Man who bludgeoned puppy to death with hammer jailed for breaching order

Having heard that Kyle Keegan had missed numerous probation appointments and had not done any of his 80 hours of community service, Judge Peter Irvine KC said there was “absolutely no merit whatsoever in this appeal.”

Craigavon County Appeal Court heard that 28-year-old Keegan was given the combination order last September for a drugs offence.

In that case Keegan, from Gilpins Manor in Lurgan, admitted possessing class C Pregabalin, a prescription only painkiller, on July 16, 2021.

The charge arose after puppy killer Keegan was caught with a handful of tablets in his pocket when cops stopped a car in which he was a passenger.

Sentencing Keegan at the time, judge Bernie Kelly warned him: “This is the last chance you are going to get to rehabilitate yourself in the community so I suggest you grab it with both hands.”

As a result of breaching the order Keegan appeared before her last Friday and making good on her promise, she revoked the order and replaced it with a two-month jail sentence.

Defence counsel David McKeown lodged an appeal against that jail sentence on Wednesday but Judge Irvine dismissed it and affirmed the jail sentence.

Keegan hit the headlines four years ago when he was jailed for 15 months after a judge heard that while Keegan was drunk and high, he bludgeoned 11-week-old cross-breed puppy Sparky to death with a claw hammer in February 2018.

The attack happened at a party in Ailsbury Park, Lurgan.

Caught through DNA evidence, he admitted causing unnecessary suffering to little Sparky whose body lay undiscovered, wrapped in a plastic bag, in a black wheelie bin for two days before his distraught owner found him.

Jailing Keegan for 15 months and ordering him to spend a further 15 months under supervised licence conditions, the judge told Keegan his crime was “vile, violent and savage.”