By Gerard Couzens
A former soldier is facing up to three decades in prison after being convicted of murdering his girlfriend at their Spanish holiday hotel.
Jurors found Keith Byrne guilty after three days of deliberations of strangling Kirsty Ward with a hair straightener power cord after she told him she was leaving him.
In a statement, Ms Ward's family thanked 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."
The 34-year-old Irish man had claimed during his trial in the eastern Spanish city of Tarragona that the 36-year-old Irish mother-of-one had died by suicide 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. He demonised Ms Ward as someone who could be "four people in one day" especially after bingeing on alcohol and cocaine which he claimed made their romance "toxic".
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The trial judge announced he was retiring to consider his sentence after the jury decision late last night - as is normal in Spain - and Byrne is not expected to find out for nearly a month how much time he will serve in prison.
A private prosecutor acting for Ms Ward's family said she was still seeking the 30-year sentence she argued for before and during the trial.
Public prosecutor Javier Goimil urged the judge to jail him for 20 years for his 2 July 2023 crime, lowering his initial pre-trial demand by a year as he accepted Byrne's prior use of drink and drugs as a mitigating circumstance after jurors ruled he had "diminished cognitive and volitional faculties" when he killed Ms Ward.
Mr Goimil, a domestic violence specialist, dismissed Byrne's court claim that Ms Ward 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 relationship.
He said the forensic evidence pointed to Ms Ward having been strangled from behind between 8pm and 10pm on 2 July 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: '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 Ms Ward had drunk before being killed would have impacted significantly on her ability to defend herself.
Ms Ward's mother 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 died by suicide but replied angrily: "She did everything for her son. She would never ever leave him. She would never do that to him."
Jurors started deliberating on Monday after the 1 May Bank Holiday.
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".
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 mother to Evan, saying: "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."
In a statement today Kirsty Ward's family thanked the jury "for seeing and believing in what was the truth about our beautiful Kirsty, that her life was taken from her, and that we were robbed of her and the beautiful life she could have had".
They thanked the police, the public and the private prosecutors for their support, guidance and commitment and asked that their privacy to be respected, "while we grieve and come to terms with all that has happened during the past two years".
