A former Afghanistan vet who got sucked into crime is now going back to prison to help stop the cycle of ex-servicemen getting put behind bars. Darren Wright - who spent 11 years in prison for kidnapping as part of a gang - is targeting prisons in the next stage of his mission to help ex-soldiers train as HGV drivers.
His charity, Veterans Into Logistics, has already helped so many coming out of the army retrain and earn a good living - but now he wants to help those who have already made the same mistakes he did by upskilling current prisoners. The former gunner and paratrooper for the Royal Artillery turned charity founder is now making presentations to different prisons in the UK to let him provide training for his fellow vets so they can gain employment upon their release.
“We are looking to upskill them,” the former Middleton's Langley Estate lad said.
“We want to train them up so when they leave they leave with a job offer. We are already seeing results [from those they’ve already trained].
“It took my daughters years of education to become an English teacher. Many vets don’t have this education and it is a difficult task to find a job earning a decent wage.”
The death of his close friend was a turning point for Darren and the reason he set up the charity in 2020. His pal from the military, Sergeant Jamie Doyle, who had taken his own life within a year of leaving the army, after struggling to adapt when his 22 years of service was up.
Darren explained that soldiers coming out have only been trained for one thing since they joined up - being a soldier. This means they often find themselves struggling to find work and purpose, with some dabbling with drugs and alcohol to deal with PTSD, getting ‘lost’ like he did.
“I have been there and done that, got the T-shirt,” Darren said. “I am trying to provide something that will stop this from happening to others.
“I work with the military on this now. Mental health is a big issue when they don’t have a job.
“A lot of them take drugs, alcohol and live on the streets. I wonder how many vets would be alive now if they could’ve just found a job.”
He went on to say how it is those from more humble beginnings that struggle the most with no support and the ‘normality of criminality’ in their background was enough to draw them down the wrong path.
Darren has teamed up with Atherton councillor James Paul Watson of the Independent Network, a former member of the Irish Guard and served in South Armagh, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan between 1996 and 2015. Coun Watson spoke at a vets event last week in Birmingham about his experience coming out of the army and his own research into the relationship between ex-military and prison.
Coun Watson has conducted a lot of research into this topic and even penned a book on the matter called ‘Life After Death – A Guardsman’s Tale’. This looks at a group of soldiers and analyses how the country fails in ensuring their welfare.
This was born out of frustration at the amount of suicides in veterans - many of which settle in the north west of England in retirement. Coun Watson knows all too well about the mental health struggles when leaving the military, which is why he is a strong advocate and supporter of what Darren is doing.
“Not all veterans have PTSD but they are a product of the military system and the behavioural conditioning that they have to endure,” he said. “Bearing in mind that most of military PTSD is associated with childhood trauma from those soldiers who are actively recruited from adverse backgrounds.
“These training methods [in the army] actively exacerbate the risk of mental health issues later on in life and this is before any combat is seen. As such, as a society we need to be more accountable for the welfare of our soldiers and provide them with better aftercare.
“I believe that this is essential to keep those veterans in custody from repeat offending and would help prevent the acts of criminality to begin with.”
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