It began as a night out with friends in Bristol and ended in a tragedy that took the life of a young man on the brink of adulthood.

Joe Dymond-Williams, from Whitchurch, was a gifted student at St Brendan's Sixth Form College.

He had just finished his first year of A levels and went out on a Saturday night in June last year in high spirits.

Later that night a couple he was with, Jack Pullin and Sophie White, began arguing in Queen Charlotte Street.

Seventeen-year-old Joe stepped in as peacemaker and tried to get them to calm down.

His selfless act was the last thing he ever did.

At that moment Jack Sanderson-Hunt and Thomas Swift - who knew Sophie - waded in.

Without waiting to find out what was going on, Sanderson-Hunt punched Joe to the ground. Witnesses heard his head hit the pavement with a sickening crack.

While Joe lay unconscious Swift kicked him in the head.

Joe suffered three skull fractures including a 10cm fracture to the back of his head and a 3.5cm fracture to the right side of his skull.

He lay in a coma hovering between life and death for two weeks while his family waited anxiously at his bedside.

On July 8 they knew that they would not get their Joe back and allowed doctors to switch of his life support machine.

It was the second time his mother and father John Williams and Gabrielle Dymond had suffered the anguish of losing a child.

Joe's brother Ben, who was born 18 months before Joe, died when he was just days old.

Joe packed a lot into his seventeen years and was very popular.

He had just finished his first year of A levels in mathematics, psychology, business studies and sports studies.

He was particularly gifted at maths and had won awards in the subject.

While he was studious, Joe also loved to be out on the football field. He played for his college team, Yate Town FC and Bishop Sutton first and second teams.

His friends at St Brendan's wore black armbands as a mark of respect after his death.

The news shocked the close-knit college community.

For the family the pain was almost unbearable.

Joe's mother Gabrielle, 42, and father John, 45, were too distressed to talk publicly about his death but in an effort to help police trace vital witnesses, his elder sister Carly Gough, 24, younger sister Sophie Dymond-Williams, 15, and cousin Seb Dymond, 25, spoke at a press conference.

Carly, of Whitchurch, said: "This has devastated our whole family, obviously. There's nothing anyone can say or do to bring him back.

"We didn't lose Joe, he was taken away from us."

She described it as "every family's worst nightmare come true".

Seb said it was Joe's nature to be a peacemaker which was why he would have tried to calm his rowing friends on that fateful night.

Carly said: "I think anyone in our family, it's safe to say, would have acted in the same way Joe did. He's our hero."

Seb said he had thousands of memories of Joe, all good ones.

"Joe was a joy to be around," he said. "He was everyone's best friend, his dad's, his sisters', his mum's, mine.

"He was gifted. He was a legend in my eyes.

"You don't really realise until something like this happens how many people he had an impact on."

More than 400 mourners whose lives Joe had touched joined his family at his funeral service at Christ the King catholic church in Knowle West.

There were so many people that the service had to be relayed to those outside on speakers.

Most wore red and black, the colours of Joe's favourite team, Manchester United, and also the colours he had played in from a young age with Ashton Boys FC.

There were moving tributes to Joe and priest Father Richard McKay described how Joe - nicknamed Joey-Apple - was the "apple of his parents' eye".

And he voiced the thoughts of many when he spoke out about how the teenager's life had been so cruelly ended.

"We find ourselves in a society which is becoming increasingly aggressive, where tempers flare so easily," he said.

"We are in a society that thinks you can't enjoy yourself unless you are drunk or are shot up on drugs. Joe showed us that this isn't the way.

"We pray God will raise up many more peacemakers like Joe."