WETASKIWIN -- With her eyes fixed on the floor of the emotionally charged courtroom, Millet mom Allyson McConnell was sentenced to six years in prison with double credit for time served for the manslaughter deaths of her two, young boys.

As McConnell has already served 855 days in custody and at Alberta Hospital since February 2010, she will serve a remainder of 15 months and be eligible for parole in ten.

Outside of the courtroom, Jim McConnell, father of McConnell’s estranged husband Curtis McConnell and grandfather of victims 10-month-Jayden and 2-1/2-year-old Connor was visibly upset by the sentencing.

“This is all our children’s lives were worth?” he asked reporters, calling the sentence a “bloody joke” and shaking his head as they left the Wetaskiwin Court of Queens Bench.

In her decision, Justice Michelle Crighton said she considered the victim impact statements of Curtis, Audrey and Jim McConnell heavily and understands the deaths of Jayden and Connor will have a “profound and lasting effect” on a family coping with “unfathomable loss.”

She said she considered Audrey McConnell’s statement about wiping away the handprints of her grandchildren from the glass doors at their home. Audrey regretted wiping the prints and in her grief, cried for days.

When asked if she had anything to say before hearing her sentence, Allyson McConnell rose half-heatedly and replied with a quiet “No.”

Outside of the courtroom, Crown Prosecutor Gordon Hatch said it’s an “emotional time” for the family. He explained that new laws that came into effect in early 2010 allowed McConnell the double credit for time served which, understandably, frustrated the McConnell family.

“There’s a desire to explain a sentence as how much the children’s lives are worth and that’s certainly not how we want to approach it,” said Hatch. “We can’t equate the number of years and months a person spends in jail with the value of a life.”

Hatch said he accepts the sentencing, but disagrees with it. The Crown is launching an appeal of the April 20 decision that found Allyson McConnell guilty of manslaughter, not second-degree murder.

Justice Michelle Crighton ruled that McConnell did not have the amount of intent required for murder.

A three-day period where it is unknown when Allyson killed her children left a hole in the Crown’s argument for intent. In her decision, Crighton wrote she was satisfied McConnell’s memory impairment was genuine.

“Due to the black hole in the evidence, the court is left not knowing what happened in the McConnell home during those final few days of the McConnell children’s lives, including what Allyson’s mental state was when she drowned them,” Crighton wrote. “It is left with a reasonable doubt that she had the specific intent to kill her children.”

During the two-week trial in March, court heard from defence attorney Peter Royal that McConnell was severely depressed and turned to alcohol and sleeping pills while going through the bitter divorce with her husband.

Hatch told court McConnell killed her two sons as revenge against her husband for ending their marriage. They had both argued for custody of the children, whom Allyson wanted to take back to Australia with her.

On Feb. 1, 2010, Curtis received a phone call from police explaining that his ex-wife had attempted suicide by jumping off an overpass onto Whitemud Drive in Edmonton.

Fearing for the safety of their two children, Jayden and Connor, Curtis rushed to the family home in Millet to find his boys dead in the bathtub next to a plugged-in hair dryer and hair iron. His wife had left her wedding ring behind in the bathroom.

Investigators found evidence that McConnell attempted to kill herself numerous times over the weekend, after researching methods on the Internet. Officers found a noose hanging over a chair in the basement.

McConnell awoke in hospital, claiming she had no memory of what she had done. She testified in court she couldn’t remember any of the events over the three-day weekend when she drowned Jayden and Connor.

McConnell has remained in custody while getting psychiatric treatment at Alberta Hospital. She passed a 60-day psychiatric evaluation and was deemed fit to stand trial.

Crighton recommended McConnell serve the remainder of her sentence at the Alberta Hospital to afford her the “best opportunity for rehabilitation.”

Hatch said the government has already taken steps to deport McConnell to Australia but that decision may be affected by the appeal. The Crown is in the early stages of appealing both the manslaughter verdicts and the sentencing.

matthew.dykstra@sunmedia.ca

@SUNMattDykstra