A young woman who went missing 50 times as a child after “feeling lost in the world” is now helping other vulnerable young people find their way home.
Jade Knight, 23, was 15 and finding it difficult to cope with her type 1 diabetes when she walked out of hospital and disappeared for the first time.
“I was really struggling with my chronic illness and feeling lost in the world,” she told The Independent. “I didn’t know what ‘missing’ was – I just walked out as an escape. I didn’t take a phone or anything with me. I just went because I needed somewhere to breathe. Originally, I had gone for a walk, and decided that I couldn’t go back, I couldn’t face what I needed to face in life.”
Her parents reported her missing to police, who quickly found her – but the pattern continued. Over the next few years, Jade would go missing dozens of times.
It was after one of those disappearances that she came into contact with the charity Missing People, which she says transformed her life.
“There were a lot of times when speaking to the Missing People charity actually helped me go back,” she said. “They made me feel safe enough and gave me the space to talk about what I needed to speak about.”
One episode proved almost fatal. Aged 16, Jade fell into a coma after disappearing again, her physical health deteriorating as a result of her diabetes. “I had a tracheostomy, and my parents didn’t know if I was ever going to wake up. I was in intensive care for about two weeks, and I was very, very lucky to wake up,” she said. “When I did, I couldn’t even sit up. I lost a lot of my fine motor skills. It was the most powerless feeling.”
Donate here or text SAFE to 70577 to give £10 – enough for one child to get help
She remembers the moment as a turning point. “You’re 16 and suddenly you can’t do everything you wanted to do,” she said. “But mentally, that was such a struggle because my outlet had been disappearing. As somebody now that couldn’t get out of bed without support, I’d lost that. But it did shape my future completely. That experience made me realise that life is too short – and that maybe this negative energy could be put into something good.”
During occupational therapy, she began writing down goals for the future, one of which was to run a marathon. Three years later, in 2021, she ran the Royal Parks Half Marathon for Missing People, raising money for the charity that she says “saved my life”. The day after speaking to The Independent, she ran her third major world marathon in New York.
“I fell in love with running,” she said. “It gave me the same outlet that [going] missing did – that kind of freedom.”
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Jade, who now lives in Maidstone, went on to study professional policing at university and now works for the ambulance service. She has spoken in parliament and worked with police forces across the UK to improve their missing children programmes.
“I’m truly lucky every day that not only did I make it out, but I now have the opportunity to make change and to support the future generations when it comes to missing people,” she said.
More than 70,000 children were reported missing in almost 210,000 incidents in 2023-24, according to the National Crime Agency, meaning a child disappears every two and a half minutes in the UK. Teenagers aged 12 to 17 make up 61 per cent of all incidents recorded by police, and on average, a child who is missing dies every week.
Jade said she is not surprised by these figures. “Being a teenager is the hardest period of your life,” she said. “The pandemic and lack of funding for children’s mental health have made that even worse. This is a problem we need to resolve now, because every time these children go missing, it doesn’t matter if it’s the first or the fiftieth – they are at just as much risk every single time.”
She believes SafeCall, the new service being launched by The Independent and Missing People, will be “life-changing” for children in crisis.
“For any young person who feels like they want to disappear, please know that there is support out there for you,” she said. “Just because you feel this way now doesn’t mean you will feel this way forever. Things can change, and you have that power. And who knows – in six months’ time you could be where I am, telling your story of hope and helping others who can’t yet find their way.”
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Please donate now to The Independent and Missing People’s SafeCall campaign to help raise £165,000 for a free service to support and protect vulnerable young people.
For advice, support and options if you or someone you love goes missing, text or call the charity Missing People on 116 000. It’s free, confidential and non-judgemental, or visit missingpeople.org.uk/get-help
