The Bad Room

After years of physical and mental abuse, Jade thought her kindly foster mother would be the answer to her prayers. She was wrong … this is her staggering true story.

‘This must be what prison is like,’ I thought as another hour crawled by. In fact, prison would be better … at least you knew your sentence. You could tick off the days until you got out. In the Bad Room we had no idea how long we’d serve.

After years of constant abuse, Jade thought her foster mother Linda Black would be the answer to her prayers. Loving and nurturing, she offered ten-year-old Jade a life free of fear.

But once the regular social-worker checks stopped, Linda turned and over the next six years Jade and three other girls were kept prisoner in a bedroom they called the ‘bad room’.

Shut away for 16 hours at a time, they were starved, violently beaten, forbidden from speaking or using the toilet and routinely humiliated. Jade was left feeling broken and suicidal.

This is the powerful true story of how one woman banished the ghosts of her past by taking dramatic action to protect the life of every vulnerable child in care.

About the author

Jade Kelly is 30-years-old and grew up in and out of care, suffering emotional, physical and mental abuse at home and then at the hands of her foster mother Carol Docherty. Her almost daily ordeal involved her suffering regular beatings, being starved of food and made to sleep on the floor naked. She was constantly watched while she showered, had her hair cut off and was called derogatory name from the age of 12 to 15, which resulted in her suffering acute body issues and having a breast reduction at 17 – the youngest girl in Britain to undergo such surgery on the NHS. Only when her foster mother slammed a door on her arm and teachers refused to send her home, did social services act and remove her from her house of horror.

Since taking the authorities to task, Jade has worked as a Business Development Manager, delivering training and apprenticeships to the Prison Service, NHS and Education sector. A qualified fitness and dance instructor, Jade splits her time between Leeds and Spain.