ANGUISHED cries of "she killed my baby" filled a Cairns courtroom yesterday as the husband of a hit and run victim heard her killer would spend 18 months behind bars.

Sobbing uncontrollably, the heartbroken husband of Edmonton mother of two Angela Del Manso cried "No" and fell to the floor as the four and a half year jail term, suspended after 18 months, was delivered to Gemma Anne Hodges.

"I’m not going to see her no more. I’m never going to see my baby no more," Paul Del Manso cried as concerned family members and police escorted him out of the Cairns District Court room.

Mrs Del Manso, 57, died instantly from fractures to her skull when struck by Hodges’ 4WD while taking an evening stroll with her daughter-in-law Donna Del Manso and 12-year-old granddaughter Jessica Del Manso.

The accident happened in Graham St, Edmonton, about 8.15pm on October 25 last year.

Donna Del Manso suffered head injuries and continuing head and back pain, while Jessica suffered minor bruising.

Hodges, 36, also smashed into a parked caravan with such force it was pushed through a fence, before driving off.

In court yesterday, the single mother-of-two sat with her head bowed throughout proceedings, quietly crying, shaking and wringing her hands.

She was taken immediately into custody after the sentence was handed down.

She was also disqualified from driving for five years.

Crown prosecutor Gelma Meoli had sought a lifetime licence disqualification and a head jail sentence of six years for the charge of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death while adversely affected by an intoxicating substance. The court heard Hodges had a blood alcohol reading of .15 per cent an hour after the crash but had also consumed anti-depressants, sleeping tablets and cold and flu tablets.

She had been driving home from a friend’s 21st birthday drinks and lost control while trying to adjust her rear mirror to avoid high-beam lights in the car behind.

Witnesses told of hearing tyres screeching around Wiseman Rd into Graham St then seeing the white 4WD "swerving all over the road, obviously out of control" before it ploughed into the small group walking single file in the gutter. Outside the courthouse, furious family members attacked the sentence and asked how it would deter other drink-drivers from getting behind the wheel.

"Other people will still be doing it because they’ll know they can still drink and if they kill someone they’ll only get 18 months," Mrs Del Manso’s older sister Carmel Borgo said.

Granddaughter Chloe Del Manso, 20, described it as "absolute (expletive) bullshit … she has killed my grandmother".

"She (Mrs Del Manso) was like my mother, she raised me, she was my everything," she said.

Judge Douglas McGill SC said his sentence reflected Hodges’ early guilty plea, co-operation and good record, including a very limited history of traffic offences.

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