The man who killed one of the co-founders of the Men’s Shed organisation as he sat in a friend’s front yard has been jailed for seven years.

Stanley Lynch, 71, died after being stabbed once in the stomach by neighbour David Rathbone at a block of Department of Human Services apartments for the elderly and disabled in Williamstown on April 2 last year. He died eight days later.

Rathbone, 77, had pleaded guilty to one count of manslaughter.

Supreme Court Justice Paul Coghlan said Rathbone’s behaviour was largely unexplained.

‘‘Your crime, which was unprovoked, was carried out with an element of surprise,’’ Justice Coghlan told Rathbone on Wednesday when jailing him for seven years with a non-parole period of five years.