A CHARITY offering armed forces veterans and serving military personnel life-changing help is branching further out into County Durham.

Veterans at Ease gives servicemen and women and their families therapy to cope with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), other combat-related issues and aid the transition between military and civilian life.

The free one-to-one psychotherapy service currently works out of headquarters in Durham and Jarrow but covers the whole region from the border of Scotland to Yorkshire.

Now the charity is opening the doors of a new office in Newton Aycliffe.

"There are key hotspot areas in the North-East and Newton Aycliffe is a very good central point which covers Darlington and Catterick and is an easy route to Bishop Auckland - one the largest reservist areas in the region," said Garreth Murrell, founder and CEO of Veterans at Ease.

Mr Murrell served in the British Army for ten years and set up the charity after the success of therapy called neuro-linguistic programming (NLP).

"Unknowingly after our first tour in Bosnia in 1992 I became traumatised and didn't know," he added. "Fourteen years later, after a couple of significant emotional incidents in my life I realised it wasn't the rest of the world at fault it was me and I needed to change.

"I paid £2,000 for one session and in that session all my symptoms disappeared.

"I had developed a stutter, I was very paranoid, angry, short-fused and had flashbacks and nightmares.

"I had been off work for about eight months and I walked into work the next day."

Since 2010 the now fully qualified psychotherapist's charity has helped 130 people from the age of 20 to 95.

Clair Johnston will be in residence at the charity's new office from January 15.