A BARNARD Castle widow of an honoured war veteran who served alongside Prince Harry is calling on defence chiefs to improve the mental health services offered to troops traumatised by frontline experiences.
Lainey Hunt says the Ministry of Defence needs to review support provided to soldiers after her husband, Royal Engineer Nathan Hunt, took his own life on New Year’s Day aged 39, ending a lengthy battle with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Mrs Hunt, who was born and bred in Barnard Castle, has been in the Army for 21 years and is a warrant officer class two based at Catterick Garrison with the 32 Engineer Regiment. She believes there needs to be a focus on ending the stigma of PTSD.
Mrs Hunt said: “Nathan and many of my soldiers still say people perceive depression as a big weakness. As a soldier you don’t want to be weak. Soldiers want the promotion. They find it very hard to open up to people.”
Mr Hunt, from Lincoln, joined the Royal Engineers when he was 16. He was a warrant officer class two with the 75 Engineer Regiment.
The pair met in 2005 while based in Germany. Their daughter, Megan, is now nine and the couple married in 2009 and lived in Barnard Castle. Mr Hunt completed two tours of Iraq and two tours of Afghanistan, as well as serving in Bosnia and Northern Ireland. He received a Mention in Dispatches for his bravery in locating improvised explosive devices in Helmand Province. He also fought alongside Prince Harry in Afghanistan in 2008 as part of the Household Cavalry. He was due to retire from the Army in September.
Mrs Hunt, 41, said: “As a soldier I have done four tours of Iraq and a tour of Afghanistan. When you come back the Army have a post operational stress management policy. You have four briefings. They are a standard tick in a box. I came back from Afghanistan and had to watch a video. Once you have four ticks it is closed.
“At the moment there are just charities. We want a better system. A lot of soldiers fall by the wayside. We want to make sure every soldier gets the help they need.”
Mr Hunt was first treated for PTSD in 2005, then in 2012 and again in 2015. Since his death, Mrs Hunt has been liaising with the former head of the British Army, General Lord Dannatt, who is backing a campaign for a 24-hour helpline to be set up for troops to help prevent suicides. She said: “When Nathan went to a new posting he had a new doctor. Every time he had to relive it all from the very beginning.
“In 2015, he broke down in the kitchen and he said every time I feel depressed I just feel like ending it. That is how low his depression got for him. I saw it first hand.”
Both Mrs Hunt and Nathan’s parents, Derek and Maria, fully support the idea of a helpline which would be manned by experts.
“I strongly believe that Nathan would have used a helpline and things might have been different. He would not have had to go face to face with someone and he would not have been embarrassed.”
According to reports, the Government is refusing to spend £2million on a state-funded helpline due to fears it might hardly be used.
Mrs Hunt said: “I know the Government has said about the cost and how many soldiers would ring up, but it would not just be for soldiers. It would be for the dependents who see it. It is the families who suffer too.”
The couple separated in 2015 due to the effects of Mr Hunt’s depression but still kept in touch. The last moments they shared as a family were on Christmas day while he was on Christmas stand-down from his Manchester base. Mrs Hunt said: “He said he loved me and Megan too much to put us through it anymore. We were still a family though.”
Mr Hunt had arranged to go to his parents house on New Year’s Day but failed to show up. They later discovered he had taken his own life in his home in Lincoln.
Hundreds attended his military funeral at Lincoln Cathedral last month. Mrs Hunt read out the eulogy and there was not a dry eye in the room when Megan, who attends Montalbo Primary School, read out a poem she’d written as a tribute to “the best daddy” . The family also received a private letter of condolence from Prince Harry.
Mrs Hunt said: “Megan knows daddy was a brave soldier. I’ve told her daddy was not well and that he has died.
“She has been so brave. How do you explain to a young nine-year-old what PTSD is? If we could get a positive from Nathan’s death it would be so that other families don’t have to go through this and other children don’t have to lose their parents.
“Me and Megan will remember Nathan as one of the best soldiers and an amazing daddy. He saved lives but unfortunately he couldn’t save his own.”
![A COUNTY councillor is backing a campaign to get a pedestrian crossing in Staindrop. Frustrated parish councillors in the village summoned their county council representative Cllr George Richardson to their latest meeting to discuss several issues, including the call for a safe way to cross the A688. Earlier this year their request for a crossing was turned down by the county council’s highways officers. Parish council chairman Jonothan Raper described the reasons for the refusal as “spurious” and called on Cllr Richardson to support their campaign. He added: “One of the arguments they made was there is no clear line of desire when they studied the village – well this isn’t a clear line of desire because there isn’t a crossing, people cross whenever they can. “When the lollipop person was there, one of the things I noticed was people would walk all the way down to the lollipop person to cross the road to go to the shop or to go to the school.” He added a problem of parking at the primary school is exacerbated because people are too afraid to walk their children across the road. Cllr Richardson said he had supported previous attempts for a crossing point with the first being made about 15 years ago. He added: “We went fairly well down the road with that and they looked into it. The only recommended place was where the bus stop is and to get the visibility splays, people on the other side of the road would lose their parking. “That didn’t go down well so it just died a death.” Cllr Raper said he suspected the real reason for the officers’ refusal was the cost of installing a crossing. He added that much of the cost could be recovered from savings made on not having to employ a lollipop patrol. Cllr Raper said: “A lollipop person only provides a benefit of crossing for three hours of the day. You are getting 21 extra hours of crossing time [with a pedestrian crossing].” Cllr Richardson said he would raise the issue with the county council’s cabinet member for highways, Cllr John Shuttleworth.](https://teesdalemercury.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/georgeR-120x86.jpg)
