Hospital tribute to Dewsbury soldier Cpl Jake Hartley

A new hospital in the home town of a West Yorkshire soldier killed in Afghanistan is to officially open a ward named after him.

Cpl Jake Hartley, 20, of 3rd Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment, was one of six soldiers who died in a blast in March.

The Priory Hospital in Dewsbury, the town where Cpl Hartley grew up, has named a ward the Hartley Ward.

His mother Nathalie Taylor will open the ward in a ceremony attended by members of his regiment.

The name was the choice of students at Cpl Hartley's former school Earlsheaton Technology College.

The Yorkshire Regiment suffered further losses on Saturday with the deaths of two soldiers shot by a rogue policeman in Afghanistan.

Sgt Gareth Thursby, 29, and Pte Thomas Wroe, 18, both of 3rd Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment, were killed in Helmand's Nahr-e Saraj district.

Sgt Thursby was a father-of-two from Skipton, North Yorkshire and Pte Wroe had family from West Yorkshire.

The privately-owned hospital is a 32-bed facility for patients needing treatment for mental illness.