A British bar manager yesterday began serving a nine-month prison sentence for "negligently'' knocking an unruly patron down a flight of stairs and killing him.

At the end of the sentence, which will have six weeks deducted for time already served, 37-year-old Kevin James Pollock could be deported.

Immigration Permanent Secretary John Drinkwater yesterday told The Royal Gazette the case will be reviewed and a recommendation will be made to the Minister, who is off the Island, in due course.

But Pollock's boss, Flanagan's Pub and Restaurant owner Tom Gallagher, called the sentence "incomprehensible''.

Mr. Gallagher and other colleagues of Pollock gasped upon hearing the unexpected prison sentence.

Puisne Judge Norma Wade-Miller made the ruling despite requests from prosecution and defence counsels and the victim's family that a non-custodial sentence be imposed.

Pollock had pleaded guilty earlier this week in the Supreme Court to an amended indictment of manslaughter by negligence.

He had been facing court proceedings since July last year, when 51-year-old Craig McGavern received fatal head injuries from falling down a staircase in the Emporium Building.

Mr. McGavern was trying to enter the establishment after already being asked to stay out by Police officers and security.

Originally charged with manslaughter, Pollock, of West Crescent, Warwick, faced a trial last April.

He was found guilty and sentenced to 15 months in prison, a conviction which was later overturned by the Court of Appeal after it decided Mrs. Justice Wade-Miller had "misdirected'' the jury in matters of the law.

The re-trial, set for Monday, was called off after Pollock changed his plea to guilty and, during submissions, both Crown counsel Patrick Doherty and defence lawyer Mark Pettingill requested that a non-custodial sentence be imposed.

Mr. Doherty had also asked that Mrs. Justice Wade-Miller recommend to Government that Pollock, a British expatriate, be deported following the matter's closure.

But yesterday, after referring to several similar past cases, the judge said she was looking for a "realistic'' sentence for the matter.

"This is quite a serious case in which a man has died needlessly,'' she said, "and I feel it is appropriate for a custodial sentence.''