The families of 30 more Gulf veterans who have taken their own lives blame the experience of the Gulf for bringing on depression which led to their suicides.The MoD still refuses to acknowledge that Gulf war syndrome exists.Nicholas Soames, the armed forces minister, said last year that the veterans' claims were "a mixture of unsubstantiated rumour and incorrect information". But it should have come earlier."Mr Ash is one of 740 Gulf veterans suing the Ministry of Defence for compensation for illness they have suffered since returning from the conflict. He left the Army and although he has found work as a local government officer, he is registered as 60 per cent disabled.Now 29, he greeted yesterday's announcement by the Ministry of Defence with relief: "It is very good that eventually somebody has stood up and said, `Hang on, we have done something wrong here and we have not investigated it in the manner that we should have.'"It shows that, five years after the guys first started complaining, the MoD are finally accepting that they may have damaged the lads. "I was constantly vomiting, I had pains in my joints and my stomach hurt so much I thought I had ulcers," he said. He had to give up football and then began to show symptoms of serious illness. We just assumed it was because of the mosquitoes."It was only after Mr Ash returned from the war - as a hero - to his Northumberland home that he realised he may not have escaped unscathed.Suddenly, the once super-fit infantryman was so weak he could hardly walk.

We didn't really have time to take notice of what was going on and nobody told us they were spraying us for a reason. Aircraft spewed the chemicals on to the "tent villages" while soldiers walked around with hand-held sprays to douse their colleagues.Mr Ash said: "It was just like a mist of the stuff. The insects swarmed off nearby marshlands for a feeding frenzy on the British troops encamped in the desert."We had never experienced anything like it before. The mosquitoes were taking great chunks out of the troops and the lads were coming out in massive blotches," he said.The Army's response was to bring in thousands of gallons of pesticide which was sprayed liberally on tents, clothing and vehicles. Paul Ash went off to war bursting with pride and prepared to die in the cause of bringing down Saddam Hussein. Last night, he was struggling to come to terms with the possibility that his life had been ruined not by the Iraqis but by pesticide sprayed by his colleagues and others in the British Army. Arriving in the Saudi Arabian desert as a 24-year-old Fusilier, Mr Ash had been alarmed by the ferocity of the local mosquitoes. They then moved on to see Ms Neave'shome.Mr James Hunt QC, prosecuting, has told the jury that Ms Neave had a fascination with the occult and may have killed her son as part of a sacrificial ritual.Rikki, he has alleged, was a stumbling block in Ms Neave's relationship with her wayward husband Dean, and she could also have killed the child in an attempt to win her husband back.The judge has warned residents on the estate that any attempt to influence the jury during the visit would be treated as contempt of court.The hearing later adjourned until Monday..

She elected not to take part in the visit.The jury's tour started with the den where Rikki's body was found, in undergrowth on the edge of the Welland estate in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire.The jury then moved on 40 yards to a point where, the prosecution has alleged, a witness saw Ms Neave at 5.45pm on the day Rikki died.Next, the jurors were shown the site of the rubbish bin where Rikki's clothes were found, 50 yards from where his body was discovered. The judge, Mr Justice Popplewell, lawyers, and the jury of five men and seven women, began the visit at the spot where Rikki's body was discovered. The visit is part of the trial of Rikki's mother, Ruth Neave, 28, who denies murdering him in November 1994. The Prison Reform Trust expressed fears that inmates would be "warehoused".. A Crown Court judge and jury yesterday visited the housing estate where the body of six-year-old Rikki Neave was found almost two years ago. The Prison Service said it was buying the units "to accommodate the increasing prison population which has risen above projections". The population in the 130 jails in England and Wales is 56,936, a rise of around 13,000 in just over three years.

Other scenes include pedestrians being knocked over and a furious tank driver crushing cars in a suburban street.. The Prison Service is to use pre-fabricated buildings to house inmates as the jail population continues to soar. It is buying four blocks, which it described as "ready-made units modified for prison use", which will be installed by December to accommodate 160 inmates at unspecified lower-security prisons. The video - Road Rage: Drive And Survive, presented by Chris Ellison, former star of police drama The Bill - includes scenes of an illegal Mexican immigrant being shot three times by police in the United States. The RAC yesterday condemned a new video about road rage, saying that far from helping drivers it was "wallowing in gratuitous violence".