What happens without veterans' courts

Please don't pass this by just because it comes from the UK. This is what happens when Veterans' courts are not there. It is what happened when Vietnam veterans came home too.

Veteran was discharged and jailed suffering from stress disorder
Case study: Mary Bowers

Danny McEneany, 37, had been home from Iraq for a year when he started seeing “terrorists” waiting outside his house, “staring through the patio window”.

A tip-off alerted the police to the gun he had acquired to protect himself. In December 2006 Mr McEneany was sentenced to five years in prison for possession of a firearm, despite the fact that in the interim he had been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and spent two months in a military hospital.

Before beginning his sentence he spent two nights under supervision in a military camp. “They said, ‘remember you’re a Royal Dragoon Guard.’ I thought: I’m not likely to forget.”

But Mr McEneany — formerly Sergeant — learnt of his discharge after 16 years of service from “a scrap of paper” sent to him post-hearing.


“They didn’t take my PTSD into account,” he said. “The judge said to me, ‘there are thousands who go through the same situation as yourself but they don’t act like you.’”

While in prison in Sussex and Wisley, he was never offered treatment for his condition. “If you go there with a drink problem you get help,” he said. “But prison is a dumping ground for those with mental issues.”

Mr McEneany found consolation in other ex-soldiers, both prisoners and officers. “They said ‘you’re ex-army and you’ll have no trouble here.’ We looked after each other.”
read more here
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6847984.ece