UK ex-Afghan serviceman found hung

A member of the British troops has been found hung at his home on leave after previously escaping injury from a roadside bomb blast while driving a light tank in Afghanistan.

Robert Griffiths, 24, was one of the three soldiers who walked away unhurt from a potentially deadly roadside blast in November 2011.

He was found hung at his parents’ home in the Gower village of Bishopston, near Swansea, south Wales, on Saturday 29 December 2012.

South Wales police have confirmed that they are investigating the death of a 24-year-old man at the location.

A spokesman said the soldier’s family have been informed and that the death was not being treated as a suspicious case.

Griffiths’s escape from the potentially deadly improvised explosive device (IED) was highlighted at the time in a Ministry of Defence online news release.

It followed a period in Afghanistan when British patrol vehicles were seen as under-protected and putting the lives of soldiers at risk.

Griffiths’s apparent suicide comes as it was revealed by the The Daily Mail in April 2012 that 9,000 British soldiers have been treated for mental health problems since 2007.

The problematic mental conditions included suicidal thoughts, depression and hallucinations.

Meanwhile, since the beginning of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, 438 British soldiers from the Army, the Royal Air Force (RAF), the Royal Marines and Special Forces have lost their lives in the conflict.