Save Our Soldiers

MENTAL health chiefs admit failing a former soldier whose family say he was suffering post-traumatic stress disorder when he committed suicide.

Dad-of-three Aidan Knight joined the Army aged only 17 and within two years was on a six-month tour of duty in Iraq with the elite 2 Para.

He left after five years, telling his mother he had seen “too much death”. He was also shattered by the tragic loss of his brother George in 2012.

Aidan, 29, died a “tortured soul” in April 2015 – the day before what would have been George’s birthday.

He hanged himself from a tree in parkland after phoning his mum to say he “couldn’t go on”. He told her he was “going to his brother’s party”.

A coroner recorded a suicide verdict last week but commented that PTSD could not be diagnosed after death.

Terrible

Now a serious- incident mental health review has admitted more should have been done for Aidan.

The Sunday People’s Save Our Soldiers Campaign is demanding the Government improves help for our trauma-stricken troops. Official figures show that one serviceman, woman or veteran commits suicide almost every two weeks. Nearly 400 took their lives between 1995 and 2014.

Aidan’s mum Angie Aleksejuk says he was traumatised by his time in Iraq and was never the same again.

She feels the NHS was too slow to pick up and act on his cries for help – and claims a chance to diagnose PTSD was missed.

Angie said: “I think Aidan was a tortured soul after he came back but he bottled it all in and never spoke of what he did out there.

“He’d just say he had seen terrible things. He would have nightmares and cry out in his