ZEB was an easy-going man who loved life, his devastated mother told the World.

"He was very friendly and laid back, and he loved life. He didn't have any enemies - everybody was his friend," said Jo Fowler.

"He would find the funny side of life in everything - if he was alive today, he might even find the funny side of all this."

She added: "His death has just totally ruined our lives. It's devastated the whole family."

Zeb was living in Halton Brook and was employed as a production worker at Schreiber in Astmoor when he died.

His life support machine was switched off on November 8 and his family decided to donate his organs.

His kidneys went to a man and a woman on dialysis, and the two halves of the liver went to a man and a baby.

"The baby most certainly would have died without the liver," said Jo.

Zeb took his name from a Brazilian grandfather, as did his two brothers and two sisters - Jo said he was a rock within the family.

"I'm very proud that Zeb maintained his dignity and the family have maintained theirs," she said.

And Jo said she is grateful to the people of the close-knit Halton Brook community.

"The people here have been 100 per cent supportive," she said.

Jo said she hoped Adam Parkes, a doorman who has two previous convictions for actual bodily harm and who weighed almost 18 stone when he was arrested, had so been scared by the ordeal of the aborted trial that he would never get involved in an altercation again.

The case has aroused strong emotions in family members and friends on both sides of the case, both before and after the trial.

Jo said: "It's very hard to accept Zeb died through a violent incident because we have spent our whole lives trying to avoid violence - that's why we moved to Leicester.

"When you come back to Runcorn everybody seems to think violence is the only answer - but that's not how you should be living your life.

"Violence only creates a vicious circle."