The scars of battle

The case is expected to last five months

By Paul Adams BBC defence correspondent

It's a long way from the Falkland Islands, Bosnia and the Gulf to the North Wales coast.

But up against Llandudno's grand eastern cliff sits an imposing mock-Tudor building known as Ty Gwyn - the White House.

It's here that many ex-servicemen and women have come in recent years, looking for help in dealing with the nightmares, dislocation, alcoholism and violence they all trace back to their years of service.

Men like Owen Sinclair who, as an 18-year-old Welsh guardsman, watched in horror as 33 of his colleagues were incinerated when Argentine bombs hit the landing ship Sir Galahad on June 8th, 1982.

Survivors from the Sir Galahad are among those suing

Twenty years later, his eyes red from lack of sleep, he can hardly bring himself to recall that desperate afternoon.

Still angry, he blames the army for the events of that day and for ignoring his subsequent mental distress.

He says he was hopelessly unprepared for the scenes of carnage he witnessed on board the sinking ship.

The only advice he'd received, he says, was a warning from his brigade commander that not all the soldiers would survive.

Landmark case

"That's as close to a briefing as we got," he says.

Mr Sinclair is typical of some 260 veterans who are suing the Ministry of Defence in a case, the largest of its kind, which opens at the High Court on Monday and is expected to last five months.

If you got people willing to die for you then why is it at the end of the service you don't at least repay us a little?

Tony Downey, ex-serviceman

Another 1,600 veterans are waiting in the wings to do the same.

The veterans are accusing the MoD of failing to identify and treat the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which they say was triggered by witnessing the horrors of war and conflict

Northern Ireland may be a lot closer to North Wales than the Falklands, but Ty Gwyn patient Tony Downey's journey has been no less painful.

He was serving with 2nd Battalion Parachute Regiment when an IRA bomb killed 18 soldiers at Warrenpoint, in August 1979.

His says his mental collapse started soon afterwards, and after 23 years, he still displays acute anguish.

Tony Downey says he has suffered for 23 years

"If you got people willing to die for you then why is it at the end of the service you don't at least repay us a little?" he said.

"Help us. There's people here with a lot of heavy things in their head."

PTSD is thought to have claimed numerous victims. The latest figures suggest that as many as 264 Falklands veterans have committed suicide, nine more than were killed during the fighting.

One of the most recent was Charles "Nish" Bruce, who threw himself from a light aircraft in January, after several previous suicide attempts.

Legal bandwagon

For every suicide, however, there are dozens of cases of men and women who have turned to drink, harmed their partners, been jailed or spent time on the streets.

Many of the veterans are looking for compensation. Some admit, privately, that the prospect of hefty payouts has caused some to jump onto a legal bandwagon.

Michelle Francis: "I just stopped functioning"

But others also want to see changes to the system.

Michelle Francis says she wants the MoD and the army to be "a little bit more proactive in their preparation to make sure these symptoms are spotted and given their due attention".

She says her army padre told her she was being "over-emotional" when she blamed herself for a lapse of security which resulted in a death of a colleague in an attack on the Mill Hill barracks in north London in 1988.

The breakdown which followed left her unable to work, dependant on income support and a war pension.

"I just stopped functioning," she said.

The MoD has observed a strict silence on the law suit, instructing expert witnesses not to discuss the case beforehand.

A spokesman said that the ministry "does acknowledge that some members of the Armed Forces may, in the course of their careers, be subjected to traumatic experiences and may suffer stress as a result."

However, he warned that "this does not necessarily mean the MoD has been negligent or that the individual will receive compensation."