Wagga District Court judge Gordon Lerve sentenced Toyer on Friday morning to 22 months to be served as an intensive corrections order, with 500 hours of community service to be supervised out of Queanbeyan.

Judge Lerve found that Toyer, aged 33, had performed "inherently dangerous" but "consensual" sexual acts with Ms Bruno, aged 25, that led to her "unlawful killing".

"I agree with [Toyer's defence] that the offence was at the bottom end of the range of seriousness for manslaughter" Judge Lerve said.

Prosecutors had argued that Toyer's offence was "mid-range of seriousness".

Judge Lerve quoted from judgments in other manslaughter cases, which stated there was "there is no single correct sentence" for such complex matters and that any punishment imposed "does not and cannot measure the value of [the victim's] life".

In taking into account character references and psychological reports, Judge Lerve said he was "more than satisfied that the offender is remorseful" and he had "good prospects of rehabilitation" and was "unlikely to reoffend".

Toyer had pleaded guilty to manslaughter in January for the act of choking Ms Bruno, a transgender Philippines national who was living in Australia on a tourist visa, while having sexual intercourse in their Tarcutta Street flat in Wagga on the morning of September 21, 2019.

On Friday, Judge Lerve read out his 27 pages of sentencing remarks over the course of more than 50 minutes in court, noting that this type of manslaughter was the first recorded in NSW.

Toyer sat still on a chair outside the dock, mostly staring ahead throughout the sentencing remarks but blinking frequently and looking downward when Judge Lerve recounted how he had unlawfully killed Ms Bruno.

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Toyer showed no visible reaction when the sentence was handed down and did not comment outside court.

Judge Lerve noted that Ms Bruno was a transgender woman with male genitalia whose legal name was Rowell Polan Bruno, but he would refer to her as female.

Judge Lerve accepted that Toyer could not have seen Ms Bruno's face during the sexual activity in the "spoon" position and relied on her to pull at his arm to indicate when he should stop choking her.

Ms Bruno fell unconscious and Toyer was unable to revive her via CPR. She died in Wagga Base Hospital on September 22 after falling into a coma and suffering a cardiac arrest.

Judge Lerve said choking Ms Bruno to the point where she lost consciousness would have taken Toyer "immense force with one hand" and that he had committed "manslaughter via an unlawful and dangerous act".

Toyer had testified that Ms Bruno was the first to initiate choking during sex and they had engaged in the activity multiple times.

The day before the killing, Toyer became aware that Ms Bruno had been using the Grindr smartphone dating app for gay, bisexual and transgender persons, which cased an argument.

Toyer told Ms Bruno to leave the flat but recanted the demand after spending time drinking at a Baylis Street pub.

The pair then went to another pub before Toyer initiated sex with Ms Bruno the next morning.

Judge Lerve said Toyer and Ms Bruno did not have a spoken conversation about how to safely engage in "erotic asphyxiation", but the relationship had been short at just three weeks and they had a physical signal to cease the choking but it failed to help.

Ms Bruno's father, mother and brothers and sisters had provided victim impact statements to the court and Judge Lerve said it was clear she had been "a much-loved member of the family".

"It is always a tragedy when a young life is lost," Judge Lerve said, before offering the sympathies of the court to Ms Bruno's family.

Ms Bruno's family had previously watched court proceedings from the Philippines via teleconference but were unable to listen in live on Friday due to technical problems with the court's system in Sydney, which were caused by severe weather.

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Toyer's psychologist had submitted to the court he had diagnosed Toyer with "complex PTSD" due to the incident that led to the unlawful killing.

Judge Lerve relied on a Victorian Supreme Court case from 1999 when examining precedents for sentencing due to the rarity of similar prior manslaughter cases.

Christopher Gerard McIntosh was sentenced to a minimum if three years for the manslaughter of Raymond Wai Ming Lee from strangulation via a rope being placed around his neck during "bondage type sex" in a flat in suburban Melbourne.

Judge Lerve said Toyer's offending was not a serious as McIntosh's because he tried to help Ms Bruno via performing CPR, he had been honest with police and he had not tried to flee the state.

Toyer was granted a "25 per cent discount" on the length of his sentence due to the guilty plea and Judge Lerve also said he took into account Toyer's additional "punishment" outside the court via the RAAF's termination of his service.

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