A FORMER SOLDIER has been jailed for 15 years for the brutal murder of his Irish girlfriend Kirsty Ward at their Spanish holiday hotel.

The two years Keith Byrne (34) has already spent in prison on remand will qualify as time served for the murder of the Dublin mother-of-one (36).

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 25 years.

He was ordered to pay her son €150,000 in compensation, her mum €80,000 and each of her siblings €20,000.

Public prosecutors demanded a 20-year jail sentence after a Jury convicted Byrne of strangling Kirsty to death at a hotel in Salou on July 2, 2023, after she told him she was leaving him.

The sentencing decision was revealed overnight in a 121-page written ruling by the judge who presided over Byrne’s trial at a court in the east coast Spanish city of Tarragona.

The sentencing ruling can be appealed. It is not yet clear whether Kirsty’s family have already lodged an appeal or intend doing so.

A private prosecutor for Kirsty’s family said after the guilty verdict she was still seeking the 30-year sentence for Byrnes she argued for before and during the trial.

Sentencing judge Susana Calvo Gonzalez ruled the fact Byrne and his partner had been in a stable eight-month relationship made the crime more serious.

She said Byrne’s consumption of alcohol and drugs before the murder diminished his cognitive faculties and was a prevailing mitigating factor.

The judge rejected arguments private prosecutor Estela Cortes put forward to justify a 30-year prison term: “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,” she said.

In May, jurors found Keith Byrne guilty after three days of deliberations of strangling Kirsty Ward to death after she told him she was leaving him.

Byrne claimed during his trial Kirsty took her own life at their four-star Magnolia Hotel in the popular Costa Daurada resort of Salou.

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” and who he claimed made their romance “toxic”.

A private prosecutor acting for Kirsty’s family sought a 30-year sentence for Byrnes, while public prosecutor Javier Goimil urged the judge to jail him for 20 years.

Goimil, a domestic violence specialist, rubbished Byrne’s court claim that 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 to leave him.

He said the forensic evidence pointed to Kirsty had been strangled from behind between 8pm and 10pm on 2 July, 2023.

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 added: “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 also said: “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 4 July.

“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,” he said.

“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,” he added.

He said: “That was why he killed her the way he did.”

He also said the amount of alcohol Kirsty had consumed before being killed would have impacted significantly on her ability to defend herself.

Kirsty’s mum Jackie Ward described Byrne as someone she “didn’t like” and “didn’t trust” on day one of the trial on 23 April and 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 taken her own life but replied angrily: “She did everything for her son. She would never ever leave him. She would never do that to him.”

Following the jury verdict, Kirsty Ward’s family said in a statement: “Our family wish to thank our private prosecutor Estela Cortes and her team for guiding, supporting and representing Kirsty, her son and our family at this very difficult and painful time.”

They also thanked “Javier Goimil the public prosecutor for his commitment and passion; the Spanish investigation teams and police for their expertise, empathy and understanding; and the jury for seeing and believing in what was the truth about our beautiful Kirsty.”

“Our family now request our privacy to be respected, while we grieve and come to terms with all that has happened during the past two years.”

Jackie Ward described her daughter after her death as a “fantastic friend” to her parents and “an absolutely adored daughter.”

It emerged following Byrne’s Spanish arrest that he was wanted in England by Royal Military Police for going AWOL after he left for Ireland in 2017.

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.