Woman's Hour - Babes in the wood, Ecocide, Sexism in craft beer, and How to save a life

Episode Date: May 27, 2021

Karen Hadaway was one of two little girls murdered in the Babes in the Wood case. Her mother, Michelle, tells us about giving her daughetr's clothes to Martin Bashir in 1991 to get DNA tested. She still hasn't got them back. He says he can't remember the exchange. Michelle describes her feelings in light of the Dyson investigation. Should the mass destruction of nature, also known as ecocide, be a crime? At the moment there are four crimes covered by the International Criminal Court - genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression. Now campaigners are pushing to have ecocide added to the list. We're joined by Jojo Mehta, the co-founder of Stop Ecocide International and barrister Philippe Sand. Seven years ago “Eva Carter” saved her partner's life. She tells Emma how the experience of that night and her feelings at the time and afterwards fed into her novel How To Save A Life.In recent days there has been a huge outpouring on social media of women sharing their experiences of sexism working in the craft beer industry. An online conference will be held next month to discuss he problem. Emma is joined by Charlotte Cook, head brewer at Coalition Brewing and Melissa Cole, beer writer and author of The Little Book of Craft Beer.Note: This podcast has been edited from the original programme. In this programme reference was made to a journalist called Eileen Fairweather, who Michelle Hadaway says witnessed the handing over of her daughter’s clothes to Martin Bashir. Eileen worked with him for several months in 1991, researching a possible BBC documentary. Eileen Fairweather has confirmed to us that her contract ended immediately after that meeting and she never saw Bashir again. She repeatedly tried to find out from Martin Bashir and his team what happened to the clothes and has previously tried to alert the BBC to this issue. She has raised this issue in several newspaper articles and supports Michelle’s fight for the truth about what Bashir did with this evidence. Eileen Fairweather is an award-winning freelance journalist who has specialised for decades in exposing child abuse and institutional cover-ups, including the mass abuse in Islington's children's homes. Her ground breaking work has won the Catherine Pakenham Award for women journalists and two British Press Awards.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, 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 we'll 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 Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to today's programme. Today we're going to hear what it's like to literally save the life of your partner, lying next to you struggling to breathe. That's what one of our guests did, performing CPR, saving her husband's life with the help of the paramedics on the phone. Have you ever done anything similar? Do you know anyone who

has? Perhaps you have been saved. I know someone who was saved running around the park when he collapsed and has since met up with the woman who saved him. And it's extraordinary, but it's also a very odd thing when you actually think about it. It might be, of course, your job as a medic. Do you ever get used to it? Perhaps people have come back to you to thank you and maybe you now have some very interesting and treasured relationships in your life. Your life-saving stories today, please.

If you can share them, we would love to hear them and what's happened since and those relationships, all those details, whatever you feel you can share. Get in touch with us by texting on 84844 or on social media at BBC Women's Hour or email us through our website. If you do email and you'd actually like to come and talk to me on air, do leave your phone number and perhaps we can do that. It'd be lovely to be able to hear your stories as well as reading them out loud.

But also on today's programme, there does seem to be a theme, a theme of fighting, fighting for change, which seems apt on the anniversary of George Floyd's murder by a police officer in America. We'll hear from two of the leading voices in the fight to add a new crime to the list that the International Criminal Court can prosecute, ecocide, the mass destruction of the environment. Two women from the craft beer industry share why anger is brewing and what they think must change. But first, a woman who has been fighting for justice for decades. Yesterday, we talked to the woman who got the scoop behind the scoop, Rosamund Irwin of the Sunday Times, who got the only interview with Martin Bashir this weekend after the Lord Dyson report into how he obtained his world-exclusive BBC interview with

Princess Diana in 1995. Dyson found that Martin Bashir had used deceitful means to secure the interview and reported that the BBC had fallen short of high standards of integrity and transparency. Today, the BBC's Director General Tim Davey has reiterated the corporation's apology and promised to reveal the results next week of a new investigation into why Martin Bashir was rehired by the BBC in 2016. But one of the things that Rosamund told us about yesterday was asking Martin Bashir about another story, the so-called Babes in the Wood case.

This happened in 1986 when two little girls were murdered in woods near Brighton. It took a long time for the families to get any form of justice. But before they managed to do so, one of the girls' mothers, Michelle Hadaway, says Martin Bashir took some of her daughter's clothes to get them tested for DNA evidence while working for a BBC documentary programme. She hasn't had those clothes back. Rosamund told us what happened when she put this to Martin Bashir over the weekend. And here we are talking yesterday.

There was also what you brought up to him about other scoops that he had, not least what had happened with the so-called babes in the wood situation. Can you remind us of that? Yeah, I didn't cover that story at the time. I asked him because I could find it in the cuts about other stories he'd done. So I looked back and there was a story from about 2004 where one of the mothers of these poor two girls who were murdered, absolutely horrific story, had complained completely understandably that he had lost vital evidence so this was the clothing of one of the girls and it had been handed over to him he they thought for dna testing now what was interesting

to me is when i first brought that up with him he said oh i didn't cover that story and i said well look this is all in the public domain that the mother's actually spoke out again, one of the mothers spoke out again in 2020, after this all came to light, to say, well, don't forget also this. And what was telling is, I then said, well, hang on a minute, they're saying this, are they wrong? You know, there is something, I think there's evidence that he signed out this piece of evidence. And he said, oh, I might have done that. I can't remember. And I just thought at that point, I thought, well, if I had done that, that would have been the single worst thing I'd ever done

in my entire career by such a long way in my entire life. Not to remember, that made me feel like he was careless about people. Well, we wanted to talk to Michelle Hadaway, and I can say that she's with me now. Michelle, you were listening to that, and I could see your face on Zoom, on video here, and you're shaking your head. Oh, it's absolutely unbelievable. Which part? Him saying he didn't remember at first?

All of it, really, because obviously what happened was, and what a lot of people out there don't realise, is that in 1986, my daughter was murdered, and her friend Nicola Fellows in the wild park in Brighton. In 1987 the person was brought to trial named Russell Bishop. Now this man was found not guilty of a double murder and was allowed to walk the streets. In 1990 he attacked another little girl and left her for dead. Now in 1991 this man, Martin Bashir, came to me and said, DNA evidence is a lot more forward now than what it was in 1986.

We're doing a program for the BBC called Public Eye. Would you be happy to hand the clothes over so that we can DNA test them? But at the time I wasn't in any sort of frame of mind. I said yes, you know, know anyone would wouldn't they they would be happy to think that you know dna couldn't be tested in 86 but it could be in 1991. so he took the clothes gave me signed on a piece of paper said to me not to worry it would probably be a few months before the program had come out but obviously in the meantime i'd put the piece of paper somewhere i forgot where where i put it i had an actual fat headache tucked into

a little book having a good clear out while i was decorating and still waiting for him probably about a year later um i put the put the receipt away it was then a few more years i couldn't remember who he was i couldn't remember the name of the program all i know is he'd taken the clothes but he hadn't returned them a few more years later it came that we found the receipt he was contacted and that was what his attitude was. I don't remember. I never took those clothes. Hence the reason why 35 years later we're still trying to find out what's happened. You have shared that receipt, that note with us.

I've got it in front of me, a copy of it, an image saying, this is to certify that I, Martin Bashir, have taken possession of clothing from Michelle Hadaway, signed 15th of August, 1991, with his signature. I wonder just to go back to when you did meet him and you handed it over

and we'll come to his attitude since. And I should say, we've tried to reach Martin Bashir through people this morning and have been unable to do so but i do have a statement to share from the bbc on this side of things what was your impression of him well i was told that he was a respectable journalist and that he was um someone that could be trusted um so obviously I trusted him with the last piece of thing that I had to do with my daughter, which was her clothes. They also sent a taxi out, well

a car out from the BBC to take me there. So I know, I know that I'd been there and spoken to him at great lengths. And then for him to deny that, you know, it's like an offhand comment, isn't it? I don't remember. And I mean, it's been described, as you heard there, by Rosamund, who was face-to-face with Martin Bashir this weekend, as part of behaviour that could be described as careless. How would you describe it?

Yes, I would do. I mean, I don't know whether I should say I actually called him a despicable rat. Over the years, I've been so angry with the fact that this man has never apologised to me, never contacted me. The denials have been going on for quite a long time. I was aware back, I think it was in 2020, or it might have been a little bit before that, that a lady called Eileen Fairweather,

she actually witnessed it the handing over of the clothes the handing over of the clothes yes go on please carry on and this programme called Public Eye which he had told me the BBC were going to for help

that's the reason why I gave him the clothes you know with that hope as you were discussing you also alluded to DNA was pretty new back then in the way that it was developing and because also obviously in 1986

when this man fell not guilty we were told there's probably never ever going to be a chance of getting him back into court. Because obviously there was no double jeopardy law, which obviously we were all fighting for for 20 odd years, along with other families, you know. BBC spokesperson, it's a good time to perhaps share the statement we do have from the BBC and a more general point, which say when people raise concerns of this kind about our programmes, of course, we look into them. The BBC has changed radically over the past 25 years

and has significantly better processes and procedures in place to protect contributors. But we also know that it is important to keep learning. And, of course, in light of the Dyson report, which I wanted to get your view on, it isn't just the deceitful means by which Martin Bashir obtained his interview with Princess Diana. It was also the covering up of that by the BBC that has been described by people as shocking, as shameful, and that the BBC has accepted in full and the Director General this morning has

apologised for, again, talking about further investigations. But I wonder from your point of view, because, of course, Princess Diana has been the headlines, how did you feel when you saw that it was confirmed that he had obtained that interview through deceitful means, through forgery? Oh, I'm completely and utterly shocked.

I mean, obviously, he's not a respectable man, is he? Because over the years, he's obviously done lots of interviews and it's a bit unscrupulous, his behaviour, I think, which obviously now has been proved that it's true. We mentioned at the beginning that it's taken a long time for you and your fight for justice. Do you believe that his actions with these items of clothing in any way delayed that justice?

Well, I don't know because I think to myself, had he of DNA tested it then, maybe we could have taken a civil court case against the perpetrator. So to not give them to me back or to not have them DNA tested is a bit shameful, don't you think? Because actually it took a very long time

for the perpetrator, for Russell Bishop, to go to prison. 32 years to the day, 31 years to the day when he got found not guilty. And then? And unfortunately, I knew it was him right from the word go. So it's been a long and hard struggle for me to have to cope with that, the fact of knowing. Well, I'm sorry, of course, to bring that up and in any way make you relive that. And I should also say how sorry I am,

even though, of course, it's many years on now, for your great loss in this and talking to us today. The thing is, it's never ending. Go on. This is the thing. It's never ending because apart from him being found guilty, his girlfriend has now just been found guilty for perjuring, perverting the course of justice back in 1986.

She knew the sweatshirt was his, admitted it was his, lied on oath and then kept it to herself all those years. Yes, I mean, that was literally, as you say, in the news just a few days ago. And then you've had this, I suppose, with Martin Bashir. And I am very sorry. I know that it's important, though, for you to also talk out. I think it's important. Which is why you agreed to come on today. What do you want to happen specifically with regards to your case,

the BBC and Martin Bashir? Well, I think he really should come forward and at least apologise, don't you? I mean, there's been no apology. Even back when I found the receipt and he was approached about it with the receipt he's still saying I don't remember So an apology from him personally

the Lord Dyson review was just into the Panorama interview with Princess Diana. Would you welcome an investigation into what happened with you and Martin Bashir? Of course. And are you at all pursuing any other investigations on your side? Are you speaking to lawyers or looking at this?

I will be, yes, very much so. You know, he said he don't even remember meeting me. Well, I know over the years I haven't been in the line like that much but there has been times when I have given interviews to various sources so I can't think for one moment how we wouldn't remember a high profile case

such as this. Well, your next steps will be, is it to consult a lawyer? Have you done that already? No, I'm in the process of that, just to see what can be sorted about him. Michelle, thank you for talking to us. Is there anything you'd like to add?

No. Thank you for coming on Woman's Hour today. Thank you very much. Michelle Hadaway there, talking about her daughter Karen, who was nine at the time of her death, of her killing, and also her friend there, but her interaction with Martin Boucher on behalf of the BBC. Regarding a programme, I should say that strand is no longer live,

and that statement from the BBC about lessons being learned, but of course perhaps that case will develop and we will follow it and speak to Michelle again. Your message is already coming in in response to that perhaps well I'll return to that in just a moment because we are talking today about fighting and fighting for justice and for change and the International Criminal Court currently responsible for prosecuting four crimes genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression, may have something else to add to the list.

Next month, a team of lawyers will finish drafting a possible fifth crime called ecocide to be added to that list. And if successful, it will criminalise the mass destruction of the environment. But how would it work? I'm joined by Jojo Mehta, the co-founder of the Stop Ecocide campaign, and also the barrister, Philippe Sands, who's part of the team defining ecocide, an expert on environmental and international law, as well as writing extensively on the origins of genocide and crimes against humanity. Good morning to both of you. Jojo, if I could start with you. I tried to define a little bit of that, but you can do it far better. What is ecocide and why do we need a law against it? Ecocide is broadly understood to mean the mass damage and destruction of ecosystems. Obviously, the legal definition is being drafted as we speak, as you mentioned.

But a sort of working definition that we use is mass damage and destruction of ecosystems and committed with knowledge of the risks. And in terms of why we need this law, the world is increasingly aware of the seriousness of the climate and ecological crisis that we're experiencing. And of course, there are targets set by the Paris Agreement and also the UN Sustainable Development Goals. And we all know that serious change is needed if we are to seriously protect the future of human civilization as we know it. But currently, there is no enforceable deterrent for the serious levels of destruction that are happening around the world.

And we believe that creating a criminal law at the international level could have a really strong deterrent effect and a course correction for the direction that we appear to be heading in. I mean, just to get a sense of when you say it has to be a large crime, if it became such. I was just noticing in the headlines today, front page of the Times, for instance, nearly 400,000 homes will be built on greenfield sites in the south of England over the next five years. It's a concern that huge parts of the countryside could be paved over. We're not talking about that.

I think that's probably a better question for Philippe. All right, let's bring in Philippe at this point. Philippe, are we not talking about that? Where are the parameters of this? Well, it's a really good question. Can I just say, just before I answer that, how incredibly inspiring it is listening to Michelle Hadaway and her struggle over 30 years. It's just impossible not to be deeply affected by her story and her amazing courage. And that's inspiring, I think, for the kind of work that we do of a different type and a different scale. So you've put your finger on a very difficult issue. You know, I raise sometimes the example of the last two white rhinoceroses

said to exist in the world. If someone were to purposely kill them off, is that the crime of ecocide? We are all contributors to climate change. Does that make each of us international criminals? And part of the challenge is to come up with a crime that basically defines acts that are really internationally recognised as so egregious and terrible that they must be subject to criminal sanction, whilst on the other hand, not allowing certain things

that most reasonable people would consider to be terrible to be a crime. So right now, for example, a lot of people ask about the destruction of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, but a lot of people in Brazil will say, well, that's our rainforest and we're entitled to do it. So there's a very difficult balancing exercise between environmental damage on one hand and the economic and social benefits on the other. And where have you come out of that? Because it's got a lot of traction now. It has got more and more support from leaders like Macron through to people who perhaps have never even campaigned in this area

who are starting to think about this as a very successful deterrent potentially because, of course, there are already lots of laws around this. It's just, are they being enforced? Well, there are laws lots of laws around this. It's just, are they being enforced? Well, there are laws at the national level. And it's interesting, your introduction mentioned the original four international crimes, all of which were in place in 1945. And they all share one common feature. They are all focused on the protection, the well-being of human beings. And of course, that's incredibly important. But what's missing is an international crime which says the environment, our ecosystem, our oceans, our airs, our trees, our fungi, whatever you wanted to say, are of significance and are worthy of protection. And that's the gap I think that we're hoping to fill. But it's not an easy

thing to do, precisely for the reason that you said, and relatedly is the question of the intention. Do you have to, I mean, the crime of genocide, for example, the killing of large numbers of people, the destruction of groups, that's a very high threshold. You have to prove as a prosecutor prosecutor the intention to destroy a group in whole or in part. And if you were to take that standard, no one intends to destroy the environment in whole or in part. It's always incidental. It's always reckless. It's always negligent. So setting that sort of mental intent is equally a challenge. Let's come back to perhaps how it will work then and how countries

may or may not sign up to it. And depending on its success, of course, with the final draft, but to the point around momentum, Jojo, I think we have to at this point, talk about the lawyer, Polly Higgins, a woman at the heart of this. How did she play a role? And tell us about what she did to make it have some legs, really. Absolutely. Polly was a barrister herself in the UK and was just reaching a point in her career where she was heading into the big time in terms of her court cases. And she had this kind of epiphany looking out over London from the Royal Courts of Justice and sort of felt it's not just my clients that need protecting,

it's actually the earth that needs protecting. And that led her to a question, how do we create a legal duty of care for the earth? And that question was to drive her for the rest of her life. And she began in the area of potentially looking at rights for nature, but she realised that what protects those rights is actually criminal law. So in the same way as our basic human right is the right to life, what protects that right to life is the fact that it's a crime to kill you.

And so she started looking at the criminal side and realized that when the Rome Statute, which is the governing document of the International Criminal Court, was first drafted, there was originally an intention to have serious destruction of the environment in that document, and it never made it to the final treaty in 1998. And so she saw her life's task as replacing this missing international crime. And so that was the angle that she took on it. And I worked with her for the last four and a half years of her life to expand and promote this whole concept, but also to start the diplomatic work to move it forward, which began with Pacific Island states and has now very much been taken up by much of the rest of the world. which is the oldest international organisation bringing together national parliaments, has overwhelmingly voted in favour of supporting the recognition, the criminalisation of ecocide in national parliaments.

So that momentum, as you say, is growing very fast at this moment. Philippe, I know that you also looking across this and also as a writer have noted women's role in environmental changes, environmental campaigning, and also direct reference to the law. Actually, I'm really glad you've raised that because one of the things that is very different today from 1945 is the role of women in the making, the implementation, the application of the law. The International Criminal Court was the first international court to have a majority of women on the bench. And that is very interesting.

If you were to go back to 1945, when genocide and crimes against humanity were invented and argued for the first time, if you'd go to the extraordinary courtroom 600 and looked around, you would have noticed one thing is very striking. Every person there pretty much was male the defendants the prosecutors the judges uh most of the press um the women were there in two roles they were there as interpreters where they played an absolutely significant role there were a very small number

of women witnesses but very few and then And then most significantly, I think the best journalistic writing on the Nuremberg trial is by women writers, and three in particular. I can't stop myself from mentioning them because they're such extraordinary writers. Abel, I have to say, to tease out the real feelings and emotions that were going on in that extraordinary place. Rebecca West, Martha Gellhorn, and then the forgotten but really utterly brilliant Janet Flanger, who wrote a sort of monthly letter from Nuremberg for the New Yorker magazine. And they capture the atmosphere. But if you fast forward now exactly 75 years, we've just celebrated the 75th anniversary of the opening of that trial. Complete transformation in terms of the role of women in our working group, on the bench, as prosecutors, not yet, interestingly, as defendants at the International Criminal Court.

All 30 people indicted, I think, are men. And only one woman has ever been successfully prosecuted for the crime of genocide. Make of that what you will. Well, I heard Jojo sort of sniff there, derisively laugh. I don't know what you were doing there, Jojo, but I suppose it's a very important point to make here because of getting a difference of view around, you know, essentially moving this away from it being viewed as tree huggers caring about the environment, if I could put it as colloquially as that, Jojo. Absolutely. I mean, I think we're actually starting to see a sort of major cultural shift here.

And this is something that I think is important to bring in around what we're doing with the criminalisation of ecocide at the highest level, because we do have a very strongly embedded sort of mindset of separation from nature as viewing nature as something that's there as a resource to exploit um and so there's something about criminalizing ecocide at the top level that actually shifts the whole perspective on how environmental law is enforced and how seriously it is taken um around the world and so it you know, it has a way of helping to draw moral lines because we do use criminal law for that in our sort of dominant Western way of thinking.

That's where we draw those moral red lines. And so we believe that there's a chance here to sort of shift that cultural mindset so that destruction of the environment is taken seriously as it should be. I mean, sometimes people ask us, you know, how can you put, you know, ecocide alongside genocide? Well, you know, we're now looking at a situation where if we continue with the level of destruction of natural ecosystems that is currently in process,

we're looking at a threat not just to a people in whole or in part, but actually, you know, the whole of sort of human civilization functioning as we know it. You know that we've been given this sort of decisive decade language by it for many different areas now. And scientists have indeed been talking about this for many, many years. It's a chance to redress that balance so that we can begin to move from our relationship of harm towards nature to a relationship of harmony, which is actually fundamentally necessary. You know, we can't breathe, we can't eat, we can't drink, we can't function at all unless the ecosystems function around us. And I think the last year has made people think about that in a much more pronounced way, living through a pandemic and continuing to do so. And of course, many people have suffered hugely tragic consequences of that. Philippe, to come back to you, who will be in the dock? Individuals? Companies? If you get this through, how do you actually see a court case coming? I mean, first, we have to get a definition

agreed between us. Then we have to persuade governments at the end of the day to adopt a definition of their own, maybe partly based on ours, and amend the statute of the International Criminal Court. And then it has to be ratified by enough states. Once it's on the statute book, under the International Criminal Court rules, only individuals can be defendants. So not states, not corporations, not NGOs. But that doesn't exclude the possibility that individual company directors or chief executives or decision makers or an individual politician or individual military person, any number of individuals in a corporate or group function could be included.

The way the criminal law works or the hope has to be, I mean, I'm not starry-eyed that suddenly you have a new crime of ecocide and all of a sudden environmental destruction is going to stop, just as you have a crime on genocide. And frankly, genocide doesn't stop, but it changes consciousness. And what's happening, and Jojo's made the point very powerfully, Greta Thunberg and people like Farhana Yamin, who you had on your program some time ago, have changed consciousness. That has been coupled with, I think, the impact of the pandemic, which has taught us we're all in this together. Viruses, the environment do not respect national boundaries. So we have to basically come up with an international approach. And that international

approach in the end focuses on individual responsibility. And the International Criminal Court focuses on the individual in whatever capacity she or he or they participate in an act that is so egregious that it comes within the definition of ecocide. Jojo, do you know if the UK are interested in signing up to this? I know it's a bit premature, but just always like to get ahead of the news. We certainly have interest from parliamentarians. The government is being a little reticent at present, but we certainly hope that this conversation will amplify over the coming months, given that the UK is hosting the COP26 talks. It would certainly behove Boris Johnson to have an opinion on this. And we certainly would anticipate some kind of discussion around this and would encourage support at the international level,

which is actually, politically speaking, a relatively easy win. You know, they don't have to act immediately, but they can support this ongoingly and at the international level. Well, you know, whoever gets to him first, I'll try and ask him or you can let us know. And just finally, I mean, you alluded to it now, Polly is no longer with us. The lawyer, Polly Higgins. She passed away. And I wonder what she would make of this, the progress. She would be absolutely thrilled. And I remember in the last week of her life, which was also the week of the April rebellion back in 2019, that was the first time she saw what she had been asking for, stop ecocide, as a phrase hitting the streets

on placards across London. And she was on her deathbed, you know, really. And I remember her seeing that news on the social media and looking to me and saying, Jojo, you know, it's all going to happen now. Well, we'll see. Thank you for talking to us today. Jojo Mehta there and the barrister, Philippe Sands on Ecoside the potential new crime that we are, well it's being drafted and we'll see what happens to it, it has to be ratified, you've heard about the process and we'll keep you up to date

with it. Talking about writing things and writing in detail, I want to ask you a question actually for a conversation next week but I'd love to hear we all would here at Women's Hour what you think about this, if you were writing a manifesto for the best way for women to work post-pandemic, what would it say? And for all of us, because of course it interlinks. We want to know what those changes might be because the work from home guidelines are expected to be scrapped on June 21st

should the government's current roadmap continue. As more and more people return to their offices? Has the pandemic offered us an unexpected opportunity to rethink our long-term patterns of working? What have you liked? What have you hated? What do you want to see more of? Tell us. 84844 if you want to do it by text, along a message, perhaps on email.

You can send us through our website or on social media. It's at BBC Women's Hour. But if we're going to redraw that blueprint of how we work, what would you like to see included and excluded? And I should say many messages coming in about our first conversation, our first interview with Michelle Hadaway, talking about Martin Bashir and her interactions with him after her daughter was murdered, giving over, she says,

clothes that were never returned in the hope for help. There's a BBC documentary he was working on. A message here, the TV barrel has had plenty of bad apples, appalling behaviour, tolerated and covered up, says Sue. Another one here saying from Rebecca, absolutely shocking stuff about Martin Bashir taking and losing evidence in a double murder case. Personally, I find this more shocking than the Princess Diana revelations.

And Isabel's emailed in to say, very moving interview with Michelle. But yet again, the statement, talking about the BBC statement, includes the now ubiquitous and anodyne phrase, lessons will be learned. Isn't it time that this phrase was replaced with something more effective? Lessons are very rarely learned. Things very rarely change. What about this problem will be addressed and sorted? Perhaps a simple, we are truly sorry sorry would also be a good start. No more fobbing people off with platitudes. Now, in terms of something else you've been getting in touch with, and I have to say some

incredible stories coming in about saving a life. And I will come to those. But let's talk to the person who's inspired this conversation, because seven years years ago my next guest did save a life, her partner's life. She'll explain exactly what happened that night but the experience and the feelings at the time afterwards fed into her novel How to Save a Life. The novel is written under the pen name Eva Carter to protect her partner's privacy. In the book, 17-year-old Kerry saves the life of Joel,

the school heartthrob and football hero when she performs CPR on him in the football field after he collapses. Her friend Tim freezes and is unable to help for 20 minutes as Kerry works away. And then he steps in to help and ends up being credited as the hero. That night shapes the lives of all three of them. And Eva, I'm sure the night that this is inspired by has shaped your life. It really has, Emma. It started as a normal night, if you like.

We had a pizza and a couple of glasses of bread, went to bed, and I woke up just past midnight to hear what I thought was a snore. And my partner isn't really a snorer, but, you know, occasionally, pizza, red wine. So I tried to push him over give him a nudge and he didn't respond at all and I must have sensed it I was instantly completely wide awake and reaching for my mobile which fortunately was charged up calling 999 for the first time in my life and it all went from there I mean it was the most terrifying and meaningful 26 minutes of both our lives, I guess.

And what was he doing? What was happening? So as it turns out, it wasn't a snore at all. It was what's called an agonal breath. And this is where, I didn't know this at the time, but when you have a cardiac arrest, when your heart stops beating, your brain can't get any oxygen and the noises that it's um the noises that i was hearing were literally the brain's last gasp but it is quite confusing because you could take it as a breath and so when the 999 operator kept

saying to me is he breathing to begin with i was saying well there is this strange noise but i can't get him to wake up and then we worked out that the chances were he was in cardiac arrest. And what did you do? Did you know what to do? I had done a first aid course at work 10 years prior, but I would never have known without the operator. So she said, you've got to get him onto a flat surface, not the bed, onto a hard surface, because otherwise CPR doesn't work. And I almost felt like there were two of me there was me in that room with the person I loved panicking but there was also me knowing I was in the house on my own and that I was the only person who could help him so I remember the operator saying get him onto the floor and I was saying well look I'm

five foot four I'm not very strong my partner's six foot I'm worried that as I pull him onto the floor and I was saying well look I'm five foot four I'm not very strong my partner's six foot I'm worried that as I pull him off the bed we've got a very small Victorian cottage and there's not much space he's going to hit his head on the bedside table and of course the rational part of me was acknowledging that actually it wouldn't make any difference that effectively when the heart stops, you are clinically dead and without intervention, you know, a bruise on the forehead is really the least of either of our worries. And you then what? Started doing what? What were you told to do? CPR. So I think that having done the first aid, there was a kind of a muscle memory. So she told me very clearly what to do another happy coincidence was because the phone

was completely charged I could put it on speakerphone so she was literally doing the one two and three and four and telling me you know push your arms out right so that they're one hand on top of the other so that they're completely straight push in by two inches and then let it go and you know you anyone who's done a first aid course you might have done it on a one of those plastic dolls the resuscitantes it feels very different on a human being especially on a human being that you love yes I can't even imagine you know I've done that on one of those dolls but the the thought of doing it on your nearest and dearest and and messages we're getting in are are quite extraordinary about this i wasn't sure how many people would have had an experience like this but it seems of course they have and and also it's not

something you forget what what happened next how did he come to well i ran downstairs when the ambulance arrived and ran back upstairs because you don't want to interrupt the compressions because all of that that's all that's keeping the brain going um they restarted his heart after two shocks um i hid after after that you know somehow the calm part of me just went out the window and i i hid because i could hear the electronic voice of the defibrillator which is assessing it'll help they did get him back uh lots of people to get electronic voice of the defibrillator which is assessing it'll help. They did get him back, lots of people to get him out of the house. He was admitted to ICU at our local hospital here in Brighton and they told us immediately we're going to put him in an induced coma to protect the brain. We're going to lower the body temperature which again can help protect the brain from damage and you won't know for 24

hours if he's going to wake up so we were in limbo we knew that there was going to be this horrible limbo um and then the next day after that uh they reduced the sedation and we were in the family room and they came in and they said he's asking for you and you know it was the most it was the most extraordinary moment and of course like many people he didn't remember a thing about it he wasn't going to say well they're crying at the bedside you know there was he he had no idea what had happened to him so you had to tell him the story yes and of course because after sedation you have to tell the story quite a number of times because anyone coming around from that is sort of like, hang on, again, you had this thing happen. And there was only, you know, sometimes the survival figures, unless you start CPR on time can be as low as one in 20,

which is one of the things that I don't think I deliberately didn't Google it. But now, of course, I know. It was especially after 26 minutes without a heartbeat you know there was a bit in the back of my mind going four minutes isn't that what they say four minutes is all you can survive and yet he came out of hospital with his own personalized little defibrillator fitted in his chest so I don't need to be there next time um but he is the same as he was what did he say when he did take it in that you had saved his life I think he didn't really believe it at first um I mean I didn't I think I mean now we have a joke about it you know thanks I saved your life don't you remember um you can do the rubbish or whatever else for the rest of

time my friend but um I mean I you know it's quite a strange thing because you realize it's a miracle and for the first couple of weeks afterwards I mean I literally I don't think of myself as good in a panic situation but I felt like I did feel like superwoman I was kind of looking around for somebody else in case it was going to happen just in case like these hands I can do it um but then I think as a bit of anything when the euphoria wears off you think what if all the time and I did have quite a lot of insomnia and quite a lot of flashbacks to it even though it was a miracle um and that's one of the other things I think people are not aware of that that this can still affect family member or bystander that that does this thing well i'm happy you said that i mean jenny's got in touch they just happen to switch on

now hello jenny bringing back lots of memories of giving cpr to my husband uh my husband another one from from jenny who says my husband collapsed next to me and had a cardiac arrest i had to start cpr the kids had to start CPR. The kids had to get help and my friend, an A&E nurse, ran to the house and took over. I still have PTSD.

Exactly as you're talking about here. It was life changing. My husband can't remember a thing, but it will stay with me forever. But another one here, which I think we've got a few like this and I think it's just also worth bringing up. I would like to say,

don't forget the trauma calls personally when your attempts to save a life are unsuccessful. Even when you've exactly followed the instructions or training, your programme is probably aimed at the success stories. But I wanted to make sure that we messaged and mentioned that message there because a few coming in like that. I wonder for you in the conversations you've had, has it changed, first of all, your relationship? And does it change relationships? Because I mentioned right at the beginning of the programme,

I know someone who's gone and found the person, the random person who did save his life when running around the park. And, you know, he didn't know what to take. He bought her flowers. You know, they sort of tried to forge a bit of a bond and now have a bond. But you already had that bond and I wonder if it differed. I think that because we were on these slightly different tracks, I was processing what I'd seen,

he was processing what he hadn't seen or experienced. It did change things in that way. So we were almost moving alongside each other, having shared this experience and yet not. And of course, for a lot of people, as one of the listeners has said, you know, it doesn't have the most positive outcome. So even if people do survive to be discharged from the hospital, I know, having spoken to a lot of people in the same position as part of researching the book, and also for my own mental health, really, it helped to talk to others.

You know, sometimes there is memory loss that can be brain damage as a result. And so you've got this strange thing of, on the one hand, somebody looks exactly the same on the outside. But this is life changing and often life ending. And that never goes. Yes. More messages coming in. I have possible PTSD from a failed resuscitation attempt. This needs to be talked about. My understanding as a mental health worker is it's not an uncommon situation. My wife, another one here, has performed CPR twice on her husband each time following a heart attack. He's having heart surgery soon,

which is an extraordinary message there that someone's done it twice. I wanted to say you will be having a book launch. You have put this in and I know you're keen to obviously protect privacy and your partner's privacy on this but it is a book launch not just for the difference because of I imagine there'll be quite a lot of virtual elements to this because of the pandemic and people not getting together in the same way but also because you're going to have a demonstration at the book launch. Yeah it was really important to me I became quite evangelical afterwards and my friends and family will say I kind of always go do you know CPR it's very quick to learn and so to prove that on the online CPR session we're going to be having from Resuscitation UK he also advised me on the book because you know there's I actually themed it around the chain of survival which are the steps that you take in order to get somebody

really quick help and sometimes even if you don't know CPR just recognizing what's happening is enough because every minute that goes by the chances of survival drop by around about 10% so getting in there quickly so we're having the person as part of the alongside the celebration um so yeah anyone can join in as well so it's just a 10 minute session it can tell you all you need to know and you know it's likely it will be you it won't be a paramedic there it won't be a doctor it will be if a member of your family or even a stranger collapses had a cardiac arrest you're going to be the one so yeah well we're going to support that we're going to put some of those links about what you need to know on the women's hour website so you can go and have a look and refresh your memory I think that's the frightening thing you do the

course and then you forget you know years go by and there is a bit of muscle memory you hope but it is something to keep really fresh in your mind thank you so much for coming to talk to us you definitely should always win chore wars in your home that is our view yeah I think that's clear. Good luck with all of that. The official woman's our verdict on that now. Yes, I've given that to you. The book's called How to Save a Life and under the pen name Eva Carter. Eva, good to talk to you. Nikki's emailed in saying, I once saved the life of a friend's boyfriend, although I didn't know it at the time. 20 years on, I still don't really comprehend what I did. He'd been out clubbing with friends and when he came back to my friend's house, he wasn't making sense and seemed to be losing

consciousness. I remained completely calm and in control until the ambulance arrived, organised my friend and her mum, and then I went home and I cried. Relief? Stress? When it really matters, we are capable far more than we think. And I had a very lovely call from him the next day to say thank you my goodness Nikki what a memory thank you for sharing it with us keep those messages coming in 84844 now you may have seen this it might be your world or it might be something that you care about you might love drinking the stuff but in recent days there's been an outpouring on social media of women sharing their experiences of working in the craft beer industry, specifically sexist experiences.

These include female brewers being deliberately humiliated by male superiors, saleswomen experiencing sexual harassment, and some serious allegations of sexual assault and unwanted attention from prominent men in the industry. Heads have already begun to roll in the US. There's been accusations made of companies and individuals here in the UK. An online conference is going to be held next month to discuss how women can organise themselves and get more support. Joining me now, Charlotte Cook, head brewer at Coalition Brewing, and Melissa

Cole, beer writer and author of The Little Book of Craft Beer. Charlotte, I thought I'd start with you. Craft beer, in its imaging and its labelling and everything about it just seems so modern. It is, however the history of beer is for the past 200 years has been completely dominated by men and it continues to be completely dominated by men. There are fewer than I think five percent of women brewers in the country and very, very few women brewery owners. So, yes, it is very modern, but it's definitely a boys club and it's definitely very much weighted towards men. And this outpouring, people sharing like this, how have you felt about this? And what have you seen that perhaps you didn't even know?

I found it very harrowing actually and it's been really eye-opening to see how many women are talking about the same men who are committing these really really awful acts of sexism against women across the industry and it's a it has shaken me as well and it's made me realize quite a few things that have happened to me as well that have been, you know, really quite upsetting and have stood with me throughout the time. Are you able to share an experience with us? So there was one I actually checked this morning to see if it was still there. So one craft brewery that I did work at would frequently post pictures of the staff with the beer and one comment came up and it said, have her drink it naked under a photo of me holding a beer. I brought that up with HR and with the social media manager, both of whom are

women. And I was told that I should try and stand up for myself on social media, that they wouldn't protect me, they wouldn't use the company platform to protect me. And despite the fact that my contract actually precluded me from being able to talk about the company on social media so really just between a rock and a hard place completely abandoned by a company and by women who I should have been able to consider allies. Let's bring in Melissa at this point I mentioned there the branding of Craft Beer it's it meant it comes across as it is terribly modern I I mean, we talk about the history of brewing beer. I can already hear somebody getting in touch now to talk about women have always

been involved in the brewing of beer. But we really need to talk about the modern culture of it and how perhaps that image isn't the same as the reality. No, unfortunately, it's not. It is extremely a boys club and people can talk about historic things all they like. But since the Industrial Revolution, as Charlotte rightly pointed out, it's been a boys' club. And the problem is that because it is such a closed boys' club, behaviour becomes normalised, lack of diversity becomes normalised,

and that doesn't just go for women, it goes for people of colour as well, and also the LGBTQ plus community. And this is all a big problem, not only just because of the fact that this means that people feed into their own loop, and what would be considered inappropriate and seen from a lot of women's point of view as inappropriate, because men don't suffer the same form of discrimination. They quite frequently don't see it. So one of the big problems in the whole industry is that lack of diversity and very much that lack of diversity at the top. Have you experienced it as a writer as well?

Is it different if you're covering it? Yes, I have. Big smile. I'm sure it's not a smile about what you've experienced, a wry smile. Big smile through gritted teeth. Yes, I have. I was actually the first full-time female beer writer in the UK a smile about what you've experienced a wry smile big smiles through gritted teeth um yes i have i was actually the first full-time um female beer writer in the uk and that came with a whole slew of abuse it was you're just a pair of boobs behind a beer um you don't really understand it you're

just trying to get attention um because i also play cricket and go fishing and do all these things that you're supposed to do. So really, I've also been told that really, I'm just the son that my father wanted. That was a particularly nice one. There's also been aspects where even just recently, there was a YouTuber. So this sort of pervades, it's important to say this sort of culture pervades down as well. So there's a beer YouTuber who was being really rather racist by calling his online pub the Kung Flu Arms, which I pointed out was not particularly pleasant, decided to go on a rant and suggested that I go to a nearest well-known sex shop, find the largest friend, shall we call it um and to shove that up my flu and maybe i'd be happier so yeah this is actually a whole cultural issue across the industry i've been aggressively confronted by men i've been assaulted at beer festivals because of because

of my views saying that you know using sexist imagery isn't what we should be doing for beer it's not right it's not okay um i've been blacklisted from events by breweries that i've called out um and i've been threatened with rape and violence of various different forms on social media as well charlotte it doesn't paint a pretty picture at all and one would hope that is it is it time or is it the fact that more women, not more women are drinking beer, women have always drunk and enjoyed beer. But what will be the thing that changes it? Will it be from consumers perhaps speaking out? Or do you think this is a moment for this industry? I think a little bit of both. So I think that being able to speak on a platform like this will bring this to such a wider audience who maybe just had no idea that this sort of issue was so prevalent in craft beer because it just brands itself as such a happy family kind of consumer thing.

And really behind the scenes, it's not. And I also think that now women are becoming more confident, are more willing to speak out about the injustices that they've faced and they're also starting to be a little bit less fearful of the kind of brewery owners and the boys clubs that as kind of this real cult of personality around them and around the brands that they produce and so I mean people will even get brewery logos tattooed on their body which I mean if you got a you, a Red Bull logo tattooed on your body, everyone would think that was a really, really bizarre thing to do. But within craft beer, to have, you know, a company, a brand logo branded on you is considered to be perfectly, perfectly normal

expression of your loyalty to a company. And I think that people are losing their fear about speaking up against this kind of closed ranks boys club who will, you know, blacklist women if they dare to speak up. Yes, well, also a rather sour taste for those who enjoy it and then hear about what it is like for some behind the scenes. Melissa, from your point of view, has it got some parallels to the tech world, startups, you know, founders often being male, and also being in a situation where they're still in the company, you know, it hasn't necessarily professionalised. I can also see Charlotte nodding, I'll bring you back if I can. But Melissa, what do you make of that?

Yeah, we're both sitting here like nodding dogs, really. It is, that's exactly, that's a perfect parallel, to be quite honest with you, Emma, it really is. The problem is that a lot of these things, as Charlotte rightly says, comes around a cult personality, so it's like jumping on a bar and being all dynamic and all this kind of stuff, and actually the problem is that what that does, what that does is it shields people from criticism, especially when you've got a critical mass of fans. And that's a problem. You've seen it in the music industry. You've seen it in the YouTuber industry.

You've seen it in tech. And the real thing is that actually, do you know what? There have been a lot of stories that have come out about a lot of these breweries, and yet people still will excuse them because they've been fans for their whole life. So how about the best thing that most beer drinkers could do, and it really is unfortunate, is vote with your feet,

vote with your wallet, is believe women. When you hear more than one or two stories, even when you hear one story, start to believe it. Start critically thinking. Don't be such an absolute sheep about the fact that because this is the beer that got you into beer. I suppose if you're in the supermarket, you're buying what's there. You're looking at, I don't know if you're thinking like that, but, you know, is that what you're trying to get people to think differently? Yeah, I mean, I think we've all started looking at.

So, for example, a lot of people now wouldn't choose to buy anything but the very least free-range eggs because of what's going on in the background. So it's just thinking differently. I am going to have to bring us to a close there, but that's a whole other discussion as well. I mean, and of course, price plays a part as well in people's decisions and what they can do. Melissa Cole, thank you for talking to us. Charlotte Cook there, head brewer at Coalition Brewing. And Melissa is a beer writer and the author of The Little Book of Craft Beer. Well, some of the stories that perhaps you haven't heard before. Thank you so much for your company today. We'll be back with you tomorrow at 10 o'clock and many more messages to come. That's all for today's

Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. Charlie, I have been so excited to speak to you. Hello, Myrna. Hello, how are you, Joe? I'm Joe Wicks, and I'm back for the second series of my podcast that's all about sharing ways to help you live a happier and healthier life. Doing a bit of research, and apparently you're into something called inversion therapy, where you hang upside down.

What's that, like a bat? Exactly. I do it every day. You know, it all just sort of... Clears your head a little bit. Yeah. I get to speak to some heroes of mine, from the legend that is Sir Tom Jones, exactly I do it every day you know it all just sort of clears your head a little bit yeah I get to speak to some heroes of mine

from the legend that is Sir Tom Jones who I'm literally obsessed with to one of our most successful UK athletes Sir Mo Farah

you have to be smart and control the race in the way that you want to it just settles me it organises my brain meditation I think is the cultivation of a space within you

that if you don't turn to it, life will get in the way. Subscribe now on BBC Sound so you never miss an episode. And you can also check out every single episode in video format on BBC iPlayer. The Joe Wicks podcast for BBC Radio 4. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody.

Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.