Woman's Hour - 27/02/2025

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petruzzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme. Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2. And of the risks it will take to feel truly alive.

If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Just to say that for rights reasons, the music in the original radio broadcast has been removed for this podcast. Good morning. Welcome to the programme. Esther Gies's transgender daughter Brianna was murdered in February 2023 by two 15-year-olds. Esther has written a very raw and honest memoir about her own life and about the power of forgiveness. She's since become friends with the mother of one of the murderers. Esther will be joining me shortly. Also on the programme, singer-songwriter Rory's album Restoration has gone straight in at

number 10 in the UK charts. After writing successfully for others, she's finally got success under her own name in her 40s. And have you played paddle yet? It's described as a cross between tennis and squash, already big in Spain. It's played in about 130 countries and becoming very popular on these shores. Eloise Tate, one of GB's top women paddle players, will be here to tell us everything we need to know. And also this morning, I'd like to hear about the new sports and games you play in your own families. What are the quirky, made-up games, tournaments and challenges you've been playing for years? Have you created your own hybrid game? Do you have a specific game that you created to play in the car? I spy with a twist. Who am I with a special category? A card game so

complicated the rules keep evolving. Maybe the only rule is there are no rules. Whatever happens in your household get in touch and let me know. The text number is 84844. You can also email me by going to our website or contact the programme on WhatsApp. It's 03 700 100 444. That text number once again 84844. But first, just minutes ago, a long-awaited and fulsome independent review into the world of online pornography and its impact on all of us has been published by the government. The review called Creating a Safer World, the Challenge of Regulating Online Pornography, has been written by the conservative peer Baroness

Gabby Burton. It proposes outlawing, degrading, violent and misogynistic content, including making it illegal to possess or publish pornography showing women being choked during sex. The government has responded saying they want to interrogate the link between violent pornography online and dangerous behaviours offline and want to urgently ensure that law enforcement and prosecutors take all necessary steps to tackle what they call the disturbing harm. Well, the BBC's home editor Mark Easton joins me now to tell us more. Morning Mark. Good morning. What's the remit of this review? You've read it this morning? 200 pages? 200 pages, yes I have. I've

read every paragraph but this program has reported on the increasing concern there's been about online porn sites and indeed social media platforms which routinely post very violent highly misogynistic content which many would argue makes violence against women and girls more likely in the real world and also contributes to toxic masculinity And the mental health crisis among young people it's suggested. Now the last government commissioned as you say Baroness Gabby Burton to look at

what needed to be done to protect society from what is currently lawful but as I say potentially harmful and the new Labour government has said it's going to carefully consider the findings. So what are some of the main findings? Well as you said in your introduction, it recommends I think really a sea change in the way the state polices pornography online. It recommends banning a wide range of currently legal content. It makes the point that videos which would be considered too harmful for a certificate from the British Board of Film Classification offline in the real world, well that kind of content is easily

accessible online. So this review is urging ministers to give Ofcom sweeping new powers to police-borne sites that are deemed to be harmful. And as you say say it wants to outlaw degrading violent and misogynistic content including and specifically making it illegal to possess or distribute or publish pornography showing women being choked during sex. And as you said in your introduction we've just had a response from the government on that particular point and they describe that as a shocking finding of the way that graphic strangulation is becoming normalised in real life and it's clear from the statement and we'll get more later this morning that ministers are going to look at

whatever they can do urgently to try and prevent that kind of material appearing online at all. Yeah we've discussed it on this program actually. It's becoming more common with 38% of women aged 18 to 39 saying they've been choked during sex. So we're waiting to hear more about what the government will do about that this morning. We are. And it's interesting, in the report, Baroness Burton makes the point that that 38% comes from a BBC poll, I think done five, six years ago. Half of the women who said that that had happened to them were content for it to happen.

And she describes that as the nuance that we need to have. However, she believes and clearly it looks as though the government believes too that the generalized harm from this particular action is so great that actually we need to just ban it full stop. The world of online pornography is often described as the Wild West and often technology moves quicker than laws can. So what's being recommended in this regard? How can it be regulated? Well I think you're absolutely right. It's really difficult to see how you know a government in in the UK can police a porn site in California or wherever in the world. However we have the Online Safety Act

which is now law it's still chuntering its way through to the point where it's actually going to be put into practice but that already says that Ofcom the regulator would have the power if there was illegal content on their sites to fine websites 10% of their global revenue and in in extremis They could even take down the sites, you know stop them being available to anyone in the UK So they've already sort of talked about these kinds of powers. And I think what Baroness Burton is saying is, you know, that there are options here, but one option would be to give off comms similar powers for what might be described as currently legal but harmful content.

Clearly, there's going to be a debate about this. You know, there are many people who would worry about how far the state should go in policing what people do in the privacy of their own homes. And indeed, I'm sure many of the producers of the pornography would argue that this is done by consenting adults. However, it feels to me from the tone of what the government has already said and the power of the review and it is a It is a really shocking piece, you know shocking findings in the review That the UK government will be looking at ways to try and really come down hard on this

Well speaking on the today program the Secretary of State for Science Innovation and Technology Peter Kyle praised the review It's an important piece of work and I want to engage with it on those terms. We have powers that are coming in to statute, into enforcement this year. So for example, in March content providers need to take down illegal content. Later this year in June, content providers and content creators must make sure that all of their content is age appropriate and there'll be very very heavy fines if it's not. So we do have powers to act in ways that we didn't even weeks ago and we need to I need to understand how those powers will influence the behaviour

right across the social media landscape. That's the Secretary of State for Science Innovation and Technology Peter Carroll speaking on the Today programme this morning. So, Mark, has the government responded? How likely are they to act on this review? Well, as I say, yes, they have responded. They've said that further actions needed to address the review's shocking finding that graphic strangulation is increasingly appearing in pornography, despite being illegal. And that key point, it's being normalised in real life and the phrase they use is is they're going to urgently ensure that platforms, law enforcement and prosecutors take all necessary steps to

tackle this disturbing harm. Any time scale? No, but I mean these things do take time because you know you have to you are going to have to give those people have this content fair warning and ensure that you know any any kind of sort of legal action that they want to take against this kind of proposal has the opportunity to be heard but I think what really strikes me about the review is that business of how you know what could be described as a role playing, then transfers into real life.

And it relates how a 14-year-old boy asked a teacher how to choke girls during sex and suggests that actually we've created, as it says, such a confusing world for our sons. So it's not just about, and hugely importantly, about reducing violence against women and girls, it's also about dealing violence against women and girls. It's also about dealing with toxic masculinity and dealing with the, you know, as they say, the subterranean online world of painography that shows young boys that anything goes.

Mark Easton, thank you very much. Joining me now is Fiona Vera Gray, Professor of Sexual Violence at London Metropolitan University. Fiona, welcome to the programme. You contributed to the review. What did you make of the findings? I did. I mean, I'm really happy to see the report out and I was really happy to hear your speaker just talking then, feeling quite positive about the government response. I don't feel very positive about the government response. I think we really need to have some public pressure on that. The report itself has been almost buried, right?

So it was under an embargo until 10 a.m., which is great for women's hour. And I'm really glad you're covering it first up. You know, you're really taking the ball and running with it. But it misses the morning news cycle. It was released on a day where we know the evening news cycle and tomorrow morning is gonna be taken up with whatever is going to happen

in the state's loader room today. And so far the government response, which we just heard, is really focused on protecting children and talking about what is currently illegal. It's missing the point. It's missing the point about what this report is actually saying. We know that this content is harmful. We've been telling the government and responding to consultation after consultation for decades, trying to tell them that this is where porn is going if we don't do anything.

I'm old enough now, I'm 44 now, I've been doing this work since I was 24, 20 years, I remember in 2013 David Cameron announcing pretty much what is the first recommendation of this report, which is that there's going to be parity between offline regulation of pornography and online regulation of pornography. 12 years later nothing has changed in terms of regulation. But what has changed is the content. I mean, the content of pornography is almost unrecognizable, really, to even what it was 10 years ago. We've got things like Nudify apps.

We've got generative AI being used to create deep fake pornographic images of women. I don't want to know what's going to happen in another 20 years if we don't act, in another 10 years if we don't act. We've got a government that's made a really ambitious pledge to halt violence against women and girls. I was really pleased as well to hear to your speaker talking about locating this in terms of violence against women and girls. That's what this is. It is implicated in endorsing violence, encouraging violence, and excusing

violence. You know, we have seen the ways in which pornography depicting strangulation has been used as a defence by men who were choosing to strangle women in real life. And we need action. We need action now. And we need the government, like you just asked, to give us a really clear timeline of what they're going to do and when they're going to do it. So explain what this review does and how it's taking it forward. There are 32 recommendations. What are some of them that will make a difference, do you think? I think some of the biggest ones are around looking at things like incest, so-called incest pornography. So pornography depicting, not necessarily showing, but depicting, representing this kind of fictionalised representation, simulation of incest and strangulation.

So both of those already could in some ways be classed as unlawful if we've got an extreme pornography act and if that was put in place in the way that it could be. So for example, in the extreme pornography offence, it is extreme pornography is classed as anything that would create, I can't remember the wording right now, but it's like life-threatening injury, which strangulation we have learned and you have covered on this program is creating life-threatening injury to women and girls.

But currently that's not the way that that law is being mobilized. So I think those two things, very importantly, strangulation and the incest, actually taking incest pornography, simulated incest pornography into and under the scope of what Ofcom are looking at under the online safety app, I think is very, very important. The banning of Nutafy apps, it's just, it's absolutely beyond belief that someone has used technology to create this. You know, we should be more shocked, I think,

as a society than we are, but also that these apps are being used predominantly, overwhelmingly, by men and boys to take images of women and girls, some in public life, but some that they know in their private life, and to purposely try to degrade, humiliate them through Photoshopping them, deep faking them into pornography and then sometimes using that in real life in order to blackmail them. The

fact that this has been created, it's been freely available and we haven't actually done anything to stop it is just actually outrageous when you think about it. You mentioned apps and creative and technology. Are we creating laws for today that won't work by the time they're enacted because technology moves so fast? We need to future proof the law. So we need to be smarter and create laws that are big enough to encapsulate what is coming. But also law change and legislative change needs to be one part of a much bigger conversation, which is about social change, cultural change. And that's where porn fits in. You know, pornography, the pornography content that we have today is part of a conducive context of violence against women and girls and

unless we do something to combat that, doing more sex education in schools, changing lots of laws, doing all of this other work in lots of other areas is really not going to actually on the ground change the situation for women and girls today when we have so much media content through pornography that is just glorifying and eroticising violence against us. But you wrote a book Women on Porn which detailed the experiences of 100 women and their views on porn. How do you think this review, if taken on board, could change the cultural landscape and attitudes then? Yeah, it'll be really interesting.

So one of the things, I spoke to a hundred women and women have such different experiences, right? And women listeners here will have such different experiences. There were women who had used pornography and have found that pornography had actually helped them in their sexual lives. There were women that absolutely hated it. There was a vast range in between. But what a lot of women spoke to me about was feeling very conflicted because the current landscape of most free pornography that they're accessing is essentially

about humiliating and degrading women. And women were talking about feeling conflicted because they are being aroused by this material. This material has been created to arouse human beings and it is arousing women at the same time as really forming this sense of conflict, this unease about how am I being aroused by something that I can see and can understand is so harmful to women. But the one thing that united all 100 women is that they wanted there to be some action. All of them were talking about they actually can't believe some of the content that they've seen, some of the content that they've watched, but more some of the content they've just

seen on these sites that haven't watched and feeling outraged that this stuff is on there is completely lawful and actually there's nothing that they can do other than some sites you can report it to the site but the site is not removing it and so feeling completely disempowered about scene material, women talking about having seen material where they think that the woman has been raped and feeling unable to do anything active about it. So my hope is really that I think the public appetite for change in this area has changed. I think we've moved away from concerns about privacy, concerns about government censorship, to actually understanding this is about private companies profiting from what we can now demonstrate is social harm and we need to in the same way that we regulate all industries, we need to no

longer just stand back and go we're not going to regulate because we're not quite sure how to do it. We need to take steps to do it to prevent where we're going to end up in 10 years. I can't predict where what's happening with all of the moves with generative AI and all of that is going to go, but we know it's already being used to create new forms of violence against women and girls or to make existing forms easier to make them more accessible to men and women. You wonder why AI can't be used to go work the other way, you know, work for positive change, like detects the things that shouldn't be there. Exactly, and it is in some ways, you know, and this is what we need. This is some of the stuff that shouldn't be there. Exactly and it is in some ways you know and this is what we need this is some of the stuff that's in this report as well as this idea of safety by design that

actually there needs to be there needs to be more women around the table there needs to be more of a focus on how we can use this to prevent social harm rather than how can we just use it to make more profit for companies. Fiona, very great thank you so much for speaking to me this morning and to the home editor as well. Mark Easton, thank you. 84844 is the number to text. Now, a bit of a teaser here. Stormzy and David Beckham are big fans. Actor Eva Longoria owns her own team and it's said to be the fastest growing sport in the world. I'm talking about paddle.

It's a cross between squash and tennis. I'm talking about paddle. It's a cross between squash and tennis. It's a game now played apparently in about 130 countries and its fans have high hopes for it to be at the Olympics by 2032. So what about the women in the game? Players and on the business and money-making side. Well sitting across from me in the studio now is Astrid Tams, MD of Spain's paddle tournament, the Hexagon Cup and with a racket and a ball or just a racket in hand is Eloise Tate, GB's number five women's paddle player who'll be competing in this year's Britain Paddle Tour which kicks off in London tomorrow. Welcome both of you. Eloise I think we should start by just explaining to the uninitiated people who have no idea what is it.

Yeah so I guess the best way to describe paddle would be a mix of tennis and squash. Tennis in the sense that you have the net in the middle of the court and the service boxes and the scoring is is the same so you have 15 to 40 and then three sets usually depending on the tournament but then you throw in the squash element with it being surrounded by glass walls. So you can play off the walls, but the ball has to hit the ground first. And that's pretty much what paddle is. One bounce.

One bounce. Yeah. Okay. And anyone can play. Yeah, absolutely. Why do you love it so much? I mean, I loved it when I first started playing because I think it's just such a low barrier to entry. It's super easy to pick up. The court is relatively small in comparison to tennis.

It's just super fun to get started with and have a rally. It keeps the ball in with having the balls. But then on a higher level when I started to play tournaments it was just fun to start traveling with the sport and like meeting all these new people. And for me coming from a hockey background it's been really fun to just like learn new skills and... And you're good at it! Which is always a way to enjoy something! I'm okay, still lots of room for improvement.

Astrid, you live in the UK but you're from Spain where paddle is huge. How massive is it over there and how much of it is part of Spanish culture? Yes, so currently in Spain paddle is the second biggest sport being played just after football, so over basketball or tennis and even more in Madrid it's the most popular sport on a player basis so I think that gives you already an indicator of what paddle is and where it can get to and I think it's absolutely part of Spanish culture. I started playing 30 years ago. So it was always there when you were a kid?

Well, 30 years ago everyone who started racket sports would start with tennis, as I think it's everywhere. And the tennis club where I was playing built the first paddle court and then we all started playing paddle there. What's the origins of it? Where does it start? How did it start? I think it started in Argentina. I thought it was Mexico. Well,? I think it started in Argentina. I thought it was Mexico. I'm sure you know that better.

A mystery. It is a little bit. I heard a story that it started in a guy's backyard who had a tennis court on a hill and his kids wanted to play but the ball kept running down the hill so he put glass walls in and it became paddle. I don't know if that's misinformation. No, I'm sure you're right. I only know as you're saying, it's definitely part of the Spanish culture. You now have, I think, 70% of all the top 100 professional paddle players come from Spain but that's due to everyone being able to enter the sport on a grassroot level.

So tell us about the tournament called the Hexagon Cup. What's it all about? What's it like? You call it a Spanish tournament but we always say Hexagon is a worldwide tournament. Stand correct. A worldwide tournament. Yeah, no. It's true that this year we just had our second edition in Madrid. So Hexagon Cup started two years ago with the aim of growing and supporting the growth of padel worldwide. So, it's a team-based tournament. We have eight teams. They're all celebrity-owned.

So, one owner is Andrii Mare, which is the English team. They won the first edition. Now this year, Cuna Bueno and Messi has another one, which won this year, and we have all celebrity owners, Eva Longoria and so on. And it's a team base because you have all the top 20 men worldwide participating, woman, and then the next generation category, which this year I was talking to Eloise,

and we were lucky to have her there watching as well. We're women, so we had four women and two men competing. And it was very interesting to see because this year the tournament was won by the Kun, Agüero and Messi's team but the point who gave them this was the under 18 category of women who made them win this 1.2 million prize money that we have. So there's a lot of money involved? Yes. So the way we just got to as Exagon to an

agreement with the Premier Paddle and the Paddle International Player Federation, Paddle Federation to make sure that we all together grow the ecosystem and the business of paddle worldwide. But yeah, definitely to attract players to make it a big entertainment Yeah, definitely to attract players to make it a big entertainment and a big sport entertainment industry as we say, we need to have as well the money part involved. And how much have you seen it grow with women joining? Let's just explain how the sort of division between men and women. Do people play separately? Is it mixed doubles?

No, no, we were talking about it as well. Paddle is a, it's not been traditionally a men's sport who turned into afterwards having women in entering as potentially could be football or rugby. So currently 40% of all players worldwide are women as well for paddle. Eloise said it's easy it has an easy entrance for women to as well play and that makes that both from a prize money and tournaments or... Are they winning the same kind of money? Yes, like for us in Exxon Cup they have the same prize money. So yeah, Eloise, money generated seems quite good by the game so far. Yeah, I'd say look it's still pretty heavily sponsorship based.

That's where most of the let's's say, consistent money comes into it to an athlete. But the prize money has been improving and we've seen that definitely worldwide and also just on a local level. For example, the BPT that we have starting this weekend, I'm really excited to be their first female ambassador and it's thanks to them and tours like them, generating more tours like them bringing in generating more cash prizes and bringing in amazing level of players from across Europe to come and be part of it and And so it does matter, you know, people are spending so much money to travel and to train You do kind of need some kind of reward at the end of it

And how much growth have you seen with women in particular since you picked up the sport? Quite a lot. I wouldn't say I've necessarily noticed it's been like a jump necessarily just of women. It's such a boom in the UK. It's almost like everyone I speak to is like, oh Paddle, yeah I just started playing that or not one gender. But I have definitely seen an increase in women's pairings joining competitions and that's been really fun. I'm hoping that will continue. I wonder how something goes from being like nobody was talking about it. You know, it was like yesterday and then all of a sudden everyone's playing it.

And of course, there's some big names behind us. You've heard Stormzy, David Beckham, Ronaldo, Andy Murray, you've mentioned that Eva Longoria, she has a team. What impact can that kind of publicity have and how important is it to grow a sport? Definitely. So the ecosystem in a sport goes from here. Like the most important thing are the heroes, what I call, which you are. So the. And people need to be able to see it, so you need to have tournaments that are broadcasted. Once you have tournaments that are broadcasted and people know the players, then this attracts sponsorship, this attracts broadcasting money, and that makes all this circle of having a sport grow. In Paddle, you have the additional amateur side, where at

the Exagon Cup we had 30,000 people and I would say 95% who were sitting there watching have played paddle because of how easy it is to play. Is it for everybody though or is it still quite, is it an elite sport? I'm saying is it is it just for posh people in fancy gyms or can anyone pick up a racket and play this? No, 100% not. I think it started like that, and in the UK it's like that because of the prices of the courts. In Spain, it started like that as well. Now you have courts everywhere,

and you would much rather see tennis as a posh sport than paddle. I think it depends on the prices of the courts. I see now that you have lots of local tennis clubs which are starting to incorporate paddle courts, and there you see people playing. So the idea is that the fan base is as big as possible that cannot be based on a Porsche sports entry price I don't know if you see it yeah totally it's diversifying it's just the ecosystem as it is now the sports

growing and as soon as it spreads out so will I wouldn't say that the players like I don't think right now it's elitist but as you said it's just the price of the court thing you know you could go into central London and you're paying you're sharing between four of you like a hundred hundred and twenty pounds for a court but then you could go up north and it sort of reflects the area that you're in that the price is almost half that so yeah if yeah if you do want to get started for cheaper get in your car. Get in your car drive north. If you can get a court Eloise that's the point. It's very difficult because it's becoming so popular. So very quickly for

any women's hour listeners or presenters for that matter are keen to pick up a racket how can we get involved? I think the best thing to do is just start researching what clubs you have. Email them, ask availability. Most of them have booking online. My advice is I think most courts open their bookings about a week in advance. So sometimes you just have to be on your phone and ready a week before you want your court time. But definitely just email the people who are in charge of the clubs and the courts.

Yes, you have Playtomic which is a booking court company as well that you can download the app and then see availability in courts. And we are entering the amateur league business which then you can start and you can as well compete on an amateur level which is available in England as well, which is always interesting. Well it will be interesting to see whether you can get it to the Olympics. Yes. Yes, thank you both for coming in. The good news is that anybody I've spoken to who has played it has said it's brilliant fun.

That's what seems to be what everyone says about it. We love it. Yeah, it definitely is. It's a social sport. Thank you both for coming in to enlighten us on paddle. Thank you Astrid and thank you Eloise. Thank sport. Thank you both for coming in to enlighten us on paddle. Thank you Astrid and thank you Louise. Thank you. Thank you.

84844 lots of you getting in touch about various different things. Hello woman's hour the foggy foggy in Shropshire place broncas every Christmas is Conkers but with sprouts sprankers of course now are you the first in your family to do something? Perhaps you were the first woman to take over the family business or pick up a hobby that only your male relatives had done. We want to hear your stories ahead of an upcoming discussion on the programme. So tell us the norms or taboos you broke, what it was like doing it and how it made you feel. Get in touch in the usual way. You can contact us via our website. You can text the program on 84844 or you can WhatsApp the program on

03 700 100 444. So have you been the first in your family for something and tell us all about it. I'm Natalia Melman-Petruzzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks it will take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore.

Extreme peak danger. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts. Now, Esther Gies, transgender daughter Brianna, was murdered in February 2023 by two 15-year-olds in a park in Warrington. The killers were radicalised online and 16-year-old Brianna herself was harmfully addicted to her phone despite all of her mum's efforts to limit her usage. Esther has now become a campaigner for the safer use of smartphones for children and for mindfulness in schools. She also made the decision to forgive her child's killers and is now friends with one of their mothers. Esther joins me now

to talk about her memoir, Under a Pink Sky. Esther, thank you for coming to Woman's Hour. It's been just two years since Brianna's death. How are you and how's the family? Do you know, I'm quite well thank you and the family's doing really well and focusing on something so positive. We've created a community interest company in Brianna's name and both me and my daughter Alicia work for that company now. But hearing you speak about what happened to Brianna, like that just, it makes me feel so emotional. So yeah, I think it never gets easier being introduced to a show and listening to like what's actually, the reality about what's actually happened to my daughter. Yeah.

Why did you want to write the book? So I wanted to write the book because I have experienced so much in my life and Brianna also had experienced so much in her short life and we both struggled with our mental health and I really wanted to be able to put something out there that shows that, do you know what, life is messy, we are going to have things to deal with and we will go through situations that we're going to struggle with and to also kind of convey that hope that even though you might be going through something difficult at this time, there is hope and you will get through it. So I really wanted to kind of empower people really with the book.

It's called Under a Pink Sky, why pink? So pink was Brianna's favourite colour, absolutely everything was pink, a bedroom was pink, her clothes were pink, her pens were pink and after Brianna passed away we, so it was February and soon after the cherry blossoms came into bloom and we've got lots of cherry blossom trees in my local area and they were really, like honestly they were they bloomed bigger than ever and also we noticed lots and lots of pink skies and I like it gave me comfort to kind of think that that was Brianna sending me a sign that she was okay, that she was in a better place now. And yeah, so every time I see a pink sky,

I instantly think about Brianna. You mentioned there that you've written about your own troubled past as well as Brianna's in the book, and it is unflinchingly honest. You talk about your own drug addiction, social services being called on you by your own mum when your children were small. Why lay it all bare? Do you know I think for me it was important to be brutally honest because like as I say that I think with social media and especially now we kind of only show the best parts of us and like that perception of having a perfect life is like so prevalent at the moment and life isn't perfect and we're not perfect and even though like now I

seem like I've got my head screwed on and I've got things together and I've been able to to deal with a horrific situation it's not always been like that and I have really struggled and due to not dealing with my own mental health issues that's what led to going down like a slippery slope of drug abuse and like really hitting rock bottom. And I wanted to explain this because I later in life found mindfulness and I really do credit mindfulness as to really saving my life in like such a period at such a terrible terrible period in my life losing Brianna and if I'd have lost Brianna earlier on in my life it would have been a completely different story because I didn't have that mental resilience I didn't have

empathy towards myself and and yeah I think it's it's so important that we invest in our young people and we focus on wellbeing and even if we focus on wellbeing and have mindfulness at the root and we can really instil resilience and empathy and compassion in children, then maybe, if me and Brianna had both had access to this, maybe we wouldn't have gone down the route that we we both found ourselves. Yeah, yeah, it's very compassionate book. You know, there's a lot there's a lot in there. You discuss at length the role that smartphones played in Brianna's teenage life. Tell us more about that. Brianna definitely had chronic phone addiction and I can very confidently say that because I myself have been a drug addict and I could see all of the signs and symptoms of addiction. She was isolated in her room, she was obsessed with her phone.

There were times when I tried to take her phone off her and we ended up with holes in the walls. There's a time in Brianna's life that and we ended up with holes in the walls. There's a time in Brianna's life that I go into some depth about in the book where she was so she was she was accessing self-harm sites and she was accessing eating like things that were encouraging her to have eating disorder and she ended up losing that much weight that she was actually hospitalized and during that time she didn't have any access to Wi-Fi she she only had text messages and this in this time in my life was so difficult I was I was at a loss I didn't know what to do and I was

so upset that she'd gone to hospital but it turned out to be like the most amazing like week in those years because I had my child back. Yeah it's heartbreaking when you describe that. Explain more how you felt you got her back when she was actually in hospital. So she would she would text me saying that she missed me and what time I'm coming to visit her because I went to visit her every day and then when I would go she would it would just be Brianna like she didn't have any makeup on she was like really comfortable and it was just it was just Brianna completely stripped back and we would like have a cuddle I'd just prop her up

in the bed and make sure that she was comfortable and we would have like proper conversations and she was just so loving again whereas I like I think the most tragic thing was that when she did come home and that she was so looking forward to coming home and she ate all of the food that she should have done she got up to she gained weight and she was able to leave and as soon as she came home and she was attached to the Wi-Fi she went straight up to her room and I lost her again. How did it make you feel then as a mother not having that level of control? You do feel completely out of control and this is one reason why I've

been campaigning so much about more protection for young people online because I think a lot of parents that I've spoken to feel the same as well that we've kind of lost our children in this online world and it's just not something that we can really safeguard like despite having parental controls on wi-fi and on even on phones like once you reach a certain age they want to have social media once they're over the age of 13 there's no argument against that and you just cannot like you have disappearing messages like on even WhatsApp and Snapchat, the messages disappear.

How are we supposed to manage that? How are we supposed to safeguard our children? What scared you most about her online presence? I was really, really concerned about who she was speaking to. And at the time I didn't realize that she was actually accessing the eating disorder sites and the self-harm sites.

I only found that out after her death but I was concerned about who she was actually speaking to online and it was one time when I actually woke up in the middle of the night to go to the, sorry, to go to the loo, and Brianna was in her room with a light on, but she had the light on in the room and I went to open the door and she was sat like behind the door with her phone so that nobody could get into her room with a light on, but she had the light on in her room and I went to open the door and she was sat like behind the door with her phone so that nobody could get into her room. And that really did like shock me and I was, I ended up emailing like a really supportive, lovely teacher that I was working with at Birchwood High School, the school that Brianna went to. And I said that I am really concerned I will come home one day and find both of my children raped and murdered because I just didn't know who

she had access to and she just didn't have that kind of risk aversion where she like I would tell her you don't know who you're speaking to online and don't give the address out don't it but teenagers young so, so young. In the book you also describe how one of the children who murdered Brianna had gained access to the dark web where she sought out real violence to watch. Is enough changing about what children can see on their phones? I don't think that... I don't think so no. Do you know we are taking a step in the right direction and there is so much currently happening and there's so many discussions around

how we protect our children online. And I think that this is, it's a really great step in the right direction. It's not moving fast enough. And like meanwhile, whilst we're waiting for like the online safety act to go through and all of these other things like how many children are actually being harmed and I would go as

far to say now that I do really believe that we should follow Australia and ban under 16s from social media because I think it is an absolute cesspit. The book Esther is also at the front it says a mother story of love loss and the power of forgiveness and you have a remarkable capacity for forgiveness Brianna's killers were sentenced last February to 22 and 20 years in prison Neither expressed remorse, but you have since become friends with one of their mothers. How and why? um, do you know during the trial I saw

How the other families were impacted by what their children had done. And I saw the grief that they were going through as well as me. And yeah, like that one day, that one tragic, horrific day that was completely senseless has just impacted so many other people's lives and it wasn't only me that lost my child on that day, it was the parents as well of the other children and it kind of went like we didn't reach out straight away and I think I did a statement and then they did a statement and then we eventually met up and it was important for me to meet her because we can tell stories to ourselves about the way that people are and I wanted to understand how this woman was and she's actually a really lovely normal woman.

What was that like, Esther, that first meeting? It was emotional, it was really emotional and I really do take my hat off to her because I think it shows complete bravery coming to meet me. But yeah, I think that we're both glad that we have met. You explain in the book why forgiveness was the key for you trying to survive this unthinkable event because you yourself had been forgiven. Mm-hmm yeah and so there was like I was a bit of a naughty child. Yeah you explain how you bullied as well I mean you put it all out there

you're very honest. And this is how children are nobody nobody's perfect. And there was a lovely girl that I went to primary school with and she, like I used to pick on her a little bit, like she was kind of below me in the pecking order, so to speak. And I was cruel to her on a number of occasions. And as I grew up, like we didn't go to high school together

and as I grew up, it was something that I couldn't like let go of. It was something that I kept thinking about and I ended up reaching out to her in my early 20s and having a chat with her and kind of apologising for the way I treated her and like she showed me forgiveness and the way that it made me feel like that kind of weight off my shoulders, and I think also probably for her as well to know that, like, I didn't mean it. Like it was, so yeah, I think that the power of forgiveness is absolutely remarkable and I know how much it's impacted me in my life. And I think that if we could all maybe, and forgiveness doesn't mean that you're right in wrongs like I forgive the children that took Brianna's life away

from me but that's for me it's not for them it's because I don't want to carry that hate in my heart and yeah I think that we could all I think people will find that really hard to understand. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think it's for us, I imagine, it's probably for selfish reasons really. It's for me. It's so that I'm not carrying that hate around. It's like, I think carrying hate is like,

I don't know whether this is, I can't remember where I got this quote from and it's probably really incorrect, but it's like carrying hot coals Like it's only you that it's harming isn't harming the people that have done you wrong. Yeah, and Yeah, only corroding you. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you're right about that Brianna's transition at 14 was actually one of the easiest parts of her short life explain. Yeah, so Brianna struggled with mental health for like two years prior to her death and we had quite a lot going on at that time and during like when she was 14 she wanted to

transition and she came out to her sister first and then to me and yeah it was it's it's quite hard for me to to explain because it wasn't a massive issue for our family like if that's the way that she wanted to live her life yeah then why would we not want we would want we just wanted her to be happy and yeah in the book we are discussed about her and quite poor choices of names and how... Brittany was a no? Yeah, Brittany was a definite no and I'm really glad that I had Alicia to stick up for me there. How was the process of writing it?

Oh, it's... I've got to say, and like with complete honesty, it's the most difficult thing that I've ever done. And I worked with a really great author who we sat together for hours each day like going through the whole like the whole both mine and Brianna's life and I just spoke to her for hours through tears and yeah it was it was very very difficult. It really is a very powerful and a very moving book. And I want to thank you for coming in to speak to me this morning. Thank you for having me. Esther J and her memoir is called Under a Pink Sky. 84844 is the number to text.

Now, my next guest is a singer songwriter whose music, sung by others, has featured in several popular television shows including Cougar Town, Awkward and Keeping Up with the Kardashians. She's co-written three top ten hits for other artists including Charli XCX. She's also an author and host of a popular podcast about ADHD with her partner. She's Rox Pink, also known as Roxanne Emery, and by her stage name Rory, whose new album Restoration went straight into the top 10 after her release.

Her single Wolves about her mum's death went to the top of the iTunes chart. Now age 40, Rory is finally gaining success. I don't know why I had to say your age there, Rory. Do it. I'm proud of it. For a long time, I was very, very ashamed of all the years that I had messed up my life. Finding love later in life, being in music later in life.

You've written off after 25. You remember the X Factor? Yeah. Over 25s. But now I'm like I am 40 and I'm doing it on my own terms. And I think it's brilliant. I could just mentioning that the over 25s category. category yeah like the older age group. And it was like are you having your last chance and have to come on all humble and no thank you. Yeah you mentioned there because you know you've overcome a lot because you struggled as well with addiction. We'll talk about everything that you battled but before we do just very quickly about that song because that was about your mom who died of cancer but you didn't talk about it. quickly about that song because that was about your mum who died of cancer but you didn't

talk about it. No, my gosh, I didn't cry at the funeral and I didn't talk about it for 18 years. I think I avoided dealing with the grief by drink and drugs and honestly it's only been the last couple of years that I feel like I'm grieving. It's insane and I think, God, did this happen last year? And I'm in therapy and I'm crying all the time and it's coming out now and it's probably what I should have gone through at 22 but I just couldn't face it at the time. How does it feel finally being recognised, getting the success? It was unbelievable. I keep having to pinch myself and be like you sure women's are you sure?

Sure, you want me I'm a wreckhead and but here we are. It's and it's really quite cool that I'm living this story of a total 180 in life and how'd it happen? I got sober. I Think that's many many wreckheads into having good lives. That's the moment when you I think that's many, many wreckheads into having good lives. That's the moment when you finally, finally blow up your life to an extent that you can't ignore it any longer. That's what I did. On the 14th of September in 2018, walked myself into a recovery meeting and that's that. What was the moment when you knew that something had to change?

I was in Ibiza for three days. I hadn't slept for three days. I was there for work, totally missed work, turned my phone off, was partying with strangers in a hotel room, cheated on a partner, spent loads of money I didn't have. And I'd done this many times, but this time I'd, I can't do this, I can't hurt these people. I was so ashamed and disgusted at who I was.

I knew I had to try something and it felt like a last resort walking into a recovery meeting, didn't know what I was gonna find. And actually I found a whole load of people just like me from 20 to 70 with all these same stories. I'm gonna read out a couple of messages that have come in. Oh, lovely. So I'm Rosie.

I got into Rory's music in 2021 and it's helped me overcome a lot, even just leaving the house. It's so hard living with ADHD. She's amazing at putting it towards her talents, a true inspiration. I'm going to talk about ADHD in a moment, but what's it like performing sober? Really, really scary, I've got to tell you. I'm up there, my little hands are shaking. Back in the day I used to perform live and I'd have a couple of Bacardi Cokes and a red wine

before going on stage to calm my nerves. And nowadays I don't have that, so being here and I'm off on tour next week singing to 11,000 people, I get nervous. However, I remember every part of it. I remember the signs that the fans hold up and I remember them singing along and I would take that. I take a bit of nerves to have that, you know? Yeah. We've got another message for you. Rory's music has changed my life. To see someone who has ADHD being through the same kind of trauma and addiction I have, making something out of that and progressing in life is truly beautiful. I'm 24 and rocks gave

me hope that no matter how dark things get, there's always light to be found. That's Olivia in Glasgow. You started a podcast about ADHD, Late Bloomers, and you've co-written books about it too. And with your partner, Rich, how important has this been? Absolutely the most important discovery I think of my whole life. How did you discover that you have? Basically, when I got sober in 2018, alcohol and drugs was my coping mechanism. You take that away and suddenly everything that you've been coping from comes up. So I suffered with depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, mental health issues, all of it. I was collecting it like a mixed bag,

ended up in therapy and worked through a lot of stuff, a lot of family trauma, the death of my mum, some other stuff. And then when I'd sort of cleared through all of that, I was left with some weird symptoms because I'm like, is it normal that I'm catching the train the wrong way every time I get on it and I've lost my wallet three times this week? And that was the first time I heard about ADHD and then went down that path and suddenly all these things I'd hated about myself, how messy I was, how late I was, how disorganized I was and I thought that's because I'm the worst person alive, well it's ADHD and actually if you get a bit of support and you find a bit of self-compassion you might just be able to live a life that you enjoy and here I am with you.

And here you are talking to people who are really responding to not just your podcast but the music as well. When did you start writing music? Say the first song I wrote. You were 12 weren't you? I was 12! It was called Thrills and Spills. Can you imagine your 12 year old going, through all the thrills and the spills?

Some like love song about Timothy in year seven. Record it? Yeah, record it. I should have sung that one. But that was a bit of a song. My first real one was the year after my mum had died. It was called Late. Her initials are Linda, Angela, Teresa, Emery, it spells late, I'm Always Late and I wrote a song called Late and

that was the song that started the music journey so yeah she's been with me the whole time. I'm glad we got to mention your mum's name in there as well. It's been such a pleasure having you on the programme. I want to wish you all the success and best of luck on the tour, all the energy. I hope you remember every moment and thank you for coming on and singing. That was really beautiful. I will not forget that. Anita, thank you so much. Thank you and thank you to Charlie as well. And if you've been affected by anything you've heard on the programme today, please do go to the BBC Action Line website. I'll be back

when I'll be joined by the actress, Simone Ashley. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. I was definitely too young when I was leader of the opposition. And not to do many of the other jobs I did in government. Admissions and insights from the people who shape how we think. I would say my family gave myself and my two siblings a critical eye. And because it's not just politicians who mold our lives, we also hear from economists, comedians and bestselling authors.

It's the fastest way to change things. You do need politics, but if you want to change something overnight, culture is the quickest way to do it. Conversations, not newsy interrogations. That's Political Thinking with me, Nick Robinson from BBC Radio 4. Listen now on BBC Sounds. I'm Natalia Melman-Petruzzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme, Peak Danger.

The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks it will take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts.