Media Storm - S4E3 Police: misogyny, mistrust, and The Met

Episode Date: May 23, 2024

Content warning: mentions of violence against women, rape, and assault. This episode was recorded just before the general election was announced! Register to vote here. This week, it was reported the number of Met police officers being dismissed reached a new peak. A police officer has been handed a guilty sentence for assault, after arresting and handcuffing a Black woman over an apparent bus fare evasion. And last year the Casey Review found the Met Police was institutionally sexist, racist and homophobic. Have we made any progress? And is reform possible? If one bad apple spoils the barrel... Joining Helena this week is GUEST HOST Coco Khan (Pod Save the UK) This week, we are joined by Patsy Stevenson - the campaigner, equal rights activist, and writer who was awarded damages by the Met Police after being forcibly arrested in 2021 at the Clapham Common vigil for Sarah Everard. We're also joined by Dr Leyla Hussein - psychotherapist and activist, specialising in supporting survivors of sexual abuse. She's the founder of the Dahlia Project, the first counselling service specifically for survivors of female genital mutilation (FGM), and the co-founder of Safe Spaces for Black Women. Plus, your round-up of the headlines through a Media Storm lens - we discuss the Government's new sex education proposals (have your say here), a failed crackdown on protesting, and a hidden climate headline you might have missed. Hosts: Mathilda Mallinson (@mathildamall) and Helena Wadia (@helenawadia) Music: Samfire (@soundofsamfire) Assistant Producer: Katie Grant Researcher: Sophie Clark Support Media Storm on Patreon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello, everybody and welcome to this episode of Media Storm. This is Helena here. And this week we don't have Matilda here, but we are so lucky to be joined by the one, the only, Cocoa Khan. And the crowd goes wild. Hello, everyone, it's me, Cocoa Khan. So, Brown Girls Only in the studio today. Sorry, Matilda. So, yeah, I mean, thank you so much for joining us.

You are the host of Pod Save the UK. Is the UK going to be saved? Well, I don't know. I mean, as we sit here, both our phones are going off the chain because there's rumours of an election. So maybe, I mean, I'm not saying that and Labour government is going to save the UK,

but it has been an interesting day, hasn't it? Yeah. I feel like the Tories are just trying to push like every last bit of legislation they've wanted to push through right now. Yeah, for sure. And some of it is absolutely nuts. So, I mean, I think we should obviously talk

about the government's new proposal for sex education. But before we do that, I do have one little small news story that I'm obsessed with and I want a space to talk about it and I'm hoping it is now. And that is that Transport for London have released the statistics, the figures, around which embassies are not paying congestion charge. What? I know. It's so good. Apparently, all of the embassies are liable to pay congestion charge, but some of them are a bit stubborn and aren't doing it. So TFL have released all the data around who the biggest offenders are.

and are planning to take them to the ICJ over here. I know. Who are the biggest offenders? Take a guess. I don't know what, I don't know if I'm on what his guess will be offensive. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Number one is America. Oh, okay.

14 million pounds in congestion charge, yeah. Togo owes the lowest amount, 40 pounds, which is very nice. Fair enough, let them off. Finland, only 140 pounds. I do feel like there's something about Scandinavian countries that they're just, like, good at everything. I would be surprised if any of the finished staff drive. I assume it's all bicycles now. Oh yeah, that's true.

Trading in some national stereotypes. I know. We're going to get in trouble for this. Okay, let's move on. We can move on. Let's move on. So yes, the government's new proposal for sex education. Gillian Keegan, Education Secretary, wants schools to ban sex education before the age of nine

and discussion of contraceptives should be banned until 13. The Telegraph has also reported that the guidance will make clear that gender ideology, that's their phrase, quotes from gender. ideology involving discussions regarding changes of gender is a again quotes contested subject and that teachers must say that there are two biological sexes. I mean first of all I feel like a lot of the papers that want to almost like scare people about teaching sex education for kids keep saying oh sex education has been banned before the age of nine. We need to be clear that before the age of nine it is relationships education. So relationships education is

compulsory for primary school, and relationships and sex education is compulsory for secondary schools. So schools introduce topics about, like, the body on an age appropriate basis. I feel like that has really been kind of brushed over in all of this coverage about, oh my God, I'm teaching kids how to have sex. Like, no, you're not. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think, you know, like, obviously it's a really emotive subject, children, sexuality. Yes, children are being sexualized too young. I think that's fair enough. Um, But is the answer to that to take away skills that are being taught in a safe space for them to deal with this world?

You know, children as young as 10 are seeing hardcore pornography regularly. Right. That's a sorry fact of the world as it is. So is taking their opportunity to safeguard themselves intellectually and emotionally. Is that really the right way? I mean, listen, if they want to find a way to ensure that they're not seeing that, I'm open to it, but that might mean regulating a big tech. I don't seem it's coming any time soon.

Exactly. I think one of the biggest, easiest myths in politics is to spread the false idea that sex education sexualizes children. And actually, no, it doesn't. It actually protects children because, okay, look, I don't know about you, but I had some of the worst sex education, I think, possible. I did not hear the word consent until I was like 18. If we are teaching kids what consent is, that can prevent sexual violence. That can prevent child sex abuse. You are protecting children.

Yeah, and ultimately this push is because they have got tunnel vision about the trans community and they want to marginalise this group further and they don't want to specifically single out this group so they sort of create these general statements. It's like, we know exactly what you're doing. We know exactly what you're doing. And like the idea that if you don't expose ideology to use their language to a group of people that, I mean, those people are trans. Ignorance is not going to stop someone discovering who they are,

but it will alienate them and it will marginalise them and it will create a hostile environment for them. Definitely. And both the idea of banning trans education or implying that being trans is in some way an ideology or like a choice and moving up the age of sex education, they're both ways of pretending that if we simply don't teach children about LGBTQ issues or about sex in general,

then they won't know what they are and they will not have sex and they will not become trans or gay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, please. Learning about these things in school is so important because there are some homes and some communities where it's not spoken about at all. Brown communities.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Oh, my God. Like, that is not a word that comes up at home. If you have a teacher that you can talk to, if you have somebody you can rely on, why is, that can only be a good thing. And I do think you're right of what you said before, which is that this is almost like an extra thing

that is tunnel vision on the trans community. This is to do with demonising trans people because guys, we're close to an election. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, if we demonise the trans community, we can present ourselves, the government, as a defender of that apparent threat. We'll save you from that threat.

And then also conveniently, that means they don't need to talk about, like, everything being rubbish, you know, the waters being full of literal shit and none of the trains working and the potholes and the terrible NHS system and they could just talk about this convenient thing. Look over that. Yeah, it's very much look over the time.

And, like, you know, I hope if anyone is listening to this, that thinks, well, but maybe sex education is too or too young. Take it from your South Asian host friends. And I mean, I can't speak for your family, but my sex education growing up was like, don't even mention it. Don't look at a boy. Are you looking at a boy? You're going to get punished.

Don't have those feelings. You know, it was very, it was very one note, which is sex does not exist in your mind. And actually it really creates a sort of horrible situation because you live in a world where you're exposed to these things There's no way for you to work through it And if anyone honestly believes that stops you acting on it Well, they are wrong

I think we all had our cousins and our sisters and our friends Who were secretly doing the things that they weren't talking about at home But they were just doing it in a more unsafe way Because there was no adult there to talk to Do you know what is so funny about Asian households Is that it's like, don't have sex, don't talk to a boy don't have sex, don't talk to a boy, and then you like hit like 20 and it's like, get married.

It's like, how do you explain just get married if I haven't talked to a boy? Anyway, look, if you want to have your voice heard on the government's new sex education policy, there is a government survey where you can fill out your views to the proposed changes and that's open until the 11th of July. So we'll put the link in the show notes. The government was also in trouble this week because of protest. Or not protesting.

Yes, there's been an attempt by the government to widen police powers over protest and that move has actually been ruled unlawful by the High Court. The legislation introduced last year under the ex-home secretary, Soella Braverman, gave officers more leeway to stop disruption. But now, two judges have ruled

it did not have a proper legal basis and the home office failed to consult properly on it. The Prime Minister's official spokesman said, and I quote, we've said before that the right to protest is fundamental to democracy, but only how we like it. I'm joking, I made that last bit up. But we simply will not tolerate intimidation or serious disruption

of the law-abiding majority, and that is why we legislated to clarify the definition of serious disruption and give police the confidence they need to tackle serious disruption and tackle the scenes that we saw last summer where, you know, ambulances were being delayed and people's lives were being disrupted. It's a disruption a lot, didn't they? So they're talking there about the ambulances, I guess, about specifically just up oil.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the criteria for disruption is, makes it impossible to have many protests. I mean, they even have, like, levels of noise, which is so fascinating because I live in East London and the speakers, just like loud noise coming from cars and speakers, I mean, I don't really have a problem with it. Summer.

Part of the sound of summer. Let's play some tunes. But anyway, I just mean that, like, you know, noise surrounds us all the time, but now they care about it, you know. Now it's an issue. And I think that this topic leads us into what we're going to talk about in today's episode, because if the government is trying to legislate the definition

of serious disruption, saying that you can be arrested for it, and then handing the police the power to decide what is or isn't serious disruption, they must think that the police are going to use that power wisely. But we haven't exactly seen the best examples recently of police deciding what is and isn't serious disruption. News broke yesterday that the number of met police officers being dismissed has reached a new peak with over 100 officers dismissed last year. And this week, an officer has been handed a guilty sentence for assault after arresting and handcuffing a woman over an apparent bus fare evasion, which it turns out she didn't evade, but there's more on that later. Last year, the Casey Review found that the

Met Police was institutionally sexist, racist and homophobic, and that failings go well beyond the actions of a few bad Apple officers. The review told us, the public of London is being failed by an institution riddled with bullying, poor leadership and the rotten treatment. of black people, it was the most damning report in the forces history. Have we made any progress? And is reform possible? Because you know what they say, one bad apple spoils the barrel. Fresh claims of misogyny and bullying within Britain's biggest police force was labelled broken and rotten to its core.

Serving police officers who had previous convictions for serious sexual assault. Serving police constable has tonight been charged with the kidnapper murder of Sarah Everard. The system is failing. Welcome to Media Storm, the news podcast that starts with the people who are normally asked last. I'm Cocoa Khan. And I'm Helena Wadia. This week's Media Storm. Police, misogyny, mistrust and the Met.

Welcome to Media Storm. We are so lucky to be joined by two special guests for today's conversation. Our first guest is an award-winning campaigner, equal rights activist, public speaker and writer. She has been awarded damages by the Met Police after being forcibly arrested in 2021 at the Clapham Common Vigil for Sarah Everard. We'll be speaking more about that a little later on, but for now, a huge one, welcome to the studio, Patsy Stevenson.

Hello. Our second guest is a psychotherapist and activist specialising in supporting survivors of sexual abuse. She's an award-winning international campaigner against all forms of violence against women and girls, the founder of the Dahlia Project and the co-founder of Safe Spaces for Black Wals. women. Welcome, Dr. Layla Hussein. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for having me.

Thank you so much, both of you for joining us. Patsy, we want to start with you. At MediaStorn, we always lead with lived experience. So we want to talk about your lived experience that culminated in the Met Police paying damages to you and really like how you got into campaigning. Do you mind just telling us a bit about it? God, where do I begin? Yeah, I mean, I never, I never went to a protests. I grew up being taught to trust the police and, you know, and it just wasn't spoken about that police brutality existed even. And so when I experienced that, I was then, my eyes were open to that world. And then I realized how often it actually has been happening for decades. And I think it also changed my mindset on a lot of things. You know, the police are there for

coerced and control of the public and how it doesn't actually benefit a lot of us and it only really benefits the very rich and very powerful. So I think, yeah, it's very strange. I'm very grateful to have had that experience, although it was traumatising. I think as well there's a lot of rhetoric around that saying that it wasn't traumatic for me because it was a basic arrest, which I understand. So a lot of people have said that to me, but it wasn't necessarily the arrest that was traumatic. It was the context, you know, the afterwards my phone being nonstop, you know, being sprawled all over the media.

That was terrifying. You know, it's just not a very nice thing to go through. It's weird. I mean, like, I've seen that picture of you being arrested by the police, physically lifting you up. I know what you're going to say as well. You know what I'm going to say. Because everyone says, I'm very small.

I'm a very short person. Like, yeah. And everyone seems to think that I'm much taller in real life. and they're like how what and they think I'm kneeling down in the picture and not I'm stood up and yeah so no definitely no no you're exactly right that's exactly it actually now looking at you in real life you have a slight frame and it really brings to the front of my mind like the physicality of what was going on there the intimidation the physical intimidation of what was going on there so many bodies on one woman like it's it's yeah it's scary the context of it because I was there I was at the vigil I was also protesting the reason we were protesting is because of violence against women, but specifically because a police officer had committed these horrendous acts of violence against a woman. And it was honestly one of the most jarring experiences of my life that vigil, like watching police treat us like we were criminals. But it was interesting you said, so you did trust the police before this experience. Yeah. It feels really weird now

to know how naive I was. It's a real mind shift. So now, you know, I wouldn't call the police on anyone, if I'm honest, you know, unless I'm witnessing a literal, like, violent crime in front of me or something like that. Leila, let's bring you in here. I think it's fair to say that the murder of Sarah Everard was a turning point. I think for a lot of people, it was maybe the first time. They felt that distrust and thinking particularly of women as well.

But do you think that perhaps there's a, perhaps we all have amnesia about a history. history of brutal policing in the UK, particularly for women. For me, as a black person, what you guys are all talking about was something I grew up with. I grew up in East London, not the East London that's been dendrified now, East London from the 19th, you know, hackney late in that area. So seeing police brutality was literally part of my upbringing. And I remember very early on, actually, as a black person, whether you're a boy or a young girl, you're told to behave yourself.

don't ever protest or make any resistance around the police. So it's interesting also. I think, by the way, Patsy, I'm so sorry you had to go through. You know, that video of you, because I remember just seeing that, I'm thinking, what does anyone has to do to be treated in such a way? Like, it's never okay. I think it's not we've forgotten. For me, it was like everybody was so shocked and outraged.

And I think some of us, black people are like, hey, this has been our upbringing most of our lives. So it's not we've forgotten. We are pretending, and we are pretending it didn't happen or we make it sound as if this is different to what it used to be. Do you think that we hear about the history of policing enough in our media? Do you think the general public know about the history of policing? I mean, let's go back to Stephen Lawrence in the 90s.

So questioning how the police behaves, we've been talking about it for more than three decades. now. So it's not something new. But I think what we are forgetting to address over and over again is this conditioning that we must trust these systems, whether it was the police or democracy, you know, one line air quotes. Because, you know, who does it benefit is the question. This system was built to protect the elite. It wasn't to protect women. This all stems from a patriarchal system. And patriarchal system only protects men. And we need to also address white supremacy in that space. So protective men, mainly white men, white people. And that's the history we're still not addressing around this.

There's so many groups that are getting let down. I mean, LGBTQ communities are let down by the police. Even when you're looking at white men, if they're working class white men, you know, Hillsborough, even minor strikes and the policing that was used in that, who is it serving? He protects those who are the elite, middle class. And what we need to also address is the police is usually joined by white work class. us people who already feel they've been let down by their own government.

And this is where the racism is really fuelled. I've seen that myself as well. Like with the vigil, everyone was like so shocked because I'm a white girl. That was where it was it's like, oh, she's a victim. Like that's how it gets perceived. The media spreads that as well. There are interviews where I've sat there for 30 minutes talking about, for example, how Sarah Everard was viewed as opposed to Bibba Henry and Nicole Smallman and things like that.

And they cut all the clip and all they show is me crying for a bit. That's the way the media works. And they work with police to make this narrative that they're just protecting us and they're looking after us and, oh, that was a blip. Oh, one rotten apple and that's just not the way it works. I want to talk about a recent story to do with policing, which is that this week, a metropolitan police officer, his name is Perry Lathwood or Lathwood. He was found guilty of assault after he wrongfully arrested

and man-handled a woman in Croydon in front of her young son and that happened last July. Jocelyn Agamang, a black woman, was asked to show that she had paid her fare by a bus inspector. The court heard that she did not hand over a ticket and it was at this point that P.C. Lathwood got involved. Footage of the arrest was widely circulated online showing that Jocelyn repeatedly asked the officer to let her go and insisted she'd not done anything wrong.

And it is quite disturbing footage. you know, Jocelyn's arm was grabbed, she was left with bruising, she was handcuffed, her young son is standing there crying, she was arrested, and then she was later de-arrested when it was proven that she had paid her bus fare. But what really struck us about the reporting of this incident is the framing of the bus fare. A lot of outlets ran with this kind of vindication storyline, like, see, she did pay her bus fare, as if the arrest would have been acceptable had she not paid the fare. Layla, I wonder, what does this media framing tell us about how we view the role of police in the UK? A black person, they need to prove that they're good people. That's

literally how this was framed. Arresting someone for not paying their bus fare. And the racist, you know, the racist narrative from the media, yeah, as you said, being vindicated. What? Because black people need to prove people of colour, marginalised groups, they need to prove that they paid for their bus in order to actually get some sympathy and empathy. As a black person, I still have anxiety if a bill or something, like a card or my air ticket, something is wrong. I always feel, oh my God, I need to prove that I haven't done nothing wrong. Fundamentally, always comes back to my gender and my race.

Layla, you hit the nail on the head, absolutely. And actually, as we're discussing this story, it really brings to the forefront. So many just bigotry and injustices, you know, the minimisation of that black woman's pain. I mean, he bruised her. Like, that must have been painful. Like, completely minimised that. And then, and then obviously the poverty aspect of it. You know, even if this woman didn't pay her bus fare,

like it's a small amount of money and we're in a cost of living crisis. Really, that's what we're spending our time doing? Yeah, you're arresting somebody for £1.75. In front of her child. That's trauma, not just her, but with the child and everybody. Imagine the people that were in that bus, the black women in that bus. It's a reminder, even for me to see that video, it was a reminder that I am going to be different to my white colleagues.

But Leila, do you think it's fair to say that was the point? As in that they want to have a chilling effect to the black community. They want to scare them. It's a reminder, yeah, you are different. You're constantly reminded all the time, all the time. If there was no video of this incident, because the people of Croydon, they rallied around and they started filming when they saw that the arrest was becoming more violent.

If there was no video, do we think that this PC would have been convicted? No. But I'm going to be honest, no. I mean, we've seen even with the ones that are recorded, not just here in the UK, but if you look at the case in the US, they still, it's very hard still convict. So imagine when there's no camera. And what does that tell us about the power of intervention and the power of social media? I mean, Patsy, your photo was everywhere. Yeah, I mean, yeah, my photo is everywhere.

The video of me being arrested was everywhere. But we had to fight for two years in a court in a very privileged position to be able to fundraise for legal help. And in the end, we didn't win. We had to settle because we were so exhausted. Going through legal proceedings, you can't tell your story. So for two years, we couldn't say what happened to us. And then, I hate, I get choked up every time it's so bad.

but it's very infuriating to see that we went through something that was recorded everywhere and then the media can write whatever they want and it doesn't have to be fact-checked actually and the police can say whatever they want one police officer said oh one of the hijackers in quotation marks because they think we hijacked the vigil we weren't I was putting a candle down

this one woman police officer said oh one of the hijackers said that I should be raped and murdered That was my friend. She didn't say that. She said, imagine if you had been raped and murdered. How can you not stand here with us and join in? They twist it to make it a certain narrative.

And they did that for two years. And they still are not held accountable. And that was just one event. There's so many events. And each time they go, we've got a new chief of the police. He's going to implore radical reform and change. They do that every like a couple of years just to alleviate public pressure. Well, after Perry Lathwood, this PC's guilty verdict,

the Met Police tweeted that they acknowledge the significant impact of this incident. And then they follow that up with, we will continue to support the officer and our workforce, ensuring officers have the confidence to act decisively and make arrests when they believe they have the powers to do so. I mean, Layla, does this portray the officer as a victim rather than Jocelyn, the woman who was arrested. It's, you can't make this up.

It's insane. But I also understand why they do it because they need to protect themselves. It's like we're taking accountability with something, with a narrative that suits us best, where we don't look like we're racist or aggressive. Because, you know, for me, this is not just about racism. Also, we need to address the issue around mental health.

Because I can't imagine, by the way, being a police officer where I'm seeing violence, murders, all the time. and not being impacted by it. When they're saying, you know, how do we ensure the police officers do their job properly? Actually, having mental health access for the police officers, I think that's going to make such a big difference because what I'm seeing over and over again,

these are people with serious mental health issues and they're violent now. I think it has to be in that approach or otherwise, we're going to be stuck in the same cycle with the police. I think just defunded, if I'm honest. Yeah, so this is interesting actually because Leila, you're speaking from what I'm gathering that you do believe that reform is possible.

Reform is only possible, but we have to change the whole system. The current one is not working. You can only reform something by addressing why the other system does not work. I think we need to stop pretending it's working. So for me, it's not necessarily, I'm not using the word defunding,

but actually get rid of the system and policing has to be addressed in a whole different way. For me, policing is supporting, coming in to support the most marginalised, you know, women and girls, you know, the LGBTQ plus community, you know, ethnic minorities. But to do that, the system has to be done in a whole different way. If we're training police officers from scratch, it wouldn't be the system that we have today. Do you agree, Patsy? I think it's tricky because for me, I always did think, you know, we need radical reform.

Like you said, the whole system needs to change. but I think unfortunately that system is interlinked with a lot of other things like capitalism for example and so I think unless the UK is a whole change and that's a big thing to change you know but I do believe if we did defund the police you know we have things like neighbourhood watches we have things in place that aren't police where we're protecting each other anyway and okay say you have police for like major violent crimes or something where they actually do the work or do detective work or something but defunding the police would also mean that we could put that funding into communities where they're teaching kids about this stuff teaching them what

they need to know from an early age to stop these violent men even being in the police you know because it stops it from the outset but it's a big is a big thing so I think optimistically or realistically you know we have to hope for reform I think in some way but I just I'm getting my Irish citizenship. I mean, I want to get out of it, to be honest. Perhaps it's on a plane. Yeah, see you. Peace out, guys. Peace out. This week alone, there are three police officers that we know of,

appearing in court for offences ranging from misconduct to rape. In January last year, Sir Mark Rowley, Met Police Commissioner, said two or three met police officers per week are expected to appear in court on criminal charges in the coming weeks and months. I've worked in a bunch of London-based newsrooms as a journalist, and every week I would see and report on like another court case of a former or current police officer appearing in court charged with some form of violence, often violence against women. There's three of these cases, you know, happening right now. And I wonder, are we just becoming desensitized to seeing these cases in the media? Are we becoming desensitized to police and state violence?

desensitized, we've just become conditioned to it. I literally gasped when I heard two or three met police officers per week. Actually, that statistic is shocking and I'm not convinced that people know that statistic. And actually when you think about it like accountability

have we ever seen it? It doesn't exist. And how can you have trust? Because we're talking about trust in the police. It's been eroded. Well, how can you have trust if there's no accountability? It simply is not happening. And it's just, yeah. Yeah. The police at the vigil have been promoted since. Have they? Wow.

That's it in a nutshell, doesn't it mean? You can't make this up. Like I keep saying, like, if you're a violent person who's racist, why wouldn't you not go into the police if this is the outcome? You're actually going to be promoted for your views. What type of person applies for a job that is for controlling people? When you put a uniform on, you wave a little card and you can do whatever you want to that person.

Come on. By the way, you know, with my work in being one of the least, of lead activists in the anti-FGM movement. I work with amazing, amazing police officers who really wanted to make change. And it makes me sad that the bigger system doesn't address these real issues. I worked with some amazing police officers

who really took care of the survivors at the time who came forward, really making sure they were looked after. But even in that situation, I could see how they were struggling to get certain things done. Like if I use the anti-FGM work, The police hardly funds anything, even though it's one of the worst forms of child abuses.

Well, funding is, I'm glad you mentioned that word because I happen to read, a long read in the Guardian where they were talking about a review that had been done by an outside specialist in rape cases and prosecuting rape cases. And they talked about how terrible the police treat these things, you know, the terrible conviction, right, even just little things like, you know, rape kits being kept in the fridge next to sandwiches. And just that one of the things, I mean, there were so many takeaways from that. But one of the things they mentioned was that like people with experience were leaving the force. And then you had loads of unexperienced people that had no training. And essentially they just did not want to pay for it. They didn't want to give more money to bridge that gap. So to skill those people.

Now, putting any, you know, assertions about those people's character aside, justice costs money. Do we believe that this government or even any of our current? options really give enough of a doubt like put your money where your mouth is right like do we actually believe that it can be achieved i just don't think that there is a political party in this country that would throw their weight behind defund or abolish the police because it's it would be seen as political suicide to them i don't know i i guess i i suppose maybe the biggest question that i'm left with is we've established here in this conversation

the reasons why we don't trust the police we've touched on the media that is not really helping us to trust the police and then we've spoken about radical change are there like any small steps towards that radical change is there anything that like we the public can be doing now? Yeah I think so

I mean so you've already got organisations in groups that are trying to tackle this sort of thing so Sissas Uncut have bystander training things like that there's a lot of things that you can do to help other people who are being unlawfully arrested or something's happening to them with the police, I think that's really important that when someone's arrested as well,

don't always believe the rhetoric that, you know, if you got arrested, you must have done something wrong. That is never the definite case. So I'd always challenge that and look after people that are being affected by police. I've actually just begun setting up a charity myself called SafetyNet, which is for activists mainly, that helps with legal aid, whether it's you're being intimidated by police or you've been harassed or assaulted by police, something like that.

We also have a section for therapy, for burnout, things like that. And then we have a media team because I know full well, social media is scary. Some people don't want to be in the public eye. And that should have been a choice for me and it should be a choice for anyone. Layland, closing thoughts. Public outrage is okay. I mean, we have every reason to be mad and enraged right now. So that's okay.

We should be. And I think that's, I guess that's when they were here, us, right? In order to take action, I always say, please support local organisations who are really working with survivors of violence, whether you donate money to them. And if you don't have money, that's not, you know, support comes in so many ways, you know, volunteer for that organisation, you know, providing with resources, connect them to other donors if you can. So it's really important to support local organisations, because those are really the people who make a massive difference in these spaces. From having this conversation, like I think there are reasons to be hopeful, not least, because of people like Leila and people like Patsy. You know, I think we all agree that radical reform is what's required. And just even having that consensus is brilliant. Like, I don't know if 20 years ago there was this level of consensus that what is needed needs to be radical. That's something. That's green shoots of something. And how we get there, what that methodology is, you know, we'll continue to have conversations.

but good that we're having them, definitely. Something that I'm thinking about just having this is that, you know, the role of the media. And I remember a while ago when I was working at The Guardian, the Turner Prize winning artist Le Bainer Hamid came in and she was part of her work. She looked at old newspapers and she essentially did like a kind of race audit.

Like how many were positive or how many were negative and she divided it up by ethnicity. And so what you found with black British people was 50% negative related to crime and stereotypical coverage. And then the other 50% was positive, but namely only in entertainment and sports. Where are all those other positive stories? Where do they fit?

And does that contribute to an environment where police can take advantage of that community? Because their humanity is constantly under question. Their community is constantly being brought into disrepue. You know, it's definitely, as a journalist, I'm like, right, tell better stories too. Tell more positive stories. Tell different stories.

And just before we let you both go, where can people follow you and do you have anything to plug? Yeah, Twitter's my main one because I set my Instagram to private when it all happened, so I have like no followers on Instagram. Oh yeah, follow me on Instagram, please.

My ad is like Patsy E. Stevenson from a middle name and buy my book when it comes out. Actually, don't buy it. No, I'll release it for free. Don't worry, don't buy it. But just look out for it and then have it and then...

When is it out? When is it out? Has it been written? It's hard to write a book. But yeah, no, as soon as it's out, I'll let everyone know. And Layla, where can people follow you? Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, or all the main social media is at Leila Hussein.

One thing I actually would love to ask is actually the Dalai project, we're really struggling at the moment. But I'm asking your audience if they can go to the Dalia project link. where there's a donation button to donate to those clinics. Because we have a long list, a waiting list of women who really need emotional support. And you can imagine in this current situation in the world, there needs to be better support. So, yeah. Thank you so much for joining us after the break.

We'll hear more from those critical voices that are missing in this conversation, the women who are speaking out about the unfair and illegal mistreatment at the hands of police. Welcome back to Media Storm. We just wanted to share some of the recent voices we've heard in the media speaking about this issue. In this next part, you'll hear from women about their views on the police and also from women who were former police officers who have now left the police force and why they did. I remember when I did leave. because it was a year after.

So I had to have around nine months of racist and sexist bullying, which was just really, really intense and obviously caused me to almost have a complete mental breakdown, took time off work, and then quite quickly it was clear that nothing was really going to happen. And, you know, it's quite well-known what the police do now in response to instance like that. They move people around. They don't, you know, people don't get stuck.

They sort of problematise the victim as opposed to the perpetrator. So I was subjected to all of that. For a long time, I was a bit of a pariah within the force. like no one wanted to work with me because I broke the, you know, the blue line of silence where we don't tell on other officers. And I remember looking in the mirror and I had the uniform on and, you know, people weren't being horrible to me anymore. And I looked at the mirror in the uniform and a thought, as anything actually changed? Does any of those issues that I flagged had they been addressed? And the answer was no. I could still see women being subjected to misogyny.

I could still see the issues that I'd raised around racism and nothing happening. I've gone through the entire complaint's procedure, I can see that it doesn't work. They have no voice to fight against it. I'd be more inclined to trust female police officers over male due to sort of stuff that's been in the media. As a lone female possibly driving home, if you were pulled by an officer, you'd think twice about stopping. In my experience, I've worked with a number of police officers who actually, I wouldn't

necessarily trust with a pen, let alone a taser. I actually saw how. The organisation treated my fellow black and Asian superintendent ranks and I saw how the organisation literally went after them one by one. There was genuine fear and the perception was it could be any one of us next. I was always looked at the lesser sex because I was female. I was told I only got into the unit because I was brown. It's a culture that's insular where you've got pockets

of quite horrific misogyny with sexism, with racism. I don't know if you've ever seen the program The Gladiators, where the contestant has to get past all these gladiators just to get to the finish line. I would say that I've had to push past Inmissible Gladiators at every rank. When they sit outside gorgling at females, young females, commenting on which ones they would like to, hit, shag, you know, sleep with.

It's wrong. The police aren't, I don't trust the police and I think there's a deep and well-founded mistrust of the policing system in general. We're not asking for more police, we're asking for better police, we're asking for prevention, education and safety. And that is the bare minimum that we can ask for, right?

At Media Storm, we always want to leave you with something to think about, something to talk about. As your little take home this week, I wanted to talk about a story that was kind of passed over. Last week, we spoke about the coverage of ULES and climate change in our news media, and there was a huge story this month about the climate. It was a shocking story in itself, but it shocked us because of just how little coverage it received. Here's the headline. government defeated in high court over climate plans. And here's the thing, that's one of the only headlines you would have seen on this story.

First, a summary of that story. A legal challenge against the government was brought by environmental groups, Friends of the Earth, client Earth, and not-for-profit campaign organisation, The Good Law Project. On the 3rd of May, the UK government was defeated in court for a second time because the evidence shows its policies will clearly fail to meet reduction. in greenhouse gas emissions, reductions they have committed to by law. And so the High Court ruled the government will now have to redraft this plan again.

This is front page news, right? Right? Well, no, it's more like page four news, which is where it appeared in a small bottom corner of the Financial Times weekend. So yeah, if you miss this story, I'm not surprised. The headline I read out earlier was from the BBC, who had one article on the story. It did sit on their homepage for a while, but not as the top story. Another outlet that published this story was The Guardian, Britain's climate action plan unlawful High Court rules.

And that's about it. We searched the front pages of papers, but they were all full of headlines about the local elections. And a non-cynical take could be that the local elections simply took precedent. But I have a sneaky suspicion that had there not been local elections, we still wouldn't have seen this story as front page news. So let us know. Did you see or hear this story anywhere? What do you think about it? Why do you think it was considered a small story? Are readers just not interested? Or is it something more sinister than that? You can email in to MediaStorm podcast at gmail.com or tweet Instagram TikTok at MediaStorm pod. Thank you for listening to this episode with our special guest host Coco Khan. Matilda will be back for next week's episode and then you'll hear Coco again in a couple of weeks' time.

Follow MediaStorm wherever you get your podcast so that you can get access to new episodes as soon as they drop. If you like what you hear, share this episode with someone and leave us a five-star rating and a review. It really helps more people discover the podcast and our aim is to have as many people as possible hear these voices. MediaStorm is an award-winning podcast produced by Helena Wadia and Matilda Mallinson. Katie Grant is the assistant producer and the music is by Samfire. You can follow us on social media at Matilda Mal at Helen O'Owadia and follow the show via at MediaStormPod. Listen and hit follow on Spotify.