The Court of Appeal has rejected an appeal by a woman jailed for the manslaughter of her boyfriend.

Judges Edward Zacca, Sir Austin Ward and Sir Robin Auld yesterday ruled the eight-year sentence of Andrina Smith must stand.

Delivering the decision, President Mr. Justice Zacca said: "The appeal against the sentence is dismissed and the sentence is affirmed."

Smith was convicted in March of last year for killing her boyfriend Edward (Sleepy) Dill at her Devonshire home on October 16, 2006.

A jury found her guilty of manslaughter but cleared her of murder over the stabbing at her apartment.

Smith, the mother of Mr. Dill's baby daughter, accepted she fatally wounded the 35-year-old in the neck but pleaded self-defence.

She claimed Mr. Dill was violent during their four-year relationship, repeatedly pulling her hair and punching her in the face.

On the night of his death, 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 the kitchen.

Witnesses said after the stabbing Smith had cried: "He beat me, he beat me, I just couldn't take it any more."

A Department of Health doctor also said she had facial injuries consistent with more than one blow being inflicted upon her. They included a swollen left eye, bruised left cheek and tender left jaw.

Senior Crown Counsel Carrington Mahoney however, told the jury Mr. Dill slapped her during an argument and she reacted by getting a knife from the kitchen.

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

The Supreme Court jury heard Smith forced the knife through the door several times, penetrating it and severing Mr. Dill's carotid artery.

She was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment on May 16, 2008, following a Social Inquiry Report.

In her appeal, Smith's lawyer Charles Richardson claimed the trial judge had refused an application by the defendant for an expert witness to be interposed due to time constraints, and this therefore "amounted to an infringement of the defendant's right to a fair trial".

Mr. Richardson, of Juris Law Chambers, said Hannah Goy, a blood spatter expert, had a report which challenged the findings of the Prosecution's expert Janice Johnson, as to where the stabbing took place.

However, the Court of Appeal's report stated yesterday: "We have examined the report of Ms Goy and have concluded that having regard to the Prosecution's evidence, that even if this report on her evidence was before the jury, the verdict would have been the same.

"The failure of the defence expert witness to give evidence in the circumstances of this case cannot be regarded as not affording the appellant a fair trial.

"It is for the above reasons that we dismissed the appeal against conviction and affirmed the conviction."

Smith also appealed against a "harsh and excessive" eight-year sentence. Mr. Richardson said four to six years was more appropriate in a case where provocation was a result of domestic violence.

But the Court of Appeal judges said in their report: "We are of the view that in convictions for manslaughter, as a result of provocation, where knives or other offensive weapons are used to inflict injury, the range of sentence should be ten or 12 years.

"In view of the sentencing remarks of the trial judge as a whole, we do not find that the sentence of eight years which was imposed by the trial judge was manifestly excessive."

Yesterday however, a chartered psychologist who specialises in trauma response and domestic violence, told The Royal Gazette that eight years was "a very harsh sentence".

Dr. Susan Adhemar said the Supreme Court jury should have heard from specialists in domestic violence and post-traumatic stress disorder.

She said: "The law can still be quite archaic. I think the court should have had some trauma experts at least, someone versed in the impact of domestic violence.

"If there weren't any in the original trial then I think they should have allowed this appeal. If the defendant had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder that would be a key in her defence, because that would make you understand immediately that she may have had an exaggerated stress response.

"It means that when you are defending yourself it's a reflex, a survival process. It is a fight or flight instinct that kicks in, and panic doesn't involve commonsense."