A mother-of-two found guilty of killing her boyfriend was yesterday sent to jail for eight years.

Andrina Smith, 27, was found guilty of manslaughter by a Supreme Court jury on March 17 over stabbing her boyfriend who was also the father of her youngest child, Edward Allan (Sleepy) Dill, at her Devonshire home. She was originally charged with murder.

After the sentencing by Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves, Smith began crying hysterically and slammed the door to the prisoner's dock and the door leading from the court room.

An unidentified family member also stormed out of the court shouting obscenities after Smith was sentenced.

During submissions, Senior Crown prosecutor Carrington Mahoney told Mr. Justice Greaves the appropriate sentence for Smith should be custodial within the range of ten to 14 years. The maximum sentence for manslaughter is life imprisonment.

Mr. Mahoney told the court the community needs to be protected from individuals like Smith especially since manslaughter and murder are on the increase in Bermuda.

"The victim fatally stabbed Mr. Dill after several attempts were made. She continued to attack him after the stabbing. The defendant still has not accepted full responsibility for the offence," he said.

Smith's lawyer, Charles Richardson, told the court his client respects the outcome of the trial, but maintains she acted in self defence.

"Mr. Dill did things to Ms Smith that forced her to lose her cool. She was in fact provoked by Mr. Dill to the extent that she lost control," the lawyer said.

Mr. Richardson read out portions of the Social Inquiry Report created by the Department of Court Services where after interviewing Smith, the probation officer came to the conclusion that she is a candidate for community supervision and or probation.

Mr. Richardson told the court his client "deeply regrets the incident" and has picked up her life since getting a job, an apartment, a new relationship and enrolling in a course at Bermuda College.

"Her life before incarceration was the brightest it has ever been and I beg this court not to extinguish it," he added.

Mr. Richardson said an appropriate sentence for the 27-year-old should not exceed three years.

Asked if she had anything to say before sentencing, Smith read from a handwritten-note and told the court: "Words cannot express how sorry I am.

"It was never my intention to hurt or injure Sleepy's life. Every word I have spoken about the incident during the trial was true. Iam a good person with a good heart. Iam truly sorry for what happened."

Mr. Justice Greaves said he had come to the conclusion that the jury had rejected the defence and therefore found Smith guilty of manslaughter.

However, Mr. Justice Greaves explained he did not condone violence toward women and said: "Any physical violence by men towards women is one blow too much and such detestable behaviour should never be tolerated, excused or testified."

"The court is satisfied that the defendant, after she received that slap, as provoking and painful as it was, she waited outside that door and then she decided what action she would take and then took it.

"What her real intent was during the plunging of the knife into that door, I do not find conclusive."

Smith, accepted during her 15-day trial that she fatally wounded Mr. Dill, 35, in the neck at her Cedar Park apartment in the early hours of October 16, 2006. However, she pleaded self defence.

On the night in question, she said she lashed out in self defence after Mr. Dill punched, slapped and tried to choke her.

She had, she explained, swung at him with the first kitchen utensil that came to hand after he told her "I feel like f*****g killing you girl" and dragged her by the hair into a dark kitchen.

Smith said Mr. Dill pushed her up against the counter and began choking her. She said she tried to push him off but he was too strong so she grabbed something on the counter to hit but didn't know what it was.

"Once I picked it up, I swung in his direction and he immediately let me go. I remember him putting his hand up to his neck and he ran inside," she told the court.

However, Mr. Mahoney outlined a different version of events on behalf of the prosecution.

He told the jury that Mr. Dill slapped Smith during an argument and she reacted by getting a knife from the kitchen.

He claimed the enraged woman then plunged the blade through her bedroom door and into her boyfriend's neck while he was inside the room trying to block her out and holding their one-year-old daughter in his arms.

He denied that the accused had suffered more than one slap but this sparked her own violence.

The prosecutor showed the jury the wooden door in question, which had seven apparent stab marks in it five of which went all the way through.

US crime scene expert Jan Johnson said the "blood spatter" evidence showed the attack indeed happened in the bedroom, not the kitchen.

Mr. Richardson said he planned to appeal.