Proceedings in a particularly nasty crime which has had terrible consequences for all of the families involved have come to an end with the sentencing to four years of three teenagers who had admitted the culpable homicide of a fellow teenage resident of the Edinburgh

middle-class suburb of Balerno. The fact that the youths could be free in 18 months has outraged the parents of the deceased youth, Mark Ayton, and given rise to a populist sentiment that there is one law for the middle class and another for the rest. In other words, the question being posed is: would a lesser plea of culpable homicide (replacing the original murder charge) have been accepted, and would the custodial sentence have been four years (and not a lot more) if the guilty youths had not come from nice, middle-class homes? It would be a bad day indeed for Scottish justice if, as a matter of course, teenagers from Niddrie, Pilton, Easterhouse, or Castlemilk who had killed were treated more severely than those whose parents were professional people.

But the question has to be asked because of the highly unusual circumstances of the case. Mark Ayton was killed in the ''leafy suburb'' of Balerno after suffering 18 blows to the head inflicted by his slightly younger peers who also were from respectable families. It was apparently not uncommon for Balerno youths who had attended different schools to fight at weekends after drinking. Mark Ayton and his brother were old enough to drink, and had been drinking. Their killers were not but they, too, had been drinking. Words were exchanged and in the ensuing fight Mark Ayton was repeatedly kicked and stamped on the head. Crown and defence pathologists disputed the effect of the kicking and in his judgment Lord Eassie agreed with the latter's interpretation, concluding that the injuries caused would not normally have resulted in death. That, more than anything else, influenced his decision concerning

the length of custodial sentence.

Lord Eassie is a very careful judge who gave a commendably full explanation of his decision, something which some of his peers hearing equally contentious cases fail to do. He emphasised that the youths' backgrounds were of little relevance to him. That is as it should be. But do the sentences fit the crime? Has justice been seen to be done? Culpable homicide is a verdict which can carry no custodial sentence or any right up to life in jail. In this case it was accepted after plea-bargaining by defence counsel which was conditional on the deletion of the allegation that the youths had jumped on Mark Ayton's head. It might seem to the layman that there is little difference between that and repeatedly kicking and stamping on the head, but to the defence teams and Lord Eassie the difference was very significant. The judge concluded that the degree of violence used was relatively ''minor'' and

''modest''. The exact cause of death might be in dispute, but it surely cannot be disputed that Mark Ayton would not have died had he not been set upon by youths who had been doing something to excess which they should not have been doing at all: drinking. All the families affected by this terrible incident have suffered, but none as much as the Aytons. Life chances abound in advantaged Balerno but one has been needlessly obliterated.