A DOUBLE murderer who claimed he turned to crime after witnessing the horrifying scenes as a soldier in Northern Ireland has pleaded with the Prince of Wales to take up his case.

Jimmy Johnson says two terrifying tours of Northern Ireland affected his personality so much that it turned him into a killer.

Now the ex-Chieftain tank commander's claims have been featured in a new book, Hidden Wounds, which examines the cases of Northern Ireland veterans who have committed serious crimes after allegedly suffering post-traumatic stress disorder.

To coincide with the book's publication, Johnson has written to the Prince of Wales asking him to look into his case and that of other ex-forces men serving prison sentences.

In his letter, Johnson, now 52, says: "Surely such men who have served their country - and have been damaged in the process - deserve that some attempt be made to treat them and make them safe to be released into society?"

Blackburn-born Johnson, currently a Category A prisoner at Frankland Prison, Durham, served as a corporal in the Royal Tank Regiment and completed two tours of duty in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. He was mentioned in dispatches and won a medal for his courage in trying to rescue a woman from an IRA bomb-hit toilet block in Lurghan.

His later discharged himself from the Army, but said that effects of what he saw during the troubles left him with post-traumatic stress disorder.

He killed his first victim, a security guard, in Teesside in 1974 in an apparently motiveless killing with an iron bar. He served nine years for murder, but 14 months after he was released on parole he committed the second murder.

His second victim was killed within weeks of the death of the former Blackburn man who had been Johnson's best mate in the Army, Michael Kay, in an IRA car bomb.

This time the murder of 41-year-old Robert Harwood was in his home town. He hit the bachelor six times over the head with a hammer at his Lynwood Road home.

Johnson, who used to live in Glenluce Crescent, Shadsworth, Blackburn, and his victim, a laboratory technician, met while working at Notre Dame High School, Blackburn.

Mr Harwood asked Johnson to help with some DIY work at his home but after going to his house he battered him to death. Again he could not explain why he had killed him.

The Hidden Wounds book highlights the cases of a number of Northern Ireland veterans who have committed serious crimes. Dr Morgan O'Connell, an ex-armed forces consultant psychiatrist, believes a separate prison should be established to house ex-servicemen like Johnson.

"I am not saying they should not be in prison but their misbehaviour reflects a traumatic experience they endured while serving their country and their case needs to be examined."

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