Ex-soldier jailed after 'strangling girlfriend to death with hair straightener cord'
A soldier on the run from UK military police has been jailed for 15 years for the brutal murder of his Irish girlfriend at their Spanish holiday hotel.
Public prosecutors had demanded a 20-year jail sentence for Keith Byrne after a jury convicted him in May of strangling Kirsty Ward to death with a hair straightener power cord.
The pair had been staying at a four-star hotel in the popular Costa Daurada resort of Salou in July 2023. Ms Ward had told Byrne she wanted to leave him before he killed her, a court in Tarragona heard.
Sentencing judge Susana Calvo Gonzalez ruled that because Bryne and his 36-year-old partner had been in a stable eight-month relationship it made the horror crime even more serious.
The sentencing decision, revealed overnight in a 121-page ruling by the judge who presided over Byrne's trial at a court in the east coast Spanish city of Tarragona, means he could be back out on the streets in around a decade.
The judge said in her lengthy ruling that she rejected arguments Ms Ward's family's private prosecutor Estela Cortes who were arguing for a 30-year prison term.
Jurors found Keith Bryne guilty of murdering his girlfriend, from South Dublin, on May 7 after three days of deliberations. The 34-year-old, who served in the Irish Guards and Parachute Regiment before abandoning his post in Colchester, Essex, had claimed during his Tarragona trial the mum-of-one committed 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 demonised Kirsty as someone who could be 'four people in one day' especially after binging on alcohol and cocaine he claimed made their romance 'toxic'.
Kirsty's mum Jackie Ward described Byrne as someone she 'didn't like' and 'didn't trust' on day one of the trial back in April. She said she had found out after her daughter's death she had planned to leave him during their 'make or break' holiday.
She was asked as she gave evidence whether she thought her daughter, whose son Evan was 14 when she died, could have committed suicide. She replied angrily: 'She did everything for her son. She would never ever leave him. She would never do that to him.'
Public prosecutor Javier Goimil, a domestic violence specialist, rubbished Byrne's court claim Kirsty took her own life during his closing speech to the jury last Wednesday 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 because she wanted out of their stormy relationship.
He said the forensic evidence pointed to Kirsty had been strangled from behind between 8pm and 10pm on July 2, 2023 after 'incapacitating herself' with alcohol and cocaine
He told the court: 'Byrne has adapted his version of events of what happened in that timeframe nearly two years on in accordance with the evidence he's learnt there is against him."
'He's saying Kirsty tied a cable round her neck and attached it to the door knob but in the state she was in it would have been impossible for her to do that and there's nothing showing there was a knot in the cable.
'What's occurred here is a violent and painful death, a strangulation from behind where someone is pulling from the front to the back. This was not a suicide."
He added: 'She didn't leave a note for her son or her siblings or her mum and what's more she had bought a plane ticket back to Dublin for July 4.
'Kirsty's relationship with Byrne was very toxic, very intense and very emotional. She decided to end it during the week they stayed at the hotel in Salou and her partner couldn't accept that decision.
'His mindset at that moment was: 'Or you're mine or you're nobody's. You, woman, are no-one to say you're going to detach yourself from me the man and have your own independent life. That was why he killed her the way he did.'
He also said the amount of alcohol Kirsty had drunk before being killed would have impacted significantly on her ability to defend herself.
Byrne's defence lawyer Jordi Cabre had been seeking his client's acquittal before the jury verdict and afterwards asked the judge to hand down the "minimum sentence" under Spanish law.
The killer was led handcuffed from the court after learning he was now a convicted criminal after nearly two years on remand in prison following his arrest, with the judge deferring sentencing as is normal in Spain.
It emerged following Byrne's arrest the day of his crime that he was wanted in England by Royal Military Police for going absent without leave after he left for Ireland in 2017.
He transferred to Colchester-based 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment, a batallion-sized formation of the British Army's Parachute Regiment, after leaving the Irish Guards.
Reports in Ireland last March said Spanish prosecutors intended to interview at least two of his former partners about assisting the case by giving background information about him.
One of these women previously claimed in an interview with the Irish Independent that Byrne had tried to strangle her in an incident at a property in Co Meath a number of years ago.
Jackie Ward described her daughter after her death as a 'fantastic friend' to her parents and 'an absolutely adored daughter'. She told the congregation at the Church of John the Evangelist in Ballinteer, Dublin in July 2023 that she had been an amazing mum to Evan.
She said: 'The two of them were an amazingly strong and tight team and I hope to continue the great work she has done.
'To me she was a fantastic friend and an absolutely adored daughter to myself and John. She was a caring sister, a cherished granddaughter and much loved niece and cousin. A loyal and true friend.'
The Irishwoman's loved ones have yet to react to the sentencing decision.
As well as a 15-year prison sentence, Byrne was also handed a restraining order preventing him contacting Kirsty's teenage son, mum or siblings or going within 1,000 metres of them for a period of 25 years.
He was also ordered to pay her son €150,000 in compensation, her mum €80,000 and each of her siblings €20,000.
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