A SERVING soldier who represented the British Army as a footballer has been jailed after punching a man so hard it knocked him unconscious and left him with a fractured skull.

Martin Keenan was told by a judge there was “absolutely no excuse” for his behaviour in a Southampton nightclub which left his victim William Rudiak suffering long term damage.

Southampton Crown Court heard how Keenan, who was on the books of Dundee United as a teenager, had been on the south coast on February 21 this year, playing an interforces football competition against the Navy.

After the match he and his team mates drank cocktails in Portsmouth before getting the train to Southampton where they went to Aura nightclub and continued to drink – with Keenan unable to remember even being there.

The court was told how Keenan, 25, stepped in and threw one punch after seeing words being exchanged between Mr Rudiak and one of his friends, before he was restrained by a doorman and then arrested by police.

Mr Rudiak, however, had initially refused to make a complaint or seek medical help, choosing to go to his Chandler’s Ford home instead where he appeared before his mother covered in blood.

The court was told how it wasn’t until a couple of days later, when Mr Rudiak, 20, began being violently sick and later slipping in and out of consciousness that he was admitted to hospital.

Scans found he had bleeding on his brain and a fractured skull and he was kept in hospital for around two weeks.

Prosecutor Andy Houston told how Mr Rudiak has still not made a full recovery. He has been unable to return to full time work because he is tired, cannot walk far and has lost his sense of smell.

Mitigating for Keenan, who has served for eight years with 1st Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland, in Iraq as well as undertaking operations in Northern Ireland and the Falklands, James Newton- Price said he was full of remorse.

He told the court Keenan “didn’t know how or why” he threw the punch and he had suffered three epileptic fits that night – one while in a police car following his arrest and a further two while he was held in custody.

The recurrence of the illness, which had not shown signs for a number of years, meant he was medically downgraded within the Army and could not seek promotion or go on a pending tour of Afghanistan this September.

Mr Newton-Price told how Keenan was seeking voluntary discharge, but urged the judge not to jail him as he would not qualify for the transition programme to prepare him for leaving the Army as his career would be terminated almost immediately.

He also told the court how Keenan, who lived in barracks in Edinburgh, was now “in a delicate position” and seeking help after his former girlfriend suffered a miscarriage. When she later gave birth again there were complications and the couple’s son spent two months in hospital before he died.

Jailing him for 16 months, Judge Derwin Hope said it was a tragedy for Mr Rudiak and for Keenan but the blow he delivered had been “deliberate and fearful” and only custody would suffice.