Lance Corporal, 30, took his own life after witnessing atrocities in Afghanistan

Lance Corporal Ryan MacKenzie was found dead in his barracks 

A British soldier who found the body of his best friend after his murder at the hands of the Taliban hanged himself in his barracks, an inquest heard.

Lance Corporal Ryan MacKenzie suffered from mental health issues after witnessing a slew of atrocities during two tours of Afghanistan, and after a bitter divorce, Northallerton Coroner’s Court heard. 

L/Cpl Mackenzie had also struggled through a difficult divorce and missed his daughter who was in his wife’s custody.

Shortly before his death, he was the victim of a cruel lie that his daughter had died during surgery, the inquest heard. 

The inquest heard that on July 15, L/Cpl Mackenzie told his welfare officer that his ex-wife had informed him their daughter had died, but on July 19 said she had ‘misled him’ and that his daughter was not dead. 

The 30-year-old had been left devastated when fellow Highlander Scott McLaren, 20, from Edinburgh, was killed in Helmand Province in 2012.

Mr McLaren was grabbed after wandering off from a checkpoint, while serving with D Company, 4 Scots regiment. At the time, the Ministry of Defence denied Afghan claims he was tortured.

But L/Cpl MacKenzie told his family his best friend had been tortured and killed, the inquest heard yesterday.

L/Cpl Mackenzie was also haunted by the memory of children wearing suicide vests being shot dead and two other friends being killed in combat.

The soldier, born in Stornoway on the Western Isles, was found hanged in a bathroom at his barracks at Catterick Garrison on August 23 last year after failing to turn up for parade following an extended leave.

He had been allocated a welfare officer after confiding in a fellow soldier that he was having suicidal thoughts. He had also made previous attempts on his life.

L/Cpl Mackenzie’s family said he had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but the inquest heard he was never diagnosed. 

His aunt Angela Mackenzie told the inquest: ‘He was never the same after his first tour. He could never deal with loud noises and he would scream in his sleep.’ 

Ryan was devastated when fellow Highlander Scott McLaren, pictured, was killed in Helmand Province in 2012

This photo shows L/Cpl Mackenzie during a game of tug and war in October 2017

British Paratrooper from the 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment in July 2008

She told Northallerton Coroner’s Court that in May last year, L/Cpl Mackenzie had tried to hang himself and was placed on a suicide watch.

Ms Allison’s statement said: ‘When he was staying with me he woke up at night screaming.

‘He said he heard horrible voices in his head telling him to do things, and that he got flashbacks of his friends getting shot or mutilated.’

She said he ‘hated fireworks’ and once came running into the kitchen from his bedroom when he heard her drop a pan. 

Lance Corporal MacKenzie ‘told his family his best friend had been been hanged from a tree’, the inquest heard.

Mrs Mackenzie told the inquest that L/Cpl Mackenzie would drink whisky ‘to numb the pain’. When his body was found, he had three times the drink drive limit of alcohol in his blood.

Captain Phil Ingram, L/Cpl Mackenzie’s welfare officer, had seen him every 28 days following his disclosure of suicidal thoughts and at the formal reviews he had mostly talked about his daughter.

‘He was quite clear about not taking his own life because of his daughter,’ Cpt Ingram told the inquest.

He said that L/Cpl Mackenzie had never been diagnosed with PTSD.

Cpt Ingram said he was ‘upset’ after learning of L/Cpl Mackenzie’s death. ‘It was completely unexpected,’ he added.

American soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division deploy to fight Taliban fighters as part of Operation Mountain Thrust to a US base near the village of Deh Afghan on June 22, 2006

On August 23 last year, all the PT staff had returned from leave and went on parade on Monday. LCpl Mackenzie was missing and checks were made on his barracks.

At 2.55pm that day, the NCO was found dead in a bathroom at his accommodation in Munster Barracks, Catterick. No suicide note was found.

The Army had granted him regular leave in Scotland and a welfare report in June had recommended he be transferred to 2 Scots in Glasgow, so he could be closer to his family.

The review noted: ‘He is desperate to be home and in his daughter’s life, He feels lonely and extremely isolated.’

But the report added L/Cpl Mackenzie ‘was subject to an RMP investigation for theft but this needed to be dealt with first’ before his transfer to 2 Scots.

Coroner Jonathan Heath recorded a conclusion of suicide. 

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