By Gerard Couzens
A former soldier has been jailed for 15 years for the murder of his Irish girlfriend at their Spanish holiday hotel two years ago.
Public prosecutors had requested a 20-year jail sentence for 34-year-old Keith Byrne after a jury convicted him of murdering Kirsty Ward, 36, at a hotel in the popular Costa Daurada resort of Salou on 2 July 2023, after she told him she was leaving him.
Sentencing judge Susana Calvo Gonzalez ruled the fact that Byrne and his 36-year-old partner had been in a stable eight-month relationship made the crime more serious.
But she said his consumption of alcohol and drugs before he murdered Ms Ward diminished his cognitive faculties and was a prevailing mitigating factor.
The judge said: “I understand that there is a prevailing basis for imposing the lower penalty and, therefore, imposing a sentence of between seven years and six months and 15 years.
“Within that range, the recognition of the aggravating circumstance and the motivation for the act…lead to the imposition of the maximum penalty, which is 15 years in prison.”
In May, jurors found Byrne guilty of murdering Ms Ward after three days of deliberations.
He had claimed during his trial in Tarragona trial the mother-of-one had died by suicide at the four-star Magnolia Hotel.
He described himself as a “respectful and intelligent” father of three who would never commit an act of domestic violence – and described Ms Ward as someone who could be “four people in one day”.
Ms Ward’s mother, Jackie Ward, described Byrne as someone she “didn’t like” and “didn’t trust” during the trial and said she had found out after her daughter’s death that she had planned to leave him during their “make or break” holiday.
Public prosecutor Javier Goimil, a domestic violence specialist, dismissed Byrne’s court claim that Ms Ward took her own life during his closing speech to the jury on the final day of the murder trial.
He claimed the former soldier, who had been living in Duleek, Co Meath, decided, “you’re mine or you’re nobody’s” and strangled his girlfriend to death with a hair straightener power cord because she wanted out of their relationship.
As well as the 15 year prison sentence, Byrne was given a restraining order preventing him from contacting Ms Ward’s child, mother and other family members or going within 1,000 metres of them for a period of 25 years and also ordered to pay compensation to her relatives.