KINGSTON, Jamaica – Alten Brooks, the driver of the garbage truck that crushed and killed seven-year-old Benjamin Bair on the grounds of the Clan Carthy Primary School in October 2019, has been sentenced to one year and seven months imprisonment for manslaughter.

Justice Leighton Pusey handed down the sentence in the Home Circuit Court in downtown Kingston on Monday afternoon. The judge had considered sentencing Brooks to two years but factored the five months Brooks already served in custody.

The judge two weeks ago rejected the non-custodial sentence recommendation in the plea arrangement struck between the defence and prosecutors.

The elderly Brooks pleaded guilty to manslaughter in November last year.

Brooks was arrested and charged in 2019 after the seven-year-old boy was crushed to death on October 28 of that year on the school grounds.

READ: Death truck was old, not roadworthy, driver tells cops

Reports are that about 4:30 pm, Benjamin was at school when the garbage truck that had been picking up trash hit a taxi and then overturned on the boy.

It was reported that at the time of the incident, the truck was left unmanned and that it slid down a slope.

The driver initially fled the scene before turning himself into the police three days later.