Tragedy as Portsmouth young mother dies after taking overdose

Suicide was ruled out by a coroner at the 23-year-old’s inquest after her mother Claire Bowden said she would never have taken her own life.

Medical records revealed Jade, of Telephone Road, Southsea, had a history of taking overdoses but had told her GP she was not suicidal.

In the six weeks before her death on July 5 last year she had been ‘interfered’ with by a man after she woke up in a laundry room at flats in Somers Town following a night out, the inquest heard.

Jade took a large number of anti-depressants after drinking two bottles of wine on July 3. Jade, who dreamed of being a lawyer, had been with a friend who left before she took the overdose.

She was rushed to Queen Alexandra Hospital in Cosham where she refused charcoal tablets offered by medics and died with her mother in the room two days later on July 5.

Dr Gordon Craig said she had been stable but took a turn for the worse, having two epileptic fits, and was moved to critical care. Jade suffered another fit and bumped her head. She was put to sleep and put on a ventilator.

She deteriorated in the night and in the morning was significantly worse.

Medics put Jade on cooling and breathing machines as her temperature shot up before she went into cardiac arrest and died. A pathologist found she died from liver and kidney failure.

Jade, whose daughter Payton-Rose was 11 months old when she died, had difficulties in her short life and had been bullied due to her weight when she was a size 24 at Priory School.

Speaking to The News, her mum Claire said: ‘I think it was just a spur of the moment and she felt a bit down.

‘If she could have looked in a crystal ball she wouldn’t have done it, she was always afraid to die.’

Claire, who now has parental responsibility for Payton-Rose, told the inquest the overdose was a ‘cry for help’ and that she ‘didn’t mean to take her life’.

The coroner’s court heard her daughter’s father ‘didn’t want to know’ when she became pregnant.

After at first struggling to bond with her baby daughter, Jade began to plan for a future and paid for a holiday.

She had posted on Facebook on the Tuesday before her death saying she had taken ‘all her prescription medication’ and was admitted to QA hospital.

She was discharged the next day with a leaflet for a counselling service.

Claire said Jade was an amazing mother, adding: ‘Payton-Rose lost her mum when she was 11 months old so I don’t think she really understands.

‘For a while she kept looking up to where her mum’s bedroom was but now she’s just too young to understand.’

Recording an open conclusion, assistant coroner Robert Stone said: ‘We don’t actually know what happened, why Jade took the overdose but she did not intend to commit suicide.’