Transcript

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: For years, senior Defence personnel have warned of a tidal wave of post-traumatic stress as our troops return from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Sadly, those fears are becoming a reality.

There are traumatised soldiers turning to alcohol, drugs and even crime, with some winding up behind bars.

One supports group estimates as many as 500 veterans are in prisons across Australia.

Alex Mann reports.

ALEX MANN, REPORTER: It's 2008 in the Chora Valley in southern Afghanistan. Charlie Company is looking for Taliban fighters flushed out by an air strike.

SECTION COMMANDER: I want you to move out to the left-hand side, behind that, around that koala that's behind you, Newie. We're going to sweep round to the figure on the left-hand side there with the grassy knoll, see what we've got visual from behind. Roger?

ALEX MANN: Holding the camera is Lance Corporal Beau King on his third deployment to a war zone.

BEAU KING, LANCE CORPORAL: I was trained in - as a combat first-aider. We're literally the guys first on the scene, so that we can actually perform that life-saving first aid if need be.

ALEX MANN: Beau King was first on the scene when his friend Michael Lyddiard lost an arm and an eye after stepping on a mine.

BEAU KING: That was probably the biggest one for me, that was literally the day that, for me, enough was enough. ... I just couldn't - I physically couldn't take any more. So - yeah, it just- that was it.

ALEX MANN: When he returned to Australia, he quit the Army and his life spiralled out of control.

BEAU KING: Anger levels were through the roof. Pretty much after 2003, I'd literally been in fights. I had both sides above my eye split open in two weekends in a row. I had stitches in my head. I was getting into fights going out. Yeah, it just became - you sort of - there's a lot of blank spots there as well, so it became a period where people sort of had this idea of who I was and this was me and I fight and I drink and yeah.

ALEX MANN: He was caught drink driving three times in 18 months and narrowly avoided jail.

Beau King: I received a two-year suspended sentence and the judge literally said to me, in his own words, you know, "If this occurs again, you'll be locked away."

ALEX MANN: Beau King's descent into his own personal hell is a common story among veterans.

IAN CAMPBELL, EX-MILITARY REHABILITATION CENTRE: A coping mechanism is to drink or to drug and I think this is the point where the chaps are probably more likely to go off the main highway and find a dirt road to scruff around in.

ALEX MANN: At Murray Bridge, an hour from Adelaide, Ian 'Patch' Campbell is on the road to visit a number of veterans in jail.

IAN CAMPBELL: I visit usually fortnightly if I can, just for a bit of social support.

ALEX MANN: He's been in and out of jail himself since his return from combat in Vietnam.

IAN CAMPBELL: So, I got in a bit of trouble for drugs, street violence, I had all the trouble with police, we seemed to want to fight each other all the time. And my experiences (inaudible) in those days are over. So, I sort of use my experiences from having served time to help out the other fellas that have been locked up.

ALEX MANN: Behind Australia's prison fences and before its courts is a growing number of traumatised war veterans. One of the country's biggest veteran support groups puts the number somewhere between 300 and 500 across the country, but nobody can say for sure. Defence doesn't keep the figures, neither does the Department of Veterans' Affairs, neither do police and neither do the courts.

BRIAN DEEGAN, LAWYER: Look, 300 to 500 servicepersons returning from Iraq or Afghanistan does not surprise me in the slightest.

ALEX MANN: Lawyer and former magistrate Brian Deegan has dealt with many former veterans. He also knows what PTSD feels like. He suffered for years after his son Josh was killed in the 2002 Bali bombing.

BRIAN DEEGAN: I've gained a lot more insight into the problems that these young men and women are suffering from. Quite simply, it changes your personality.

ALEX MANN: In all the cases he's seen, there's a common theme.

BRIAN DEEGAN: In coming to terms with their issues, and therefore, they were basically, if you like, cast adrift to their own problems, their own demons. And as a result, they hadn't attempted or hadn't really been given any real assistance in coming to terms with their issues and therefore they were basically, if you like, cast adrift.

ALEX MANN: One of the former soldiers cast adrift is Mike Quintrell, who lived through the horrors of war when serving his country in Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan.

GEOFF QUINTRELL: I think Afghanistan was a real eye-opener for him. In a war zone, when you go in somewhere and you see all the things that have been done to people, like people being cut up and just split open, arms cut off, heads cut off, legs cut off.

ALEX MANN: At their home in Adelaide, Quintrell's father and brother are struggling with his spiral into crime.

When he quit the Army in 2011 and returned home, he couldn't sleep. He wasn't coping and felt he couldn't ask for help.

GEOFF QUINTRELL: He was up walking all night, just in the room, just walking round the room all night. And in the morning, I said to him, I said, "How come you were up all night?" And he just said, "I haven't come - I'm just not back here yet." He said, "I'm still away."

ALEX MANN: Quintrell began using the drug ice, developing an addiction costing up to $800 a day.

Just 12 months after his return, he was part of a violent home invasion. He and two others were trying to steal drugs and a man was stabbed.

GEOFF QUINTRELL: This person was bleeding pretty badly and Michael coulda got away. But he went back and got that bloke and took him to the hospital, knowing full well that he'd be arrested as well.

ALEX MANN: He was sentenced to nearly eight years.

GEOFF QUINTRELL: No-one condones what happened, no-one condones what he done. But if it hadn't have been for drugs and everything else, that wouldn't have happened.

ANDREW QUINTRELL: Yeah. His whole family just wants the old Michael back, and hopefully that's what we get when he gets out. And hopefully that happens with the help he needs.

GEOFF QUINTRELL: Exactly right.

BRIAN DEEGAN: The Government has an obligation to these young men and women who volunteer to go overseas to protect what we now describe as Australia's interests overseas and upon their return, they should be looked after.

IAN CAMPBELL: I think that probably more work needs to be done on discharge. It's not good enough just to have the soldier stand in front of a couple of psychiatrists or psychologists and say to him, "Are you alright?" Of course he's going to say he's alright. The alpha male isn't going to let on that he's got his problems. So, we have to find a way to look a bit deeper and then get the proper support for them they need before they go off the rails.

LEIGH SALES: Alex Mann reporting.