‘My husband needed help – now our son must grow up without a dad’
A WOMAN whose ex-war veteran husband took his own life after mental health issues has spoken of her agony at their son growing up without his dad.
George Du Preez was in the British Army and served in Afghanistan before being medically discharged in 2014 after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
George suffered with mental health issues throughout his life and on November 17, 2019, was found dead at his flat in Bridgend by his wife Katriona.
An inquest earlier this month ruled Mr Du Preez had taken his own life.
Katriona told of her heartbreak at raising their young son without his dad, as well as her belief that more help should have been available for her husband.
Katriona met George, who was originally from Namibia, in Colchester in 2010 after he had moved to the UK three years earlier.
He had previously served in the South African Army.
They became a couple and had a son together in 2013, but by that point Katriona said George was already suffering with PTSD resulting from his time in the armed forces.
“He came back from Afghanistan in 2011 and wasn’t entirely himself but was OK,” she said.
“In 2012 he started displaying symptoms of PTSD: psychosis, lots of visual and audio hallucinations.
“He used to say things like he was sure the Taliban were coming to get us. The curtains were constantly closed and he thought we were always under surveillance.”
Katriona and George decided to move and originally considered going to London, but she said she felt the crowds there would be too much for him.
Instead, they moved to Wales and settled in Bridgend in 2014, close to where Katriona’s sister lived.
George’s first interactions with local mental health services were in November 2014, which Katriona said came around fireworks night, something she said can often be triggering for veterans.
Despite receiving some support, George’s condition worsened and Katriona, an HR resourcing manager, increasingly had to balance looking after her husband with work and raising their son.
“I had to juggle all those things,” she said. “Having my sister nearby took the edge off.”
An inquest into George’s death at Pontypridd Coroner’s Court on December 6 heard he had been diagnosed with PTSD while he was serving and also suffered from emotionally unstable personality disorder.
He had taken a number of medication overdoses, self-harmed and made a number of suicide attempts, as well as struggling with alcohol issues.
“He drank more heavily, which probably exacerbated his symptoms,” Katriona said.
“The medication he was on was constantly changing. One of his arms was completely destroyed with cuts and burns.
“We decided together that we didn’t want our son to witness when his daddy was poorly,” she added, explaining the couple stopped living together and in 2017 separated.
“He [my son] is so fortunate that he saw a lot of the good times. But George would miss his son when he wasn’t there and it would make him feel even lower.
“It was exhausting. I was looking after George and our son.
“I was working full-time too because he was medically discharged and he didn’t have any pension.
“He was financially destitute. He was getting £174 a fortnight.
“If I couldn’t take him [to an appointment], he would have to get a taxi or bus.
“He preferred a taxi because he was paranoid around members of the public, that everyone was looking at him.”
In 2016 George suffered a traumatic brain injury when he fell down a flight of stairs, and Katriona said she spent more time caring for him.
“I had a lot of contact with him, [I’d] do his grocery shopping or take him to do it.
“He had physical elements like bandages to be changed. The love didn’t go.
“It sort of evolved into a caring role rather than romantic love.”
In May 2019, there was an incident which resulted in the death of George’s
dog Star. He was subsequently found guilty of causing its death and sentenced to 14 weeks’ imprisonment.
It was around this time that social services said George couldn’t be near their son, and he served his sentence in Cardiff before being released on October 22, 2019.
George’s inquest heard that he and Katriona met after his release from prison and kept in regular contact, attending the Wales v South Africa rugby match with their son.
But she told the inquest he “didn’t seem himself, was quite low [and] didn’t look healthy”.
On November 17, 2019, Katriona went to George’s flat after she had not heard from him in several days. Tragically, she found he had died. Senior coroner Graeme Hughes said his view was that George had “acted alone” on the day and had intended to take his own life, and recorded a conclusion of suicide.
The inquest heard that he had behaved in a distressing manner during a WhatsApp call with his sister in the days prior to his death, but no major concerns were raised about his mental state before he died.
Katriona said she was heartbroken that their son had been “robbed” of spending time with his father before he died and faced growing up without him.
“He’s growing up without a father,” she said.
“He’ll remember some bits but he had just turned six when he died. He doesn’t have many memories – most of the ones are ones I’m telling him about.
“He’s going to comp next year and has said to me ‘you’re going to have to help me do my tie up, aren’t you?
Daddy would have done that’.
“We don’t know what would have happened if there had been more support but at least we’d have known someone had tried.”
The inquest into George’s death also examined whether there were any failings in his care in the period leading up to his death.
It was heard that on the day he was released from prison in October 2019, George had met with his probation officer who had raised no major issues with his mental state but had advised George to visit his GP in order to access mental health services.
George later visited his GP, who made a routine, non-urgent referral for him to local mental health services in November 2019 but raised no major concerns about his mental state.
This referral appointment had not happened before George took his own life and the coroner said the non-urgent nature of the appointment meant it would have been unlikely to have taken place in the time between him being referred and his death.
The coroner said there was “no evidence that George’s presentation” during the period from October 14, 2019, to November 17, 2019 came to the direct attention of mental health services.
He acknowledged Katriona’s assertions that her husband was “not himself” in the weeks prior to his death but said this did “not equate to George suffering from an acute mental health crisis”.
Katriona said she feels there is not enough support for war veterans like George in Wales and called for more funding to be made available by the Welsh Government.
She said that in 2016 after a period in hospital, George was discharged and put in a dementia ward in Bridgend.
She said: “I was disgusted. He didn’t have dementia. That was just the bed that was available.
“This is why I wanted the coroner to look back further. I’ve been begging for help since 2014.”
Katriona said she felt the scope of her husband’s inquest, which looked at the three-week period prior to his death, was not long enough for someone with complex mental health issues and felt it was a “missed opportunity” to change the pathway for veterans in need of support.
“It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster – it’s been four years. I wasn’t expecting to have it hit me so hard but hearing it all again was quite triggering.
“It was horrible [waiting four years]. You have no sense of closure, you can’t do much until you get the outcome of an inquest.
“If I did want to take legal action against anybody, there are only three years to do that. That option has been removed.”
Katriona feels the level of veterans’ support in Wales is not enough and said the Veterans’ Gateway, the UK’s first point of contact for veterans and their families, directs people to Op NOVA, a support pathway commissioned by NHS England providing support for veterans who are in contact with the justice system, and Op COURAGE, an NHS service for veterans, despite neither of these being open to people in Wales.
“[With Op NOVA] they would be given a key worker to help with accessing financial support, mental health care, housing etc as a single point of contact,” she said.
“If someone has complex PTSD... George had other physical elements too. When you couple that with the medication he was on, which often made him drowsy, I would find that difficult myself.
“For someone like George, it would have been completely crippling. The idea of having to retell your story every time you speak to someone, it’s totally triggering.
“There are seven clinics, six administrators and 20 therapists. That is to look after a minimum 600 veterans in Wales.
“I’m not trying to blame anybody, I’m trying to change things in Wales. I’d like to see Welsh veterans receiving access to the same care as English veterans.
“It’s the Welsh Government that need to open the purse. There are charities but we shouldn’t be depending on them. There should be proper service provision.”
Speaking about George, Katriona said: “When he was well, he was lovely. He was a very quiet guy, very religious.
“He spent a lot of time reading his Bible. It’s in Afrikaans so I can’t read it, but I have it here.
“He adored his child. He loved braai [South African barbecue cooking].
“He was meticulous – he was always the one that kept the house in order and tidy, and that’s probably the military person in him.
“He was quite a serious person and he loved rugby. He was quite competitive, if we were playing board games or cards especially.
“He was really sweet, kind – he would always call people ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’.
“He was the most loving daddy and he was teaching his son Afrikaans. He was a very proud South African.
“Both of them [George and their son] loved the beach. He doesn’t now – it isn’t the same.
“We used to go to softplay and he used to go in with him. He was a very hands-on daddy.”
A Welsh Government spokesperson said: “Veterans’ NHS Wales ( VNHSW) is a tailored national service across Wales providing specialised, priority service for Armed Forces veterans, at any time in their lives, and who are experiencing mental health difficulties related to their military service.
“In 2021, our funding for VNHSW increased by 35%, bringing it up to £920k per year.
“For veterans with mental health problems that are unrelated to service, and for the civilian population, we provide funding of £1.2m annually to Traumatic Stress Wales, which aims to improve the health and wellbeing of people in Wales, with or at risk of, developing PTSD or complex PTSD.
“In May 2023, we launched a Wales specific veteran-friendly GP practice accreditation scheme, managed by Health Education and Improvement Wales, which enables GP practices to sign up for specialist training and links to resources, helping to support veteran patients’ health most effectively.”
The Samaritans can be contacted 24/7 on 116 123 or at jo@samaritans.org