of joy at seeing their boy turn into a man and holding a joint party with his cousins, who also turn 18 this year.

Instead Their day was filled with poignant sorrow and pain at the pointless waste of such a young life.

Seventeen-year-old Joe was an A-Level student at St Brendan's sixth form college and a keen footballer for Yate Town FC and Bishop Sutton.

He died in hospital after being attacked in King Street, Bristol, last summer.

His parents Gabrielle Dymond, 41, and John Williams, 44, had to make the agonising decision to turn off his life support machine on July 8 last year, two weeks after the attack, when doctors informed them he was brain-dead.

Since Joe and his three cousins - all boys - were young their parents talked of holding a huge joint birthday party to mark the special year when they all turned 18.

Now that will not happen and Joe's birthday went by with a family memorial service and Chinese lantern release by his graveside.

Mr Williams, 44, said: "It's like you were living one life with a parallel one next to you that you just don't know exists until something like this happens.

"We were going along in our normal lives and although things are never perfect they were as close as possible.

"We are a close family and a normal family - happy as we were. This was the worst thing that could have ever happened.

"When our first son Ben died 19 years ago we were devastated and Joe came along about a year later.

"Because he was so good and such an easy child it was a gift.

"We never had to tell him off, he always did his homework and was never in an ounce of trouble through his life. He would come home from school, go straight up to his room for and hour-and-a-half and do all his homework and only then he would go and see his friends or plan other things.

"And it's not that we did something magical with him because his sisters Carly and Sophie got the same treatment from us and they weren't the same as Joe.

"Joe was always just different. To give you an idea of what he was like I'll tell you a story.

"For ages he was desperate for a Playstation 3 games console that he could hook up to the internet and everything.

"So, we decided to buy him one and we gave it to him. He was chuffed but a couple of days later I went into his room and it was still in the box.

"I asked what the matter was and why he hadn't opened it.

"Well, it was about three or four weeks before his exams and his reply to me was that he was going to wait until he had finished them to open it, because he knew it would be a distraction for him.

"There were 800 people at Joe's funeral and for someone the age of 17 to have touched so many people I just find incredible.

"Somerset FA have just come up with an incentive award for teams in the youth leagues with the best disciplinary record. They are naming it the Joe Dymond-Williams Fair Play Award because his attitude was an example to others when he played football.

"In one way it makes me very proud but in another way it makes it worse because it just emphasises all the potential that was lost in Joe.

"The people who did this to him will never amount to what he could have been.

"It's awful because after losing our first son Ben Gabrielle was so over protective of Joe.

"It's only after he reached about 14 that she relaxed a bit. Joe was just on the launchpad of his life.

"He was on the brink of who he was going to become as a man and I was looking forward to seeing him grow into that man.

"Now it's all been taken away. All Gabrielle does now is make flowers.

"She did all the arrangements at his grave for his birthday. It's all she can do for him now to look after him and be connected to him.

"She stays awake at night and sleeps in the day because she doesn't want to see anyone.

"Our lives have just gone from one extreme to the other. Everything is upside down."

Two youths have been charged with Joe's murder.