Woman's Hour - Bethany Shriever, Sian Ruddick, Katherine Gordon, Debbie Cook, Meg Mason, Ruth Evans, Tamanna Rahman

Episode Date: April 27, 2022

Bethany Shriever’s win at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 gave the British Olympic team its first ever gold medal in BMX racing even though she had to launch a crowdfunding appeal to stand a chance of qualifying for the games. What does this latest award mean for her and BMX racing? In the wake of the Sarah Everard murder, Boris Johnson said he’d stop at nothing to jail more rapists’ and promised to fix the system which means just 1.3% of cases result in a charge. Our reporter Melanie Abbott has been investigating new guidelines on evidence gathering issued by the Crown Prosecution Service and Emma Barnett talks to Sian Ruddick who is an independent sexual advisor who works with victims of sexual assault.In 1958, The Great Leap Forward was a campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party to reconstruct the country and its economy which resulted in mass starvation and famine. Thousands of people fled to the neighbouring state of Hong Kong, which was a British colony at the time and many children – often girls - living in overcrowded Hong Kong orphanages were adopted by British families in the sixties. We hear from two of those children Katherine Gordon and Debbie Cook and their remarkable start to life.After the DJ Tim Westwood faces multiple allegations of sexual misconduct - which he strenuously denies - we talk to Tamanna Rahman and BBC Producer Ruth Evans.Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason is a funny novel about mental illness and families and love of all sorts. Martha Friel is loved and hilarious and clever but she sometimes cries for days. When she was 17 she had a breakdown which has shadowed her life since then. At 40 she finally gets a diagnosis which helps her to understand why she is as she is. So why did Meg Mason decide not to name Martha's illness in the book? She explains her decision to Emma. Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Studio Managers: Tim Heffer & Michael Millham

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. Good morning and welcome to today's programme. As usual, it is a busy one. From the first person to win this country an Olympic gold medal in BMX racing to an author who has this morning been shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction. It is all going on. And we have an exclusive report for you into how changes to the justice system

designed to mainly benefit women may not be happening at all. And I'll be talking to the woman who, when listening to this very programme, found someone who had the same incredible life story as her. All to come. But first, the DJ Tim Westwood, who was on Radio One and Radio One Extra for nearly 20 years, is facing multiple allegations of sexual misconduct. Seven women came forward to take part in a BBC investigation and give interviews anonymously. It was joint with the Guardian newspaper. They say he abused his position in the music industry

to exploit them. Meanwhile, four other women have accused the DJ of either touching their bottoms or breasts as they posed for photographs with him at different events where he was performing. The thing that all of the women have in common is that they were young at the time and that they are black. Tim Westwood, who's 64, is accused of predatory and unwanted sexual behaviour and touching between the years of 1992 and 2017. He said he strenuously denies the allegations. Well, Ruth Evans is the producer of the BBC Three documentary Into This, which went out last night. Ruth, good morning.

Good morning. The documentary's received a lot of coverage across the whole of the press, actually, newspapers and other networks, the BBC. Any updates since going out last night? We have had a huge amount of response online, lots of people talking about this. And actually, we've had lots of people coming forward to the BBC with stories. Obviously, so far, we've not been able to corroborate them, but we are following them up. And, you know, the investigation is ongoing. And lots of women are

you talking about there specifically yeah okay and the allegations against him i just did an overview but could you tell us a bit more about those yeah of course so seven women have come forward with seven independent accounts of sexual misconduct as you said they were all black and they were in their late teens or early twenties when the incidents allegedly happened. And they met the DJ either when they were aspiring artists or when they, in some cases, attended one of his club nights. And I've said that Tim Westwood has strenuously denied these accusations. Has he said any more? Well, he wanted to make clear that he did not behave in the manner described and that any suggestion that he acts or has acted in the way described would be false. And for those who aren't perhaps familiar with Tim Westwood's work, I mean, I certainly grew up listening to him and

remember him very well on Radio 1 and then Natalie 1 Extra. How influential was he in the industry? Because he wasn't just a DJ on air was he? Yeah hugely influential and it's important to know that his career goes back a long time so he started in pirate radio so he was familiar before he'd even joined the BBC but yeah he worked at BBC for nearly 20 years and he was kind of seen as a champion of black music in the UK and yeah really influential. Some people see him as a kind of a gatekeeper for a lot of rap and hip-hop particularly. And also said that he was the one to pioneer playing a lot of the music

that then became so popular. Absolutely. And with that, of course, comes great power and influence. It's taken the women that you've spoken to, and now I'm aware, of course, from you that there are more coming forward, a long time to do that, to come forward and say what happened. Yeah, it has. Some of them have been sitting with us for a very long time. And, you know, they say that the racial discrimination that they have experienced plays a part in this.

So they feel that they feared their experience would be minimised, dismissed and ignored. And in terms of next steps for them, are they going to be taking any further action in terms of the police or reporting? Do we know on that side of things? None of them have gone to the police so far and we don't know what will happen. But yeah, we'll see what happens in the coming weeks. Well, as we just said, the response from Tim Westwood so far has been to strenuously deny those allegations. We've contacted Mr Westwood's representative this morning. No further to add to that, it seems, at the moment. But in a statement to the Mail Online, he says he's hit out at what he calls fabricated allegations,

said they were false and without any foundation, saying, I can categorically say I've never had an inappropriate relationship with anyone under the age of 18. I'm aware of attempts by anonymous sources to make fabricated allegations online and I can confirm that such allegations are false and without any foundation. Ruth Evans is the producer of the BBC3 documentary Looking Into This, which, as I say, went out on TV last night, of course, now available on iPlayer.

Ruth, thank you to you. Let me welcome to the programme Tamana Rahman, who's a documentary maker who made the film Music's Dirty Secrets, Women Fight Back. That went out in February. Good morning. Hi, morning. It's a natural follow on in some ways to what you were looking at, Ruth's documentary. And I know that you were keen to expose women's voices and expose what was going on in the music industry. Tell us a bit about what you were looking at absolutely so um what i was looking at was uh the experience of women who worked across the music industry particularly within the pop kind of um area um and their experiences of sexual

assault by um artists as well as managers and executives and the way that they felt that they had been ignored or their concerns and allegations were were dismissed and how widespread that was within the industry. In fact I believe it was actually watching your documentary that one of the women who have come has come forward with these allegations was watching your programme and felt that she then could. Absolutely I mean I found that absolutely extraordinary and I had no idea until I heard about it yesterday. But she watched the documentary, she felt that the experiences that were, you know, kind of talked about by some of the women in that programme clearly resonated with her. And thankfully, she was, you know,

she had the courage to come forward to the BBC. And I think that is part of the issue. People often are very afraid and worried about coming forward, because they feel that they're a lone voice, that there's nobody going to support them. There's a huge power imbalance that often existed with, you know, Tim Westwood exists across the music industry in general. And so to have the support, I think, of other voices, you adding your voice to another woman, I think, is really the, you know, really gives strength to women to come forward and really to expose one of the real issues that exists within the industry. What do you think there is specific about the music industry

that has led to this being what seems to be, you're moving it away from Tim Westwood allegations, but seems to be a wider problem, which is what you were looking at? I mean, the music industry is a fun industry. It's an area where, you know, you're hanging around at amazing parties, you're getting access to brilliant music, you're, you know, given exclusive, you know, party access and celebrities, and you want to make it.

You care about music music you're passionate about music um and there are gatekeepers there are gatekeepers who hold power um and I think that is it's very much to do with that power imbalance it's very much to do with the fact that you want so desperately to to fulfill your dreams of becoming a musician or working within the music industry in any sort of capacity whether it it's PR, whether it's digital, whether it's, you know, producing, whatever it happens to be, engineering. And there are specific people who have these lives, which seem so exciting, which seem like they hold so much power. And they're the only ones who can really give you access. And actually, it's a small industry as well. So if you do something or say something which almost brings a company into disrepute or

brings industry into disrepute or that particular, you know, label into disrepute, then you're the one who ends up, I've been told by the women that I've spoken to that you're the one who ends up being pushed out. It's not the person who's making the money. It's not the person who's bringing in the sales who ends up um being you know chastised or being taken aside it's always a person who doesn't have any power and I think that power imbalance within the industry um it's a little bit like the film industry as well with Harvey Weinstein it's that similar sort of dynamic um and I think that's the reason why within the music industry there's a particular problem the music industry has dealt with it to

sorry the film industry has dealt with it to a certain extent with the Harvey Weinstein people aware that it's happening um the music industry less so these these really difficult relationships he's really difficult um you know there's a lot of executives there are a lot of people who are within power um who behave in a similar way to who've behaved in a similar way to Tim Westbrook and continue to behave. Well, it is alleged to have behaved, I should say again. Yes, exactly. It is alleged to have behaved in... So, yes, and they continue... I was going to say, your point there is, whereas other industries,

namely, of course, other fun industries, if I could put it like that, where there are lots of parties, lots of glamour, like the film industry, you think perhaps has started to change its ways not the same what you saw when analysing and speaking to those in the music industry no absolutely when the film when the film that I made came out um you know there was silence from the major record labels you're talking about um Sony Universal Warner there's very little um you know a comment at all from any of the independent record labels we're talking about an enormous number of women who say that they've faced sexual assault or sexual misconduct. And yet there have been no steps that I am aware of taken, you know, to enable women to feel safe within the industry.

And I suppose just picking up again on a theme in Ruth's documentary just out last night. Are you or how surprised are you that there's this element of it being more difficult for women of colour to come forward and talk about what they say has happened to them and they've never been able to speak about before? Well, the women that I've spoken to, the experience that I've had for the last year or so, there is a race problem within the music industry. There's a power dynamic, there's an extra power dynamic

when it comes to people of colour, when it comes to black women as well. So I'm not surprised at all. There was a documentary that the BBC did last year as well, which looked at race, pop and power. And so it doesn't surprise me at all. Tamana Rahman, your film, I should say, also still available,

Music's Dirty Secrets, Women Fight Back. Thank you for talking to us this morning. I read to you that statement, the latest from Tim Westwood. There's also this statement from the BBC. A BBC spokesperson said the BBC is against all forms of inappropriate behaviour. We are shocked to hear of these allegations. The BBC has strict codes of conduct for all those engaged by the BBC, including on-air presenters.

And of course, we'll bring you the latest on that story as it develops, as it sounds like perhaps it is, with more women coming forward this morning in light of that programme last night. Now, my next guest earned this country its first Olympic gold medal in BMX racing when she won at Tokyo last year. She then went on to become a world champion,

the first woman in history to hold both titles at the same time. And now at 22, she's been named Action Sportsperson of the Year at the annual Laureus World Sport Awards, which recognise the greatest sporting achievements. I am talking about Bethany Shriver. Not bad for someone who started out on a secondhand bike, had to work part-time as a teaching assistant and then crowdfund her way to cover Olympic qualifying costs. Bethany, good morning. Hello. Congratulations.

Thank you very much. I can see you, but for the purposes of radio, you do have a rather beautiful statuette in front of you. It's looking good, this one. Yes, lovely. This is a proper, proper award. It's well heavy. It's two figures, it seems, holding up a sort of half circle on a beautiful plinth there. Two men. Does it look like men?

Yeah. Yeah. No hair on there. Maybe need to get some women on there. What does it mean, though, to win that award? And I know you picked it up from someone pretty important too yeah um it was just an honor to be nominated for this awards like the Laureus um awards is kind of known as like the Oscars of um sports so yeah to even be nominated was was an honor in itself and then um my agent just said I had some filming with Laureus and that um that yeah I was just had to be ready for that so went down to the track and then was doing an interview and then Chris Hoy came from behind the scenes and surprised me with this incredible award so yeah it was a massive massive shock um but an absolute huge honor and

yeah Chris Hoy is an absolute legend as well so to see him and speak to him was yeah mental but you're a legend I mean let's get to it. But just before we do, it's extraordinary what you've achieved so far and also, you know, how you've had to pay for it. Can you just describe what's involved with BMX racing in case people aren't aware? Yeah, so basically we ride basically like kids bikes. It's 20 inch wheels, single gear one brake on the back um and it's basically each race it's eight riders at the start and you basically get from point a to point b um as quick as you can it's full contact sport um and we go up to we go up to speeds of like 60 miles an hour down the hill so So yeah, we go very fast.

We love doing big jumps. And yeah, we can crash at any point really as well. So it's full of danger, full of adrenaline and full of speed. I was watching you this morning. I was watching some clips of you. It's completely addictive to watch. Is it addictive to do? Yeah, definitely.

There's no other feeling like it. I think that's obviously how I took to the sport so quickly. And I just say to myself every day, I'm so lucky with what I get to do. I literally do the sport I love every single day. I literally train every day. And yeah, I'm just so grateful. How did you get involved with it? Basically through my younger brothers. There was a track close to where we lived.

We went and checked it out and we just loved it from day one. Basically through my younger brothers. There was a track close to where we lived. We went and checked it out and we just loved it from day one. And it's quite a family orientated sport. So we was traveling around the UK together as a family for a very long time. And then I was the only one who kind of wanted to stick it out and want to be professional in it. So I carried on. And here I am as a full-time athlete training in Manchester. Well, I loved a very good place.

I'm just going to say that as a Mancunian. But I love how you say, oh, you can get injured. I was looking through your injuries. You fractured your wrist three times. Yeah. Broken your leg. Yeah, dislocated.

Yeah, yeah. And then you broke it again on the first training session after recovering from injury. Yeah. Yes. And then you broke it again on the first training session after recovering from injury. Yeah. Yes. OK. I mean, how is that? Are you are you very good with pain? You know, what's your reaction when those sorts of things happen? Yeah, I'm not good with pain at all. I think my mum and dad will vouch for me in that respect. But no, it is it can be very difficult i mean i done i broke my leg that was my biggest

injury um when i was about 13 14 and i had a plate put in so i still have a metal plate in my leg and i still have physio to this day um to kind of help take over and look after my body as well um but yeah it's part of the sport um but i suppose you just got to ride as smooth as you can and kind of reduce that risk as much as you can. But yeah, it can happen at any point. It can happen at any point. Sorry to sound like your parents, but please can you be careful? Because I don't want you to do anything else now.

But we are incredibly proud of what you've managed to achieve and being, you know, Junior World Champion by 2017. And that, though, came at a time when UK Sport, is it right, decided to fund only male BMX riders? Yeah, that's correct. What was your reaction to that? Oh, I was gutted. It was kind of as, obviously, I just did that.

I won Junior World titles. Yeah, kind of wanting to go through the foundations and be a professional athlete eventually. So when they put the fund in, it was a huge shock for all us younger girls. And we just didn't really understand it. But I think it was just because they saw no real potential, I think. And there was no women BMXers at Rio. And I think that's kind of what they kind of care about most.

It's just the game. So they probably saw no one at the games and just thought, oh, that's it. But I think now they realised leading into Tokyo that there was potential in me and there was potential that I was going to bring a medal. So I'm very fortunate that UK Sport and the National Lottery did see that potential and they did want to fund me all the way through the games and now for the future.

Had any apologies from UK Sport? No. Do you know what I mean? I mean, if you don't think there's going to be potential, but then you cut the funding, you know, it's a bit of a vicious cycle, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, no, it's true. Well, you definitely had the last laugh with the gold medal.

Yeah, I think I proved my point and I proved the point. You certainly did, but you had to crowdfund, you know, on a serious note. Yeah. And then, is it right, take a job as a teaching assistant as well? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was working part-time, obviously, after I found out the funding got cut as a teaching assistant, which I absolutely loved. And I feel like that's going to open up doors for me after sport

with what I would like to pursue. So that's really cool um but then also we're doing that part-time you can't fully commit to your sport like you're going to training tired um and not as motivated so you have to be full-time if you want to achieve what you want to achieve um so you had to crowdfund to get to these races to qualify for Tokyo which obviously I ended up doing um and then when obviously British Cycling saw that I was going to be going, they kind of took the reins and was like, right, we'll need to get in the best shape possible and move me up to Manchester.

Which is where you've continued to be and to be training full time. But how much did you have to raise? Oh, well, for the season, it was around 50 grand, but we obviously didn't get that. We got around, I i think just over 10 and that helped fund to get to there's like two races in australia which was quite a hefty um sum and then we also had to pay for a coach at the time as well so that was able to get me to that get the points and yeah get to tokyo amazing well well done you huge congratulations on that how

important have your I mean you mentioned your family certainly when you were starting out in this I believe at the age of eight or nine but how important have they been in getting you to this point? Oh massively like they've been a huge part of my journey leading into my kind of like junior career to now elite career like without their support I wouldn't be where I am today like doing them proud is like it means so much to me and like no matter what happens I know that they'll be proud and they'll be there for me no matter what so that's what I take with me to races and yeah it's just just really lovely to have them there what's it feel like when you're on the track can you

describe it it's like a rush of nerves before you get going rush of adrenaline and once the gate drops it's just pure like I don't know it's just like you're just digging in and you just want to give it everything you got and then like feeling the jumps and that it's just there's nothing like it at all nothing like it like I absolutely love it would you encourage would you say to to more young women to think of it for themselves and to give it a go oh yeah 100% like I feel like it's made me the person I am today like you get to travel the world you meet all these amazing new people um women from all around the country all around the world um and yeah it's just I'm just

so lucky and like I've been able to talk and work with so many amazing people as well along the way. So, yeah, I definitely would encourage it. And after all of that, you may eventually end up being back in the classroom as a teacher. I love that. You never know. You'd be an extremely cool teacher to have with some of the stories if you were going to share them with the pupils. How old were the pupils that you were looking after? Oh, like three and four year olds like toddlers lovely stuff well bethany all the best with it

enjoy that beautiful large statue the latest one to add to the mantelpiece bethany shriver there of course the first olympic gold medal winner not just first woman the first one overall bmx racing without any funding at first had to do it all on her own and then prove it to make her point. And she certainly did that. Lovely to talk to you. All the best to you. But to something else entirely and to a completely different area of life, antiques. If you are a fan of the BBC's Antiques Roadshow, you might remember my next guest who appeared on the TV programme recently. And she caught our attention here at Woman's Hour because she cited Woman's Hour on the programme and as the programme where she heard the story for the first time of another woman with a similar backstory to her own. Kate Gordon went on TV only a few weeks ago, as it was shown, it was probably a bit longer,

to share and show her precious collection of items from her early childhood in Hong Kong. She is one of over 100 Chinese refugees who travelled to the UK as babies in the 50s and 60s and were adopted by British families. This was because their birth families were struggling to cope with mass starvation and famine during Mao's political campaign known as the Great Leap Forward, which led to the deaths of up to 45 million people. At the time, Hong Kong was part of the British colony and struggling to cope with an influx of refugees fleeing communist China. So the British government decided to transfer children,

mostly girls, from overcrowded orphanages to largely white British-adopting families. Well, Kate was one of them. And Debbie Cook had a similar start to life to Kate when she was brought to the UK in 1961 as a baby and went on to found the UK Hong Kong Adoptees Network. Both Kate and Debbie join me now. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to you both. Kate, if I come to you first, it was lovely, of course, to hear that it was Women's Hour where you heard a story of another woman when you were starting to think about your past and your life. Well, to be honest, I've never been interested in researching or anything like that.

I'm not even particularly interested in Hong Kong, to be honest. But I heard Karen Moe on Women's Hour in 2009. She was being interviewed because Madonna had adopted some more children from Malawi. So it was just through listening to her that I realised that she was from the same cohort. And you took these items, I mean, we'll come back to that story in just a moment and how it developed, but you took certain items to Antiques Roadshow.

What do you have from that time of your life? More or less what I took to that show, actually. My little jacket that I wore, this little silk padded jacket, an ID bracelet, my passport, British subject passport, and a set of photographs, the ones I got that my mum gave me from the Daily Mail. I don't actually know who took them though, that's the problem with just daily mail photos. And since then, you know, I've sort of obtained various press cuttings from that time.

And when you say you weren't necessarily interested in looking into all of this, when you heard that report and that discussion, what was it for you? What did it prompt and what has it led to? It just made me think, oh, I mean, I just haven't really given it a lot of thought. Well, you know, there's somebody else there in basically the same, you know, start in life. So I contacted the BBC and after a few weeks managed to be put in touch with Karen. And then I just started to sort of, you know, idly Google Fanling Vegas home because I knew that's where I was from. Fanling is in the New Territories in Hong Kong. So a website came up and on the website there was a tiny little message right at the top that just said Hong Kong International

Reunion 2010, you know, if you're interested, email here. So I did that and then started getting emails from various places. They just seemed to be coming out of the blue. And a lot more information coming. I mean, did you talk to your parents about your background and how you came to be here in the UK when you were growing up? Or was it not a topic for discussion? It wasn't off limits. I think because we had a normal, I mean, I'm not saying, you know, we weren't Waltons, we had a normal childhood.

We also adopted another, my younger brother, and we fostered as well. So these things were just kind of normal within our family. So it wasn't a big deal. Let me bring in Debbie at this point. Debbie, good morning. Good morning. What about you? What did you know about your first years here and how you came to be here? Well, I was abandoned at approximately 10 days old at a stairwell in a block of flats, which was a very run-down part of Hong Kong.

And I was taken to a family and baby's home in the New Territories by a police officer. There they gave me my name and an estimated birth date. So as far as I know, I was one of many abandoned babies, in particular to baby girls. Yes, and that was very much part of it. And I know that a lot of people, not just, of course, with your story, which is a very particular one in itself, don't necessarily want to go back, want to have a look at where they came from.

And then they have something in their life which makes them then think, I want to know everything. And that happened to you quite late on, didn't it? Yes, yes, it did. I think I was in my 50s and I was going through a rather turbulent time in my life. And my mother actually found Family and Babies Home on the website. And so she consequently contacted them. And just to cut a long story short, there are a lot of girls that had contacted them from the UK. And I was asked if I would like to be put in touch with them. And I thought, wow, you know, this is amazing, because there was I thinking I was the

only child like my circumstances. And suddenly there was girls coming out of the woodwork, so to speak. And this is what really brought me into the situation of finding that I was contacting and being contacted by people, it was almost I was in a situation where I hadn't actually thought this was going to happen, but it just happened. And what's that brought to your life, having those bonds with the others? Happiness. I've just felt so much more complete. And the joy of connecting girls with each other, especially when I found out that they were on the same flight.

I mean, you know, we have so little to go on. You know, we have no real name. We have no birth date. We don't really know our background, we've all you know lived in the UK I mean I've been very very fortunate that I've been able to do this and with the help of Kate more or less so shortly after we've gone out to the worldwide reunion because I've been on the committee for that Kate Kate had said, you know, Debbie, this group is going to grow and grow. You're going to need help. And I can always remember those words because suddenly I thought, yes, I am definitely going to need help.

And Kate is a marvellous organiser and is able to do a lot more on the techie side than me. That's good. Always good to have a friend who could do that with you. Kate, let me ask you the same question, though. What has it given to your life to have these connections beyond, of course, your skills of organising? Well, again, it's one of these sort of things that you don't realise is kind of inside you. Because, as I say, I grew up not having any hang friends. But once I was in touch with people, initially, because we're going back to 2010,

you know, the meetings would always be very focused on route searching and, you know, records and this sort of thing. And over the last just over decade, it's become much more relaxed. Surprisingly, we still get new members even now. But it's much more social. And the nice thing is, you know, we meet and everyone has the same back starting line. We haven't necessarily got the same interests nowadays. We've got different interests, different family circumstances, etc. But we're all coming from the same place, so we don't have to sit and talk about it.

No, it's just a common bond of, as you say, what's inside. Well, it's absolutely lovely to bring you together and hear some of your stories this morning on the radio. Kate, thank you so much to you. And of course, you know, nice for giving us the shout out, of course, Women's Hour on Antiques Roadshow. Always take that. Always take that. It's good to have you on as a listener as well, of course. And Debbie Cook, thank you to you who went on to found the UK Hong Kong Adoptees Network. Now, to come to the UK and its justice system, I mentioned a particular change

that had been designed largely to the benefit of women but may not be coming to pass. But let's get some of the detail on this because in the wake of Sarah Everard's murder, Boris Johnson said he'd stop at nothing to jail more rapists and promised to fix the system. This is because while the number of rape allegations reported to the police has increased significantly, the number of those going to trial has drastically reduced, with just 1.3% of cases resulting in a charge. Only this week, you may have seen this, the BBC reported that serious sexual offences

are taking the longest time on record to go through the Crown Courts in England and Wales. But back to those figures. Police in England and Wales recorded 63,136 rape offences in the year to September 2021, the highest recorded annual figure on date. But then there were just 1,557 prosecutions. Rape crisis advisors say one reason for this large discrepancy is the rise in intrusive

requests by police and the Crown Prosecution Service to access victims' records, asking for everything from their school reports to counselling notes, and that could be putting women off from following through with their case. Well, the CPS, the Crown Prosecution Service, has been working on new guidance which would have made, which would, excuse me, have the chance to radically improve the experience of those reporting rape. But that appears to have been overturned in its new guidelines on evidence gathering, which will actually make it easier for police to dig into victims' pasts. Well, Melanie Abbott, our reporter, has an exclusive investigation into this. Melanie, what is not changing now in those guidelines that was expected to? Yeah, well, as you mentioned, those guidelines, they came out last July

and they were from the CPS and they said that accessing rape victims' past records, particularly therapy notes, should not happen as a matter of course and that speculative inquiries shouldn't be made. This would stop what some people say are fishing trips by the police and prosecutors. And it does reflect a court ruling which was made back in 2004, which said that requests like this must only be made if the police believe there's information which could undermine the prosecution case or could assist the defence case. So what's not going to happen? We thought this was going to be a good thing. That's right. It sounded like it was moving in the right direction. But the problem is that

this CPS draft guidance conflicts with guidance from the Attorney General, which came out back in 2020. Now, that guidance is quite different from what the CPS is suggesting, because it says that any relevant material can be asked for. Now, that's really quite a wide test and it could impact on almost any issue in a case. And I'm told it could lead to lots of speculative inquiries. Now, the Attorney General is in the process of revising that guidance, but it looks like that phrase, that relevant phrase is going to stay because it's also in the most recent guidance issued by the CPS on gathering evidence. Which is, of course, why it's important, I suppose, to read the fine print and see what's

actually written. What is the Ministry of Justice, of course, who will be overseeing any such changes? And the CPS said about this. Yeah, well, we asked the Attorney General to come onto the programme to discuss this whole issue but she has declined. Instead we were referred to the CPS and they've sent us a statement saying this is a sensitive issue we don't take lightly we recently published fundamental principles to set out clear steps to balance supporting victims protecting their right to privacy and ensuring the defendant's right to a fair trial. And they say these principles will be at the core of the

new pre-trial therapy guidance. Now, publication of that guidance is awaiting the annual review of the Attorney General guidelines. So you've got these two lots of guidance really being worked on in tandem. But they do say that the new guidelines from the Attorney General should ensure complementary and consistent guidance properly reflecting the law. But I have to say that we have spoken to a rape prosecutor from the CPS who wants to be anonymous, but they are worried that this change will inevitably discourage women from coming forward. Now, to protect their identity, their words are spoken by an actor. The vast majority of contested rape cases feature a factual dispute between the victim and defendant. There's a very strong focus on material which could be relevant to the reliability of the victim's account, including what they have previously said about the incident and whether they have maintained a consistent account of what happened.

If the threshold for asking for private material is reduced, victims can expect their records to be asked for routinely simply because they made even very brief mention of criminal allegations to people like a doctor, social worker or therapist. When I reflect on the requests that I and my colleagues have routinely made to police in relation to victims' private information over the years in rape cases. I am frankly ashamed and can understand why, having learnt about current practice, victims of rape are reluctant to come forward. Of course, we have reported on this issue of intrusive checks into those reporting rape

before, but it is important to understand the impact that this has on those on the receiving end. Who have you been talking to, Mo? Yeah, I've spoken to lots of women who say they've experienced this, and they say that they feel really their whole lives are being trawled over when they come forward to report a rape. We've heard a lot about phone records in the past, digital forensic evidence, if you like, but this is going far deeper, asking for things like therapy records, school, university, social services records. It happened to this woman in her 20s. We're calling her Carol, but her words are spoken by an actor.

The police asked for my doctor's records from the age of 16, even though this happened six years later. I was confused and asked why. They said it was to see if there were any anomalies. Then they asked for my counselling records from university. I thought, why do they need that? There wasn't a reason, really. They said the defence might get them

so the police needed to see them. I thought they were asking for things which were completely irrelevant. I said no. But it wasn't easy to say no. They said the defence can get it and could use it against you. I did feel violated. It didn't make any sense to me. My mental health has no relevance to what happened. It made me feel they thought I was a crazy character and had made all this

up because I had issues before. I just thought, well, they won't believe me and might use it to drop the case. I didn't want everyone seeing my records. It just made me feel not believed. Her case was eventually dropped. Police told Carol that there wasn't enough forensic evidence and that there seemed to be contradictions in her story. And she says this whole experience has left her now unable to trust the police. I have also spoken to the Victims Commissioner Dame Vera

Baird and she told me that she has been arguing this express point herself and says that using the word relevant is hugely subjective. She's been talking to the Attorney General to try to get things changed. She says she's now concentrating on bringing about improvements in the upcoming new Victims Bill saying that now we do need legislation. Mel, Melanie Abbott, thank you very much for that and for that report and those insights. Well I can now talk to Sian Ruddock who's an independent sexual advisor advocate with the Haven Sexual Assault Referral Centre in London. Sian, hearing this, is it something you hear a lot of? Good morning Emma. Hearing those accounts particularly of that survivor is incredibly familiar for us.

The double bind that survivors find themselves in by wanting to protect their privacy and have the investigation be reasonable but on the other hand fearing that the police will disbelieve them further and therefore drop the case. So you can see the corner that survivors have backed themselves have backed into. Because of course what we were just describing though it is nuanced the difference between what's relevant and what they can go for it's important that distinction isn't it? That distinction is incredibly important and I think the fuzziness of the guidance at the moment is causing major major issues we want to see that the test is that it meets the threshold for disclosure that is it undermines the prosecution case or may support the defence. And this can't be a phishing exercise where just because someone's had contact with a service that those records should therefore be requested and become part of a criminal investigation.

No other cases are investigated in this way. Why is it that rape and serious sexual offences victims are treated in this way? Why is it that rape and serious sexual offences victims are treated in this way? Do you accept that some information though has to be available to look at? Because sometimes, of course, not to make it the broadest sense, as you say, fishing expedition, but you don't know sometimes what you're looking for until you can see it or look for it. I recognise though that you're not saying, you're saying other cases aren't investigated like this? Survivors give a huge amount of material to the police and to the criminal justice system. Survivors that come through our service

have often had a forensic medical examination which involves a physical examination. Survivors give physio-recorded interviews to the police and that is where the police can really think about who's this person told, who might we interview? If they've exchanged texts it might be worth talking to a survivor about that phone being looked at but that is about being an evidence-led investigation and not this broad brush strokes which we know are is seriously

damaging the mental health of survivors and you've seen the attrition rates more and more survivors are dropping out of the criminal justice system than ever. While the conviction rates are decreasing rapidly, this isn't working. It's not an effective way to investigate. So they do report, more and more are reporting, and then when they find out what's involved, they drop out. I think that is something of what's happening. We also have to think about the experiences of black and minoritised women who find it even harder to report to the police because of the experiences that communities have with police. But then once people come into the system, it looks like two-thirds of people are dropping out

within the first month of an investigation. What is happening in that contact with a criminal justice system that's meaning that people that have made this huge and brave decision to report are finding it unable to sustain? Also, I mentioned that only this week the BBC's reported that serious sexual offences are taking the longest time on record to go through the Crown Courts in England and Wales. And there was an interview that I heard with my colleagues on the Today programme about the woman who said, if I could get the last four years of my life back, I would. So even if they do go through with it, they can end up regretting it because of how long it takes. Unfortunately, that's incredibly familiar for us. We hear clients say that going through the criminal justice process was worse than the assault itself

or has been re-traumatising for them. It's the continuous kind of violation on top of what's happened to them already, which is so re-traumatising. But I suppose, if I may, if they do get to that point and they do get, I hate to put it like this, but their day in court, their many days, as it will end up usually being with a trial, and then the person is found guilty, do they then say to you, it was worth it? We have to remember that's in the absolute minority of cases

and so often people will come out with a guilty verdict. And the expectation is that people are supposed to be elated and relieved. But the experience is often much more complex than that. And the impacts and ramifications the assault has had and being in the investigation means that recovery is very much delayed. So it can be very complicated. I'm not asking that to be simplistic. It's more that I suppose from your perspective, you're not trying to discourage, you're just trying to change, you're actually trying to change the system. Absolutely. Because you, I presume in the work that you do, you do think

it's very important for these things to be, for these crimes to be reported. Yeah, what we really want is procedural justice for survivors that choose and feel able to go through the criminal justice system. We want their rights to be properly afforded. We want them to be properly considered and for them to have the opportunity to consent to what happens to them within a system. With these changes that we've talked about that may end up not being as was thought, is there anything you can do?

We feel like we're running a kind of whack-a-mole exercise at the moment where we are fighting on a case-by-case basis for prosecutors and for police to really consider what kind of information they're asking for. We hear a huge range of kind of opinion from the Crown Prosecution Service at the end of last year within a 10-day period. We had one prosecutor saying that you know we really should be being very specific about what we ask for, another person taking a middle ground, and another person saying if we don't get everything, the trial will collapse.

The Attorney General, when we had the privilege of meeting with her when she came to visit our service in February, said that she did believe that that approach was invasive and outdated, but what we need is the guidance to be able to help us to continue to advocate for survivors' rights in line with it. Well, Sian Ruddick, thank you very much. Independent sexual advisor advocate who's seen a lot of what we're talking about at the Haven Sexual Assault Referral Centre in London. Thank you.

As we mentioned, as Mel mentioned, we did invite the Attorney General onto the programme. I very much hope we can get her onto the programme and we'll make all efforts to do so because it would be important to hear from her on this and not least, of course, about the amount of time things are taking to go through the courts. Now Sorrow and Bliss, have you heard of it? It's a book. It's by the Australian writer and journalist Meg Mason, her debut novel in the UK. On publication last summer it got rave reviews earning a reputation as a book that women buy for women and certainly have been discussing. A couple of hours ago, it was also shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction and the paperback is out tomorrow. At the heart of the story is, and I should say it's also a

very funny story, but there's sadness to it too, is 40-year-old Martha Frail. She's loved, she's clever, she's acerbic, but sometimes, sometimes she cries for days. Meg Mason, good morning. Thank you. It's such a privilege to be here. Well, congratulations, first of all. I seem to only be talking a lot of the time this morning to award winners or those up for awards. It's very nice. It's been quite a morning. It has. It will be memorable.

Well, tell us just a bit about Martha. If people haven't read it, the character at the heart of Sorrow and Bliss. We meet Martha at her 40th birthday party. The following day, her beloved sort of heroic husband leaves her. So that's sort of where we meet her. And then the book moves back to, you know, all the way back to when she was a young woman in her teens. And as she describes it, a little bomb went off in her brain and, you know, left her with an illness that was never diagnosed and isn't diagnosed you know for the next 20 years so she lives with this sort of mystery at the core of

her existence and she knows you know in her words that something is wrong with her and that it's informing her decisions and her relationships and her behavior and it brings her to this crisis point with her husband because when the diagnosis comes, her question is, is it too late? You know, it sort of costs her everything. And I think that is something that is familiar. Lots of us go through life with this critical piece of information missing and we sort of know it's there and it charts everything, but it takes a lot of our adult lives to sort of solve it, solve the question of who we really are.

You're going to do a reading, which I always love, if we can actually hear or, you know, have a sense solve the question of who we really are you're going to do a reading which i always love if we can actually hear or you know have a sense of of the piece of art the creativity that we're talking about give us a sense of the tone i'll set the scene briefly martha and her husband patrick are moving to oxford to try a new life in what martha has dubbed the executive home uh ingrid is martha's sister she is and this is this is you know in the absence of a diagnosis we all try different things. And this is, you know, in the absence of a diagnosis, we all try different things, thinking maybe this is the problem and her husband suggested that we leave London because maybe London's the problem.

As we were driving out of London following our removal truck, Patrick asked me if I would consider making friends in Oxford. Even if I didn't want to and I was only doing it for him, he didn't mind. He just didn't want me to start hating it too soon. He said at least until we've unloaded the car. I was in the passenger seat looking for pictures of drunk Kate Moss on my phone to send to Ingrid,

because at the time we were communicating primarily by that means. She was four weeks pregnant, not intentionally, and she said seeing pap shots of Kate Moss falling out of Annabelle's with her eyes a bit shut was the only way she was getting through the day at this point. I told Patrick I would, although I didn't know how. Maybe not a book club, obviously, but like a book club. He said you don't have to get a job straight away either. If I said there weren't any jobs, I'd already looked. Well, in that case, it makes sense to focus on the friends thing. And maybe you could think about doing something else work wise if you wanted to, or

I don't know, do a master's. In what? In something. I screenshotted a picture of Kate Moss in a fur coat, ashing a cigarette into a hotel topiary, and said, I'm thinking about retraining as a prostitute. In the middle of overtaking a van, Patrick shot me a look. OK, first, that term isn't used anymore, and second, you know the executive home is in a cul-de-sac.

There won't be the foot traffic. I went back to my phone. There's a lot in there. There's a lot in there. And you read it very straight. But of course, there's a lot of humour that she's trying to launch, isn't she? To cope. That's very kind. I think that's the thing. And I've been asked lots of times, you know, how did I sort of get the humor into the book? But I think I couldn't keep it out, you know, because when we're at our darkest and our lowest, which is when we meet Martha, we tend to be our funniest. Because as humans, I think that's how we contain it and sort of make the things that we're most afraid of. We sort of, you know, to make a joke of them, it makes it feel like we're somehow in control. So all through it, she does sort of I guess colour it that way to make it bearable. And send lots of pictures of Kate Moss. Exactly

she's a recurring motif at the book in the book she you know they get to the point where Martha's trying to work out what she'll do with her new life and Ingrid says you know make a vision board as long as it's all just pictures of Kate Moss on a super yacht she's really informed my career but I mean getting that intimacy across and I suppose having that, do you think that's why a lot of women have related to her, to the stories? I think it's so, isn't it so hard to know

when it's words that you wrote in my case in my tiny sort of writing shed in the back garden 12,000 miles away. It's so hard to know, but I think because the book for me was kind of, it's not autobiographical, but I was very much in the place that Martha is when we meet her, which is, you know, not where I wanted to be at 40. And I think, you know, it had come after a failed manuscript. And I was just, I felt like I was really post hope in what I was doing. So all

of that, I think, has gone into the book. And there's rage and despair. And, you know, there's sort of this sense that things don't bear out the way that we want them to. And so maybe that's what women have felt like, that they can see some of their own experience in there. And just because it has been amazing. And obviously, I've just arrived here. And you don't, you know, because the time that it came out, didn't meet readers for a long time. And so the thrill of the last few days is to meet women who've read it and have them grasp my forearm and sort of say, this is what the book meant to me.

And I've just been so overwhelmed. It's been just so special. I want to come back to the failed manuscript because I've got to pick up on that. There's something very specific there that I definitely want to ask. But this decision, which you mentioned right at the beginning of the conversation about not naming the diagnosis in the book. Do you think I mean, why did you do that? But also, do you think that has led to a greater number of, in this case, largely women being able to relate to it?

Because it's not, oh, I don't have that particular condition. So I can't say this is something I relate to. I think there were, as I was writing the book, and because, you know, the failed manuscript that we'll get to, this was not ever to be a novel. This was just something that I think when you're a writer, you just can't help yourself. So even though mentally, I'd quit fiction, I was going to give up and never try again. You just find yourself writing again one day. But it meant that I was writing in total privacy and secrecy without a mind to the reader. So I didn't have to be careful. So I let Martha tell her story and use whatever terms

and describe herself and her illness in a way that I wouldn't if I was, you know, that I couldn't, but she needed to be as angry and as full of shame, you know, as she was. And so I think that I couldn't then go back and retrospectively make it something that I, you know, as she was. And so I think that I couldn't then go back and retrospectively make it something that I, you know, that wouldn't be hurtful to somebody who might really be in that position, or it wouldn't be realistic, and it wouldn't be accurate. And I was really concerned about misrepresenting people's real experience, you know, just for the purposes of some novel that I was writing, I sort of couldn't live with that. So it gave you a freedom to let her have whatever it was

that hadn't also been diagnosed, which is an experience that a lot of people have been through, a lot of women in particular. Yeah, and once it was to be published, I was thinking, gosh, how will this be received and is this okay, what I'm doing? But I think then sort of creatively, I really knew that if I'd named a condition, Martha would only get to be that

condition this would be the book about her as you know for example had it been schizophrenia Martha would be a woman with schizophrenia and a schizophrenic book about schizophrenia and schizophrenia was in the blurb you know because you literally just have it on the page as a dash yes it's a dash which was awful for the audiobook narrator you'd have to figure out what to do what did you do x dear Amelia Fox would say x she did such a beautiful job um but yeah and i just knew and i love that she just did your audiobook casually mentioned that i know just isn't it revolting i'm becoming such a clanking name dropper um but do it do it this is the place to do it we've got to talk about you say a failed manuscript did you actually show it to anyone? And how many words did you write that you then trashed?

It was done. It was 85,000 words long. I'd spent a year on it. I sent it to my publisher a couple of days before it was due. And I said, please don't read this. I'm just showing it to you so you can't sue me because I was in contract. The advance was long gone. That had gone on orthodontia in school shoes years before. So I was, you know, but I just said, I just don't want you to read it because it's so atrocious and mercifully she she let me abandon it because lots of editors was fed no it's due you've got to just fix it but it was beyond fixing I knew it was beyond and I'd known for months and couldn't admit it to myself going with it obviously yeah because you just think it's I know that it's meant to be hard

everyone says you just have to stay in the chair but But it was just, it was just diabolical. It was so bad. Have you read it since? No. Where is it? It's nowhere. I just deleted it. You just deleted 85,000 words? Yeah. And then I rested my forehead on my desk, on my arms and started weeping. I'm sorry, I'm not meant to laugh.

No, it's hilarious. Now it's hilarious because it's all turned out. But had it ended there, it would not be a funny story. We might not be talking. Yeah, no. No, we wouldn't. I'd be trying to search for it in some remote library. Although anyone who's done that, you can ring me any time. I definitely want to hear that. If you've even deleted it by accident,

84844 is the number you need to get me here at the moment. Reaching the low in your career at 40. You also have a particular trick when you sit down to write which helps you overcome the feeling of failure Reaching the low in your career at 40. You also have a particular trick when you sit down to write, which helps you overcome the feeling of failure that that novel, manuscript, gave you and allowed you freedom almost to write this. And I think you'd have to be a writer to perhaps benefit from this. Tell us what you did. What I did, it just sounds, it makes me sound so fruity.

You know, what I did. Fruity? I've not heard anybody use that word for a while. I love it. I was so broken by that experience. And I can tell it now, you know, it's fine. But at the time I was full of shame because I told everybody that I was writing this novel and then I wasn't anymore. And, you know, the thing I'd always wanted to do, the only reason I couldn't do it,

it wasn't time and it wasn't, you know, the availability of space. I didn't have the talent. That was the only reason for it. So that's quite something to face. So to come back to it, I needed to sort of rehabilitate myself from the lowest place when you have no confidence. So what I would do is I would start every morning by writing out everything I was scared of. You know, I can't do it. I don't have the talent. I don't put it on the page. And then one day, so I'd been doing that for a while.

And then one day, this is the rooty part. I started replying to myself. There was, then I would write, but it's okay. So it became this conversation. And some days I'd need to write for half an hour. And then other days it was two minutes. But I just, I just found that what I learned from that was I've written it all out. It's all true.

I am afraid of those things, but I'm still going to do it anyway. I sort of, I would say be that as it may. Would you print that off and put it in the bin or what would you do with it? I'd write it on paper with my hand. With your hand? Yeah, because there was some act in that sort of the manualness of it. It literally felt like getting out of my body and it was very separate and then and then it just felt like it was something I could put to one side and I'll attend to it later you know be that as it may I'm going to do

it anyway so be that as it may was the phrase that got me through it oh there you go so if you're feeling like that about anything write it out perhaps try it yeah Meg's saying here and then you can carry on yeah and then confess your strange practices on the radio i love that that's why i do this job meg mason congratulations on what a morning you've had what a few days you've had and the book is called sorrow and bliss lovely to talk to you thank you and lovely to have your company as always this morning back with you tomorrow at 10. that's all for today's woman's hour thank you much for your time. Join us again for the next one. I thought it was going to be like, we have such a great friendship that we can talk about things that I can't talk about with anyone else, even my wife. I can talk to you about things that I

can't talk to my wife about because when I try to talk to my wife about work, she just rolls her eyes. I thought you were going to say, like, we're like astronauts. We're the only ones who've been to the moon, and no one else has seen what we've seen. I'm Louis Theroux, and if, like me, you enjoyed listening to John Ronson's Things Fell Apart podcast, you might also like this conversation where I ask him all about how he made it. Funny, so you're conflict

averse, I'm conflict averse, yet we spend our lives putting ourselves in very conflict-heavy situations. Why is that, Louis? That's How Things Fell Apart with John Ronson and Louis Theroux on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. 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.