THE anguished father of a teenager kicked to death by three youths said last night he was outraged by the Crown's decision to accept their pleas of guilty to culpable homicide.

Mr Malcolm Ayton called for the judge to impose tough sentences on the youths, who had originally faced charges of murdering his son, Mark.

The High Court in Glasgow was told that Iain Wheldon and Graham Purves, both 17, and Ross Gravestocks, 16, booted 19-year-old mechanic Mark to death because he came from the wrong school.

The three accused were at Balerno High School, near Edinburgh, whose pupils fought at weekends with rival boys from Mark's old school, Currie High, in the neighbouring town.

Mr Ayton said last night: ''I am astonished that a fit and healthy youth being kicked and done to death can be anything other than murder. If it is not murder, then it must carry sentences commensurate with murder. I am just disappointed that the evidence from pathologists wasn't more positive to allow the trial to proceed on a charge of murder.When there were 18 blows to the head, it is an outrage that they accepted culpable homicide.''

Mr Ayton refused to discuss suggestions that the middle-class backgrounds of the convicted youths had played any part in the investigation or prosecution of the case. He dismissed defence claims that the inter-school rivalry had sparked the attack on his son. He said: ''I believe it all started because they were taunting Mark and his brother with anti-English comments.

''Those are the remarkable things about this case. The anti-English element and the quality of the families involved. You don't expect violence in a place like Balerno.

''It is a quiet town, with respectable families, and that's what makes this such a tragedy. ''