I had to tell my son, ‘bad people do bad things’
Tobias Ellwood, the MP who tried to save PC Keith Palmer, opens up about the Westminster attack
FIVE months ago, Tobias Ellwood made an instinctive decision that would change his life. He chose to run towards the scene where Khalid Masood, the Westminster terror attacker, had just stabbed PC Keith Palmer in the chest.
He tried in vain to save PC Palmer by giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and performing heart massage. The photograph of him smeared in blood in Parliament Square became one of the defining images of the day.
The Tory MP and defence minister has now spoken for the first time about how he is haunted by the “vivid memories” and reveals that the hardest part of the day was trying to explain to his eight-year-old son what had happened.
Breaking down in tears, Mr Ellwood told The Daily Telegraph: “The hardest thing, as well as stepping through with others to try and save PC Keith Palmer’s life, was coming home and finding my eight-year-old boy on top of the stairs having refused to go to bed.
“It was 10 o’clock at night and he was really confused. He couldn’t understand why a bad person would do what he did and he also couldn’t quite understand why I had then stepped forward in the way that I did.
“I had to explain to him that there are some bad people in this world.
“There are bad people doing bad things, but there are more good people doing good things, and that’s why we stand up to events such as this.”
Mr Ellwood gave the interview as he launched a six-year strategy to improve the mental health and well-being of the Armed Forces, veterans, and their families.
“It’s something [the Westminster attack] I’ve deliberately not spoken about in public at all”, he said, as he urged war veterans not to “bottle it up” and seek help for mental health issues.
Mr Ellwood, who has previously spoken about how hard it was to get his brother’s body home after he was killed in the Bali bombing, wants to change the stigma that says, “you can’t put your hand up and say ‘actually I’m affected by this, or I’m troubled by that’.”
And he wants a greater understanding of the myriad mental issues that can affect those who bear the mental scars of combat.
The strategy includes periods of “decompression” for service personnel after combat operations and training for doctors on veteran health issues.
Mr Ellwood said that de-medicalising mental health to include anxiety and depression, which is more common than PTSD, early detection, and timely, effective treatment, are also key aspects of the Mod’s plans.
It comes amid concerns that a number of army personnel coming forward as a result of Iraq and Afghanistan are falling through the gaps when it comes to receiving treatment on the NHS.
Last September, the charity Combat Stress said it was treating more than 1,300 veterans of Afghanistan for illnesses including PTSD, depression and anxiety, up 34 per cent from the previous year. It also suggested that a younger generation of troops, who were more aware of mental health issues, were coming forward and the number of cases could rise higher in the coming years.
Mr Ellwood wants the NHS and MOD to be ready and is committed to creating a veterans board within Whitehall, which he will co-chair with the Department for Health.
He said: “What I went through is something... but we shouldn’t forget that there are many people who have seen much worse and continue to be affected by it.
“That’s why it is so important for us to have the mental health strategy that we need – a veterans support package that is understood and a covenant that obliges councils, businesses and communities to recognise the sacrifice that individuals have given.”
Speaking after the anniversary of Passchendaele, where there were 500,000 causalities in the space of three months, he said “many of them were shell-shocked from what they
‘There are more good people doing good things, and that’s why we stand up to events such as this’
witnessed and in those days could be shot for it.”
He praised Prince Harry, who disclosed that he sought counselling after enduring two years of “total chaos” in his late 20s trying to come to terms with the death of his mother.
The Prince, who has become a figurehead for veterans everywhere, gave an unprecedented interview into his past in the hope it would encourage others to break the stigma.
Mr Ellwood said there is now help and support that can be provided. “It’s the least that we can do,” he said.