A conference will be held later at Doncaster Prison to discuss ways of keeping former military people out of jail. It's organised by the criminal justice campaigning group No Offence, and will hear that in England and Wales ex-military people make up the biggest single occupational group, though the Ministry of Defence points out that the proportion of former military people in jail is actually no different to the population in general.

Trevor Philpott, a retired Lieutenant Colonel with the Royal Marines who has founded an organisation called Veterans for Change, says that when these men joined the service, "they put their lives on the line for this country and so did their families in supporting them and we made a pledge that we would provide due care and support to them".

"Here we've got a particular group, that we've pledged to support, who we are failing," he told the Today programme.

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