A couple of weeks after the election I got talking to ex-soldier who has just taken a flat on Holmefield road and was busy cutting the grass. He told me that he came from Clowne and was looking forward to getting the flat decorated and was looking forward to a new life. He hoped that his children would be able to visit. I wished him well and told him me to contact me if he needed anything.
Unfortunately it didn't work out that way as you may have seen from the covergae in the local press. Like many of those who have fought in the Middle East he had been diagnoised with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and a couple of weeks later news of the death of another colleague led to an incident where he became a threat to himself and the police. The tragedy is that as a consequence he received a 17 week custodial sentence so now has to cope with a criminal record in addition to PTSD which is unlikely to help either his recovery or his job prospects. The incident also called considerable alarm to neighbouring families
The case has troubled me; I don't expect for a moment he thought that his army career would leave him in this desperate situation and I wondered how many other ex-soldiers might be in a similar situation. I concluded that is important that we learn from this case and do all we can to prevent it happening again, we can surely do better. Clearly the Council as the housing authority, needs to work with the Derbyshire PCT and Mental Health provider, as well as charities that offer specialist support to develop robust and effective support arrangements.
Bolsover Council has a Committee that can scrutinise such issues and on the 23rd May I emailed its Chair Cllr Mary Dooley asking them to review the support offered to ex-soldiers so that we can learn lessons from this case. Unfortunately I have not yet received an acknowledgement let alone a response - but I won’t give up and any support you can give would be welcome
Duncan
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