A mother helped her son flee the country after he killed a teenage foreign student.

Jacqueline Austin, 41, drove her son, George, to Gatwick, where he caught a flight to Cyprus.

He fled a month after punching 16-yearold Mohammed Al- ajed during a fight in Hastings.

The student, from Qatar, hit his head on the pavement and died two days later in hospital.

Mohammed, who was studying English at the EF International Language School, White Rock, Hastings, was due to return home a few days later.

Last week, George Austin, 22, was jailed for four-and-a-half years after being convicted of manslaughter by a jury following a three-week trial at Lewes Crown Court.

Austin, from Bermondsey, London, had denied the charge and claimed he acted in self-defence.

Yesterday his mother stood in the same dock where she pleaded guilty to attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Judge Anthony Scott- Gall bailed her until January 8 for sentence.

He told her it was a serious offence but he would impose a suspended jail sentence.

He said: “The court can understand a mother’s concern but she was committing a criminal offence.”

The court was told police launched an investigation after the fatal attack on August 22 last year.

Richard Barton, prosecuting, said George Austin’s younger brother, Douglas, was among a group of people arrested and police were soon looking for George.

On September 23, officers went to his mother’s home, in St Nazaire Road, Chelmsford, Essex, searching for him.

She denied he had been at the scene of the incident in Hastings and said she did not know where he was.

But four days later she drove her son to Gatwick and he flew to Cyprus.

She sent him money totalling £195 on three separate dates over the next few weeks.

The single mother, who has a young daughter, flew out to the island herself for four days in October.

She was arrested on November 19 and bailed.

Later that day she contacted police to say her son would be arriving at Gatwick the next day, where he was arrested and charged.

After the hearing Detective Chief Inspector Trevor Bowles said: “The plea of guilty by Jacqueline Austin is a recognition of the strength of the prosecution case and her actions undoubtedly caused Sussex Police substantial difficulty in arresting George Austin.”

Two men on trial with George Austin were jailed for their part in the violent fracas.

Paul Rockett, 22, of Ham Lane, Burwash, was sentenced to four months for racially aggravated common assault on a friend of Mohammed and Alexander Quinn, 19, of Mountbatten Close, Hastings, jailed for two years for wounding another friend.