Review needed for veteran suicide records
Ex-Navy head blasts lack of information
AN URGENT review by the Government is required into the way the deaths of military veterans is recorded, according to campaigners, politicians, coroners and family members following a three-month investigation by The Yorkshire Post.
Requests to 98 coroners in England and Wales – and their equivalents in Scotland – for data showing how many former military personnel have taken their own lives in the last three years elicited just one response, from Northampton Coroner Anne Pember. Twenty-five coroners responded to say that no such data is recorded by them.
The investigation – commissioned to ascertain if suicides among veterans is on the rise as campaigners fear – identified 16 individuals who have taken their own lives since January. Seven are known to have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, two were Special Forces and five were former Royal Marines. None of their deaths are recorded as military suicides.
MP Jeffrey Donaldson, a veteran and former member of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee, said his time spent with veteran groups leads him to believe the number of suicides among ex-services personnel is rising. He called for an “urgent review” by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), which he accused of letting down veterans.
“The Government needs to undertake an urgent review of its record keeping to ensure the MoD is continuously monitoring the levels of suicide amongst veterans,” Mr Donaldson said.
Asked if suicides among veterans were on the rise, the MoD acknowledged it does not know, as it does not record data.
A FORMER Chief of Naval Staff has called for the Ministry of Defence to see sense when it comes to capturing data relating to veteran suicides as he voiced concerns ex-military personnel are not receiving the support they need.
Admiral Lord West spoke out after a three-month investigation which set out to examine claims by campaign groups that veteran suicides are rising, whilst not being recorded in any meaningful way.
When approached with the findings of the investigation by
The Yorkshire Post, the distinguished Labour peer expressed shock.
“Not to have the statistics of what’s actually happening is very silly,” he said. “Without those statistics, how can you take any action, if necessary?
“I’m very surprised there’s no kind of record of [suicide from] mental illness that stems from their time in the military. I think it would make absolute sense to do that.”
Freedom of Information requests to 98 coroners in England and Wales - and their equivalents in Scotland – for records of veteran suicides led to 25 coroners confirming no such information is recorded.
Two coroners – Dewi Prichard Jones, the Coroner for North West Wales, and Anne Pember, the Coroner for Northamptonshire - were supportive of the noed tion of a review into how veterans’ deaths can be recorded.
Coroner Jones said he believed that young maladjusted male veterans with short service records were at highest risk of suicide - a finding, he said, that is confirmed by other studies.
He added: “It would probably help to tackle this as is done in the United States and Australia, but it will be a matter of resources and priorities. Suicide is a favoured topic of public discussion at present. If they could track veterans and do something on suicide that would be very helpful.”
Coroner Pember has presid- over the county’s inquests for 23 years and recalls a number of cases where post traumatic stress was a factor in a person’s death.
“It features especially in mental health cases,” she said. “Sometimes we get cases where people have suffered from flashbacks from their PTSD, which can lead to all kinds of complications.”
She said she would be willing to consider writing a report on veteran suicides if, in the future, a link between a person’s death and their military service was established in a significant number of cases.
However, campaign groups want the Government and coroners to take further action.
Simon Maryan, a former Royal Marine who now jointly oversees Veterans United Against Suicide UK, said he has witnessed a rise in suicides and suicide attempts since the start of 2017 and accused the Government of “turning a blind eye” to the crisis. He added it was “unforgivable” that there was no real way of recording veteran suicides.
“When you leave the forces in the UK, the Ministry of Defence essentially washes its hands of you. You become the responsibility of the civilian sector,” he said. “It is unforgivable that we have no proper way of recording whether a suicide involves a veteran.
“It should be a mandatory requirement for the Ministry of Defence and for coroners to ask if someone who has committed suicide had been in the forces. It is not a difficult thing to do.”
ANDREA TIERNEY says when someone with post traumatic stress disorder takes their own life, they can pass their condition on to their grieving loved ones.
The 44 year-old says it was the worst moment of her life when her partner Simon McGovern took his own life. The mother-of-three, explains: “It is ironic that Simon killed himself because of his PTSD but like a baton in a relay race, he has passed his PTSD on to me. I have PTSD as a result of Simon taking his own life; he left me with that legacy.”
Andrea had been living in Catterick, North Yorkshire, where her ex-husband was in the Army and was working as a support worker for ex-military homeless people with PTSD.
She met Simon owing to the fact that he was best friends with one of the clients for whom she had helped to find accommodation. She said: “Simon had separated from his wife. He clearly had PTSD and had ended up homeless so moved in one of the clients I was supporting. I got to know Simon every time I went round to see this client. Then after my marriage broke down, I moved back to Blackpool.”
Some months later, Simon contacted Andrea through Facebook and they got chatting. A few weeks hence she went to Catterick and their relationship blossomed and he later moved in with her.
Andrea, a hairdresser by trade, says Simon was a funny, witty person. “He was the type of person who could light up a room and have everyone rolling around with laughter. He made me feel so protected and was like a knight in shining armour and told me he’d take care of me.”
Simon had been with the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers and served in Bosnia. She says he talked about his PTSD and about his marriage breaking down, so showed no real signs of bottling things up.
“Simon had a bad childhood and joined the Army to get away from everything. He told me some things about his past and Army life and things he had seen. He used to talk about suicide a lot and was almost blasé about it. When he’d had a few drinks, he would say he had nothing worth living for and felt like a failure.”
His darker side became more apparent and Andrea realised he had an alcohol problem. “One of the first times I realised was when we went for a drink in the pub for my 40th birthday.
“Simon knocked back one pint, then another, then another and another. We went home and he ended up flipping out over something or nothing. He picked up the TV in the bedroom and threw it out of the window. It was very frightening. I told him I wasn’t having this and ordered him to leave.”
He left for a few days but came back promising Andrea he would stop drinking and get help. He had a few sessions with a counsellor but would not talk about them and gradually began drinking again.
“There were two sides to Simon. He was absolutely lovely and caring and taught my daughter to ride her bike and would be really nice for a few weeks,” she says. “He admitted he feared I would leave him because of his PTSD and all his issues.
Things came to a head in June 2014 when the police were called to her house following an incident that quickly escalated. “Simon then went into the loft and on to the roof and began throwing roof tiles. Police negotiators and riot police arrived and the whole street was cordoned off ”
Simon threatened to jump off the roof but he eventually came down and was arrested. He was sent to prison for 20 months and Andrea had no contact with him.
“I still loved Simon – I couldn’t just switch that love off. But I did not get in touch with him because of my children. With PTSD, when there are outbursts of rage, it’s like a red mist comes down and they don’t know what they are doing.”
When Simon came out of prison, he contacted Andrea begging her to see him and telling her he had changed. They met up as friends and then tragedy struck in March, 2016.
On the day of the tragedy, Andrea and Simon had been for lunch and it happened to be the same day as the funeral of one of Andrea’s old school friends who had taken his own life. “While we were having lunch, the wake party came into the pub. Simon and I talked about the man who had killed himself and discussed suicide and the reasons behind it.”
Later that evening, Simon started sending weird texts saying he knew how my old school friend felt and what was going through his head. “He continued sending me ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ texts. One minute he’d be telling me how much he loved me and was sorry. The next he was swearing at me and calling me names.”
They ended up arguing. “I ended up saying something I will never forget. I told him he was tapped and it was no wonder his wife left him. I said it out of anger, frustration and disappointment. Simon told me he wasn’t tapped and something along the lines of. ‘You’ll be sorry. Wait and see what happens’ and I said: ‘Good night Simon.’”
The following day, Andrea went to work and sent Simon a text message but received no reply and the message remained unread.
She later discovered that Simon, 39, had hanged himself.
The police broke the news to her. “I felt like I’d been hit in the stomach and just utter helplessness and hopelessness.”
She feels guilty to this day. “I will never know if Simon meant to do it or whether it was a cry for help which went wrong. My theory is when he asked me to go round that night, he was hoping I’d find him before it was too late. I keep thinking: ‘If only I’d gone round that night.’”
Andrea has since moved to Lincoln for a fresh start. She has a new partner who is also ex-military and has PTSD, but he has completely different symptoms to the ones Simon had. She, too, has struggled. “I suffer from PTSD myself now and the only reason I did not take my own life after Simon did is because of my children. As a mother, you don’t want to do anything to hurt your children,” she says.
Andrea suffers from separation anxiety from her children and her partner. “I have days when I don’t want to get out of bed or talk to anyone. I suffer from terrible self loathing and like I don’t deserve to be loved. I am a broken and damaged person and wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.”
She turned her tragedy into something positive by offering free haircuts to veterans in Lincoln at the RAF base. Andrea is also involved with a lot of veteran support groups online and says suicide is a real issue among veterans but is a hidden problem.
“Suicide among veterans is massive and an epidemic. People don’t realise the extent of it. These people go away and fight for their country and see some horrific things and come away with a life sentence. We need to know the true figures for veteran suicides so we can understand the extent of the problem.”