The distraught sister of a man shot to death on the Gold Coast by his ex-partner has told the woman to "rot in hell" in a Queensland court.
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Linda Annette Currie, 50, was sentenced to seven years' jail at a Supreme Court hearing in Southport on Monday for shooting Gabriel Orchard following a confrontation at a Labrador home in August 2016.
Currie had earlier pleaded guilty to manslaughter but not guilty to murder.
With time already served, Currie will be eligible for parole from December 21, 2018.
The sentence drew sighs and groans from Mr Orchard's family, who wept in the back of the court before one of his sisters angrily disrupted the hearing.
"Rot in hell you scum ... you murdered my brother," the woman yelled before being escorted from the court by a police officer and other family members.
Outside court, Mr Orchard's father Mac simply said "not bad for murder, isn't it?" when asked by reporters about the sentence.
The court heard Mr Orchard, who had been released from prison a couple of months before the shooting, had given Currie a gun to look after the morning of his death while he attended Southport Court.
Later that day, he returned looking for Currie at the Labrador home and when the pair had wrestled for control of the gun around a kitchen table, he was fatally shot in the chest.
Prosecutor Matthew Hynes told the court Currie had expressed remorse and distress when police arrived.
"I should've just taken a beating," Currie told officers, referring to the pair's history of domestic violence.
Justice David Boddice said the nature of the pair's former relationship and her remorse were factors in his sentence but that she had a "fleeting intention to do grievous bodily harm" to Mr Orchard.
"It's a terribly tragedy that you have taken the life of another human being," Justice Boddice said.
"The loss of that human being has been devastating for the family."
In a victim impact statement read to the court, Mr Orchard's mother Kathleen said the loss of her first-born son had left a "gaping hole" in her life.
"No one should lose a child like that," her statement said.
Mr Orchard's sister Katie said in her statement that explaining what had happened to her children had been particularly galling.
"My heart has been shackled," she wrote. "In an instant it was all gone."
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Australian Associated Press
