The door closed and 17-year-old Hugh Connell was left face-to-face with the corpse of a murder victim.
The stench of death in the morgue was overpowering.
“The smell was horrible, I’ll never forget it," the teenager said. "The bodies were in bags, there was one you could see.
“It was freezing and they shut the door on us.
“I felt sick to start with. Then I began panicking. I didn’t talk to anyone for about three hours after that.
“I just sat there in silence. That part was a bit much.”
Hugh, from Market Harborough, was speaking after taking part on a TV show called Banged Up: Teens Behind Bars, reports The Mirror.
The tearaway had volunteered to spend a week in Brevard County Jail, Florida, on a short, sharp shock youth programme in the hope that his experience would help him mend his ways.
Shackled in chains, handcuffed and in prison stripes, Hugh felt sick with fear as he entered the notorious US jail to jeers from hardened inmates.
The prisoners, dubbed “the worst of the worst” by the local sheriff, banged and kicked on their cell doors, screaming obscenities and rape threats.
“I didn’t have a clue what I was letting myself in for," said Hugh. "It was the toughest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
Excluded from school for squaring up to teachers, arrested for carrying a machete-like knife and in trouble for tearing around on his motorbike, Hugh was going off the rails and heading for a life of crime.
In desperation, his mum Helen agreed to sign him up for an extreme and radical intervention, and Hugh left his home and went to Florida to be incarcerated with dangerous criminals.
On arrival, he and seven other unruly British teenagers had all their possessions and clothes taken away and were given jail-issue towels, underwear and striped uniforms.
Programme leader, military veteran Lt Robbie Stokes, laid down the law, explaining: “This is not a holiday camp.”
In the Channel 4 documentary, the youngsters are seen being bawled at and told they will be under the same roof as murderers.
Hugh soon broke down sobbing, asking to call his mum.
“I wanted to go home," he said. "When the inmates were yelling at us, honestly, if there hadn’t been a bit of glass between us I would have gone mad.
“I would have lost it. But I knew that I had to stay in control, otherwise I’d probably get my head kicked in.”
After walking through frightening maximum security wings, the six boys and two girls, aged 15 to 17, were split into two dorms, which they had to keep clean for a daily inspection.
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At one point wardens stormed in overturning all the beds and cabinets.
The teens were put to work in the kitchen and laundry along with other inmates, sorting through piles of filthy plates and dirty clothes.
It was lights out at 10pm and there were enforced communal showers.
Hugh said: “The whole thing was horrible. We had to wake up, sort our beds out, have inspections, do fitness exercises, have breakfast, do a job, then another job.
“The laundry and kitchen were dirty and disgusting.
“I couldn’t let off steam because we were not allowed any outlet like listening to music. In the end I would mumble lyrics to get me through it.”
If they stepped out of line, the teens were made to do push-ups and run laps as punishments.
They also heard cautionary tales from some of the inmates and were shut in a morgue with murder victims.
Hugh said: “The worst bit was the morgue.”
A face-to-face session with inmates did not take a softly, softly approach either.
“That was really intimidating," Hugh says. "These two big guys came out in handcuffs and they took the handcuffs off and started having a go at us.
“I think one was in for murder. They started walking up to us and singling people out.
"They must have read about us before because they started talking to us like they knew us.”
Hugh, whose parents split when he was much younger, said: “One of the prisoners had a kid that he is never going to meet and that really upset me.
"I know he’d done something wrong but this kid is going to grow up without a dad.
“I’d hate that, I love all my family to pieces.”
Hugh became a target for bullies at 14, often picked on because he is dyslexic, struggled with reading and stuttered under pressure.
Then, his mum says, he fell in with the wrong crowd.
Hugh, who lives with Helen, 52, and his bar manager brother Noah, 19, says: “I hated school. I was getting bullied about everything.
“Some people saw me in the corridor in tears and helped me out and taught me to stand up for myself.
“I started hanging out with them, as they were outcasts too.
“I was excluded twice from school for arguing with teachers. One shouted at me so I swore and punched the door.”
On another occasion he swore at a teacher.
Things were also getting bad at home as he argued with his family.
He said: “When I heard about the programme in America I thought it would be a good thing to do. I wanted to do something to prove I’m trying.”
Helen, a retail worker, is a former prison officer.
She said: “If there were motorbikes tearing around car parks I can guarantee he was one of those.
"I’ve seen the way this can all go horribly wrong and it’s scary.
"If he ends up in the justice system there will be no one there to help him.”
But Helen had no idea what her son would face in Florida.
She said: “That first night, when I got a call from him saying he wanted to come home, was so hard. I got off the phone and burst into tears.”
But she has seen a change in Hugh. “He’s more open and seems more peaceful. He is adamant he doesn’t want to go down that route.”
Hugh is now at college studying engineering and thinking of an RAF career.
“I just want a purpose," he said. "I just want to make people smile.”
- Banged Up: Teens Behind Bars, is on Channel 4 at 9pm on Monday.
