MANDEVILLE, Manchester — The cries of Cyrena Russell, mother of 24-year-old Shantell White who was shot dead by her lover and co-worker Andre Bromfield in 2019, echoed outside the Manchester Circuit Court on Tuesday immediately after he was sentenced to 18 years and five months in prison for manslaughter.

“… So wicked! Me seh God nah sleep!” Russell – who was obviously disgusted by a sentence she considered to be too light – repeated five times.

Shantell’s father, Alton White, chimed in, expressing his displeasure with the sentencing of his daughter’s killer.

“Where is the justice? Everybody see the killing,” he said in reference to footage which surfaced of the December 31, 2019 incident in the lunch room of Master Mac supermarket, located less than 200 metres from the courthouse on South Race Course Road.

“If it was a big man trial it wouldn’t be like this. I’m here sitting down and didn’t even get the opportunity to go into the court. I didn’t even get a say to say something and see it have to be like this,” he added.

Bromfield, 32, a former delivery supervisor of nine years, had pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a plea deal on May 16.

He had initially been charged with illegal possession of firearm and murder. He pleaded not guilty to those charges.

The murder charge was later reduced to manslaughter after he indicated in his caution statement that he had been provoked by White.

White, who was employed as an inventory clerk at the supermarket, was reportedly in a lunchroom with co-workers when Bromfield shot her in the face with his licensed firearm.

In his social inquiry report, read in court, it was disclosed that he and White had been in an intimate relationship for a year, which he claimed he tried to end, stating that it was not fair to his wife, but that he would always return.

He claimed that he felt disrespected after utterances by White and seeing her in the company of another co-worker on New Year’s Eve.

The court was told that he claimed that he built a two-bedroom house for White and took care of her financially.

The report said Bromfield expressed remorse for killing White.

“If money could bring [her] back to life, he would spend every dime to bring her back,” read a part of the social inquiry report.

The statement was backed by his attorney Norman Godfrey, who asked for leniency in the sentencing of his client.

Godfrey said there needs to be a resocialisation of young people who have no regard for each other in relationships with one seeing the other as an object of pleasure while the other party is seen as a resource.

Justice Lorna Shelly Williams, in handing down the sentence, said she found that the evidence against the accused was overwhelming, having happened in front of a co-worker, and the utterances Bromfield made to the police in handing over his firearm.

“Me nuh know what come over me. Me tek up dis gyal and give her everything, build her two-bedroom house. Pay off all her credit card and me realise seh she have another man… Mi see the youth a kiss kiss her up, me talk to her and she a diss me up and me just snap,” Bromfield is reported to have said.

Justice Williams said she’d taken into consideration that any large sentence discount would shock the public’s conscience.

Bromfield was granted a 10 per cent discount from a sentence of 25 years, bringing it down to 22 years and seven months, then further reduced by one year based on an antecedent report, and another year, based on the social inquiry report to 20 years and 10 months.

Bromfield, having spent two years and five months in custody was sentenced by Justice Williams to 18 years and five months.

The victim’s angry father insisted that justice was not done.

“My reaction is that I’m not pleased about this whole situation. There is no justice there. When the rain fall it nuh fall pon one man housetop. Memba that. Life is one big road with a lot of signs,” he said.