Woman's Hour - Can sex offenders change? Camilla Thurlow, Cook the perfect with Ravinder Bhogal, Childless older women

Episode Date: August 22, 2020

Becky's father went to prison for sex offences against children. For a BBC documentary, Can Sex Offenders Change?, Becky met three sex offenders who didn’t go to jail, but had rehabilitation treatment in the community. We hear from Becky and Professor Belinda Whynder, Research Director Centre for Crime Offending, Prevention and Engagement at Nottingham Trent University and a co-founder of the charity Safer Living Foundation. Former Love Island contestant Camilla Thurlow worked in explosive ordinance disposal, finding and clearing landmines in some of the world’s most dangerous and inhospitable places. She has written a book - Not the Type – Finding my place in the real world.The Office for National Statistics has estimated that the number of women who reach 80 without children will almost triple in the next 25 years. As a result demand for paid care in nursing homes is expected to increase sharply. Why is the focus on childless women and not men, and how is the data being reported in the media? Jody Day is a psychotherapist, author and founder of Gateway Women, a global organisation for women who are involuntarily childless.Ravinder Bhogal is a chef and restaurateur whose book, Jikoni is subtitled as proudly inauthentic recipes from an immigrant kitchen. She tells Jenni how to Cook the Perfect Coffee Rasgullas with Mascarpone Ice Cream and Espresso Caramel.Sixteen year old Rhea from Shetland put out an appeal using an anonymous app, to anyone who wanted to share their personal stories about sexual violence. She received more than 60 responses within 24 hours. Rhea, and Lisa Ward, manager of Rape Crisis Shetland, talk about what those stories say about sexual violence within rural areas.Mary Stewart has been called one of the great British storytellers of the 20th century. Her 1954 best-seller Madame, Will You Talk? has been dramatised in two parts for Radio 4. We speak to the writers Jane Casey and Harriet Evans who are both fans of her work.Presenter: Jane Garvey Producer: Dianne McGregor

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. Hi, good afternoon and welcome to the weekend edition of Woman's Hour. This week the highlights of our week include Camilla Thurlow, was a contestant on Love Island of course, but she's also done work clearing landmines, so it'll be interesting to hear from her. We'll discuss the ONS statistics that came out this week, referring to so-called childless women and the impact they would have on the demand for care in the future. The Radio 4

Play tomorrow afternoon is an adaptation of the Mary Stewart novel, Madam, Will You Talk? We discussed Mary Stewart on the programme this week, and here's a quick clip illustrating how she was reviewed back in the day. There's this absolutely hilarious description of what she's bought with her royalties in a review of one of her books. And it says she's bought a Jaguar, some Chinese porcelain and a deep freeze. And there's constant references in reviews of her work to her husband, who was a very well respected professor of geology you don't hear the expression deep freeze anymore do you but it was something people used to boast about having um nowadays if you're lucky you've just got a freezer or a fridge freezer of course uh also on this program today uh we'll have some cooking in the company of ravinda bogle chef and restaurateur who makes coffee rasgullas with mascarpone ice cream and espresso caramel.

Beat that. No, I simply can't. But I would quite like to eat it, it has to be said. So that's later in this edition of Weekend Woman's Hour. First, we heard this week from Ria, who I thought was a very impressive 16-year-old from Shetland. Ria put out an anonymous appeal to anybody who wanted to share their experiences of sexual violence on Shetland. And within a day, she'd had more than 60 separate responses. I talked to her and to Lisa Ward, the manager of Rape Crisis Shetland. First, here's Ria explaining why she wanted to do this. Well, it started during lockdown. I kept seeing a lot of posts on social media of the Me Too campaign.

And I was sitting thinking, being up in the island that I am, I don't see a lot that comes from Shetland. So I sat down and I was thinking what I could do to do something up here. And that's when the idea came into my head and I was originally going to do it just a few people that I knew stories but I thought that there'd be a lot of other people that would want to share their stories that's when I decided to put out just the anonymous text message to everyone that responded and I only expected to get maybe 10 or 15 responses at first and when half an hour came I had over 40 responses and that responded and I only expected to get maybe 10 or 15 responses at first and when

half an hour came I had over 40 responses and that's when I messaged Lisa Rape Crisis for help. Did you know Lisa or did you know of her? Yeah I am in a volunteer group at Rape Crisis called Bee. I started off as a volunteer group I was one of the first members as I've worked with rape crisis for quite a while and it's a group of between 14 to 25 group of volunteers and we just work along rape crisis and raise awareness and have different things. We might make posters or have exhibitions or just anything to really raise awareness in Shetland. Do you feel that in your part of Britain there's a reluctance to acknowledge the issue to pretend in fact that it doesn't exist at all?

Yeah definitely being in the community that we are it's quite safe in general and everyone kind of takes that and brushes anything that they hear about sexual assault or sexual violence, kind of brushes it under the carpet. And if they do hear a story about it, they think that it doesn't happen up here. They kind of brush it to the side because it's such a small community. The fact that you actually got quite a response what does that does that make you think? It it was quite shocking to see really because I knew that there would have been a lot more than I expected but it's how much I got in such little time that was quite I only had the post up for about 24 hours and within then I got about 66 responses. And just to be clear, what did the post say?

It was just asking, saying that I was going to do a post to raise awareness on sexual violence and asking people to share their stories and that it would be anonymous so I wouldn't know and no one else who was reading the post would know whose story it was. And obviously the anonymity is really important, but do you know whether the people who responded were women, whether they were young women, whether there were any male contributors? Well, the age range kind of went from, I think it was 14 right up to 26. And then

there was both women and men in the story as well. And what kind of things were they telling you? It was a big range. There was people that were saying they were getting groped in the street, groped in the pubs. There was stories of sexual assault on well-known streets in Chatelaine and there was stories of rape. It covered everything, really. It's depressing, Lisa, but obviously you've got to be really naive to think that this kind of thing doesn't go on everywhere. Unfortunately, it's a fact of life, isn't it? Yes. Well, I wouldn't say that sexual violence is a fact of life in that it's inevitable, but certainly it is very common, much more common than I think the average person is aware of. And in particular, as Ria highlighted, there is kind of a perception that maybe it doesn't happen in smaller rural communities. And that's possibly

because there's less visible things like catcalling in the street, for example. You're less likely to see that, but you're as likely to see other forms of sexual violence here as Ria's shown. So you weren't surprised by what she discovered, but I guess the real issue is what happens now? I mean, no, obviously Shetland Rape Crisis, it wasn't a surprise to us to read it, but it certainly was very powerful and it had a big emotional effect, even though we work with this kind of content day in, day out,

seeing all those stories. In particular, they were clearly from young people. They list ages. It was quite emotional for the whole team here to read those things and to recognise those patterns of behaviour. In terms of next steps, I mean, there are a number of things we can do to combat sexual violence, and one of them is what Ria's already done.

It's breaking those myths and allowing people to be able to pattern spot about what does sexual violence actually look like. No, it's not a stranger waiting in an alleyway with a knife. It's more likely to be someone you know and trust, potentially a partner, potentially someone within your family, and to happen in domestic spaces. And I think that Bia's work here has really shown that. It is depressing. I know that one of the very, very young contributors was only eight. Is that right? And talked about being sexually assaulted in a street in Lerwick. Yes, I believe that that's the youngest age that was listed. We do know that childhood sexual abuse is a significant problem countrywide and a

problem in Shetland. This past year, around about 40% of the service users that we have seen said that they were first affected by sexual violence under the age of 16. So we know it's an issue and it's an issue that continues throughout life. But it is possible to heal from it. And it is possible to prevent it as well. Often on this programme, unfortunately, we have to talk about rape and about the woeful conviction rate. Lisa, what's the situation in Scotland? I mean, similar to England in that the conviction rate is low. It's slightly different in Scotland in that we have three different outcomes that you can get rather than just the two.

So there's guilty, not guilty and not proven. And not proven is statistically far more likely in cases of sexual violence sexual assault and rape so not proven can be a big barrier to any kind of conviction as well as that Scotland has corroboration laws and so acts like sexual violence tend to happen behind closed doors very difficult to corroborate there's usually unlikely to be a witness because that's how the perpetrator has designed it so again that adds an additional hurdle in Scotland to conviction. Well, is there a campaign to do something about that? But let's start with the corroboration.

Surely there are people who want that changed. Yes, there is. And there's been a long going campaign around corroboration and a number of groups have added to that and fed back to the justice system about that. And Rape Crisis Scotland and all the associated rape crisis centres, Shetland Rape Crisis included, are a part of the hashtag end not proven campaign as well. And there's a lot of good stats on the Rape Crisis Scotland website about how not proven works in Scotland with regards to conviction rates. Well, I mean, not proven is an interesting one, not least to those of us in England who obviously we don't have it in the courts in England and Wales. Are you very concerned that that might actually lead to people who are indeed guilty getting away with it?

Well, we do know it is used disproportionately in rape cases. I think it's something along the lines of 2016-17, only 39% of rape and attempted rape cases resulted in convictions. So that's the lowest rate for any crime. And nearly 30% of those acquittals were not proven, compared with about 17% for all other crimes and offences. So it does remain a big concern. Yeah. and do juries always understand quite what that means? I mean, theoretically, yes, they're supposed to, but in practice, no, I don't think that that necessarily is understood. It's quite often seen as a way of saying,

well, it's hard to prove this thing, but we're kind of believing the victim, but not. So there can be a good intent from a jury picking a not proven verdict. But ultimately, it has the same effect as a not guilty. Nothing happens with regards to the perpetrator. And forgive me, I hope this isn't an ignorant question, but would a rape trial take place on Shetland or would that case be on the mainland? That depends on the case preparer, essentially. So once your evidence is gathered, the case preparer makes their case

and then makes a recommendation as to whether it's sheriff court or high court. We have an advocacy worker. She's quite busy. She works within the courts here, supporting people going through sexual violence, domestic violence and rape cases. The idea is that for more serious sexual crimes, those do go to the high court, but not always. Right. I mean, that would worry me slightly in terms of getting a fair trial on Shetland with a population of, what, 23,000. Does that worry you? Yes. I mean, that's one of the unique

hurdles within Shetland. I mean, on the plus side, everyone kind of knowing each other, like I say, can add an accountability. So you see less things like street harassment. But in terms of barriers to the justice system, you know, your auntie might work in the police station. Maybe the nurse that's doing your forensics is one of your sister's friends. You are meant to not be a part of the jury if you know anyone involved in the case, which I believe can be very difficult up here for the sheriff court to manage as well. And then we have some really excellent local media who do a lot of really good work with us in terms of coverage of this kind of stuff. But again, it's very high profile. So

there's a number of barriers in Shetland to going the justice system route. That's Lisa Ward, the manager of Rape Crisis Shetland. And you also heard from that really impressive young woman, Ria, who started that initiative. Camilla Thurlow was a contestant on the reality show Love Island in 2017. She came second and now lives with the man she met on the show, Jamie Jewett. But there's rather more to her CV than that. She also gained a first at Loughborough University in sports science and went on to be accepted by the Halo Trust to train in explosive ordnance disposal, finding and clearing landmines in Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Cambodia.

Her memoir, Not the Type, Finding My Place in the Real World, was featured on Woman's Hour this week. Jenny asked her what made her want to work in landmine disposal. The thing with explosive ordnance disposal is the outcomes of it are incredibly tangible and HALO works with the poorest, most marginalised communities who've been affected by conflict. is the outcomes of it are incredibly tangible. And HALO works with the poorest, most marginalized communities who've been affected by conflict. And they're the communities where you can see how desperately, terribly they're affected by landmines and then how much of a difference is made when they're cleared.

So, for example, the land that they cannot use to grow food for their families, once it's cleared, you see crops being grown on it or you see a school being built somewhere that was previously unusable because of the dangers. So it was the tangibility of it all and being able to find a way to make a real difference for people. Now, having started doing administrative work,

you did train to work in the field how risky is that work how dangerous is it i mean there is of course an element of risk you're working with explosive items um and it's important to maintain that kind of healthy level of fear where you respect what you're working with um so that you make sure that every single time you follow the procedures very carefully and correctly. So I was really aware that I'd had the absolute best training and I knew I was good at what I was doing. But it was also important just to always have that in your mind that it has to be done right every single time to be a safe procedure. What are the basic rules, Camilla? Before you, you know the

landmine is there, where do you go first? The first thing you do when you identify, when you're clearing a minefield is you would identify metal signals usually using a detector. Then you complete a very careful excavation up to the landmine and then we would normally use a process in every country where we were allowed explosives, we would complete a process which is called destroy in situ, which is when you lay a donor charge, retreat to a safe distance, and then you blow up the landmine, and that's it destroyed completely. That's much safer than fiddling around with anything. But there are other times where you might do a slightly different process based on other factors. And there's a term that's known as one man, one risk,

which means just one person goes forward to lay the charge, just one person completes the demolition. And yeah, and that's, you know, once it's blown up, that's it, it's gone, it doesn't come back, it can't return by itself. And and that's that is one of the most satisfying things about landmine clearance is it's a problem that truly can be solved you you write about some occasions that clearly made a really deep impression on you i wondered what you learned from an occasion like coming across the monument to a 27 year old teacher who was murdered in Afghanistan after a false accusation of burning a Quran he was 27 when he was murdered you were 27 when it happened what did you learn from that yeah so that's the story of Fahunda um I mean her story really stuck

with me but there's a monument to where she was finally murdered, which we used to drive past on the way to the explosive stores that was just outside Kabul. And so I saw it on a regular basis. And I was 27 at the time. It's just such a significant story, both for me personally, but it had quite a big international effect on the fight for women's rights. And it was one of those circumstances where you could really see how different life could be. You could see yourself in someone else. And equally, it was one of those circumstances where it kind of opened my eyes up to the fact that there are these voices that have power and that can have a huge effect on other people's lives and in this case the most terrible impact on the loss of

Farhunda's life. But yes if you haven't heard the story I would urge anyone to go and read about it. In her funeral it was the first time they had female pallbearers at an Afghan funeral. And the woman wouldn't allow her coffin to be touched by any men. So it was a really terrible, terrible story. But the bravery with which she lived her life has had a very far-reaching effect. So eventually you come back home and then you decide to do Love Island. Why? Afghanistan. I was approached by one of the casting researchers for the show online. I'd really struggled. I'd basically had this kind of social dislocation thing going on where I really couldn't connect with my family and friends. I was in a difficult place in my head. I was

struggling to process the previous few years and what I had seen and how to move forward and live a balanced life where I could be helpful but also could feel myself again and so the Love Island kind of application was actually sort of going on in the background as I tried to resolve a few of these internal struggles and I went for a few of the chats and they just kept asking me back to each stage and I wasn't really thinking about it but I was still very unsure what I was going to do with the future and so when they offered to well when they asked if I would be in the opening cast it was someone giving me an answer this was the next step it also seemed like immersive socializing therapy if that makes sense sort of that you couldn't avoid socialising in that environment.

How surprised were you to find love in Love Island with Jamie? I mean, my overwhelming memory of Love Island is actually the friendships that I was able to build up in there because as I said, I did go in with kind of this difficulty with speaking to people and communicating with the people around me. And I made some really close friendships and I was really well supported by the women in there. And that made a huge difference for me. Jamie came in right at the end of the show, actually. And so, yeah, I think we were incredibly fortunate to meet on the show. I don't think we would have met anyway. We had completely different jobs, so I don don't think we would have met anyway. We had completely different jobs,

so I don't know how we would have met otherwise. But we were also really lucky in that then the show ended and we were able to get to know each other in the real world where you can meet each other's friends and family and just see how you slot together. And we had a bit more time to do that process. And I think we've all just read that there are congratulations in order because you're going to have a baby. Thank you very much that's very kind thank you.

Yes congratulations to Camilla Thurlow who really does sound like one of the winners of Love Island although she actually was only second but anyway she's done brilliantly well out of it it has to be said. The Office for National Statistics has estimated that the number of women who get to the age of 80 without having had children will almost triple in the next 25 years. And as a result, demand for paid care in nursing homes is obviously expected to increase very sharply. Well, those are the facts. But what irked a lot of people this week was the way the issue was reported in some sections of the media. The headline in the Daily Telegraph, for example, was childless baby boomer women to bring rise in social care costs. No mention at all of men who haven't had children. Jodie Day is a psychotherapist, the author and founder of an organisation called

Gateway Women, a global organisation for women who are involuntarily childless. I asked her whether she has a beef with the Office of National Statistics or not. I do have a beef with the ONS. You do? Okay. Because it doesn't collect the data for men on weather and how many children they have. It only collects that data on women but you can't can you because the problem well the practical implication it's difficult some men are fathers but don't know they are and some people think they're fathers but they're not I still think the question is worth asking in the census okay rather rather than just not asking it at all yeah because I think it leads to these kinds of, you know, it supports these kinds of sexist opinions that somehow childlessness is exclusive, a female issue.

So how would it help if we did know how many men were also so-called child? And I don't like the expression childless because it carries a weight and it sounds terribly judgmental. But how would it help if you knew how many men were in that situation? Well, meta-analysis would show they're actually either the same or slightly more childless men in that generation, the sort of 1960s generation. And also other research would show that actually the outcomes for elderly childless men, particularly those that are also single, are considerably worse than for elderly childless men, particularly those that are also single, are considerably worse than for elderly childless women, because they, you know, they often don't have the social networks

that women have. So I think, you know, for men's health, it's really important that they're included when we think of things like this. It's not my remit, I support childless women, but you know, I know and love childless men, too. Yes. To read the newspaper coverage in particular, you would think that it is women's sole responsibility that there is going to be a greater need for care home places. There's almost no mention at all of of men in that that situation it does it also you know imagines that the you know the the rise in life expectancy that this generation has seen is has solely gone to women which is absolutely not the case there will be many men needing you know needing care as well and i think also one of the way this is framed is it sort of immediately moves it to this idea

in people's mind that this is about, you know, really dependent care, really intimate care, when in actual fact, a lot of the informal care that elderly people without children need is the same as those with children. It's help fixing the skybox when it goes on the blink. It's sorting out online banking. It's all those things that make the admin of modern living. Those are the things also that people need help with in order to remain independent in later life. It's not just help feeding and washing. It's also really important to emphasise that you don't have children, if you're fortunate enough to have had them and to have wanted them, in order to guarantee care in old age. That isn't a reason to have children. It isn't and I don't know anyone who thinks like

that. And certainly in those years that I was trying to conceive and it didn't work out for me, that was never a thought I had. However, when you realise that you won't be having children, either by choice, which is only 10% of women, or, you know, for many other reasons, usually the next thought that comes to mind is oh my goodness who's going to be there for me when i'm old so we do as childless and child free women do start thinking about this issue earlier but when parents say to us you know i don't want my children to take care of me so somehow that that's going to matter and it's like well that doesn't mean they're not going to you know 92 percent of informal care is provided by children. So

regardless of whether you want it or not, unless the social care system changes, that is what will be happening. Yes, of course, we need to emphasise that many children don't care for their parents, do little or nothing for them in their old age. It's a much smaller amount. That's a sort of comforting thought that often gets trotted out, rather an uncomforting thought. Statistics don't bear that out. So in fact, statistics would say only 4% of children aren't involved. But well, I mean, there are degrees of involvement, Jodie, aren't there? Indeed. Well, I mean, also, if you know, one of the reasons you might need support, as if you're ageing without children, which doesn't just mean that you don't have children.

Your children might have adult care needs of their own. They might live on the other side of the world. I mean, that's why AWOC, Aging Well Without Children, is such an important organization, because there are many ways you can need support in later life, not just not having children. You know, your children may have pre-deceased you, there can be so, or be estranged, there can be so many reasons. All of them need to be taken into account. And I think if we address this issue, it will actually make ageing easier for all of us, whether we have children or not. Because as you said, if you have children, you don't want them to have to deal with this. Well, here's a listener who says, I'm child free by choice. I'm 44. If I need social care in 40 years time, I'll be looked after by the same carers that look after the people whose children don't care for them at home, as is the case now. Making a similar point to me,

I suppose, that many of us live hundreds of miles away from our elderly parents and we do what we can. Do you sense a change in, I mean, I thought perhaps we were changing, Jodie, in our approach, but then when these statistics come out every year, they do seem to be reported in the same way year on year. I think there is a very slight change, but it needs to get much bigger. I think perhaps COVID really highlighting the vulnerability of some elderly people living on their own has brought to bear on this issue a little. But I mean, AWOC, it was couldn't get any funding as an organisation. There is a desire to turn a blind eye to this in our culture because nobody really wants to think about the vulnerabilities of ageing.

And if you add ageism and sexism and pronatalism together, you just develop such a huge, huge blind spot. No one really wants to think about the realities of this, often until it's too late. And I think that's what this generation, you know, they're calling us the baby boomers. I think the baby boom ended in 65, the year after me. So it's kind of actually us generation Xers. We kind of need to come together and think of solutions and advocate for ourselves to make sure that in 20 years time, the care we need is there. Jodie Day, and we really did get a lot of emails from you on this particular interview. June says, so some women will be a greater state burden in later life because they

won't have children to care for them. That's assuming that they won't have their own funds to look after themselves. Not having children means that throughout the childhoods of the potential lives of the children not born by these women, they haven't incurred the cost of state-funded NHS pregnancy and child-related services, nursery and childcare costs, state schooling and potentially state support such as family tax credits. I fund all of these things for others through my taxes

and I'm happy to do so. I like children, I just don't have any of my own other than my own stepchildren. All these costs should be netted off the cost of care in later life, if it's to be a purely financial comparison. And while we're at it, why don't we judge every couple planning to have children to assess the probability of their children being net contributors to the state via taxes rather than a net drain, and control the number of financially disadvantageous births. OK, I'm being sarcastic, she says, but these things have to be looked at in the round. June, thank you for that email.

I think you make a point that, well, a series of good points that other people will be very glad you've taken the time to make. Marlene said one aspect not mentioned today is that it's not just their children who support the older generation. Nieces, nephews, cousins and much younger siblings also often play a major role. I know of many examples of this. I myself am a single childless woman of 74 but in the past I've given support to, for example, a childless aunt and uncle, a childless aunt, the childless cousin of my mother, as well as an aunt and uncle

who were estranged from their son. Again, that's really a series of points worth making from Marlene there, who's just one of thousands of women who have worked so hard for others over the years. Now, a big question was discussed on the programme this week that probably don't come very much bigger. Can sex offenders change? Becky's father was convicted of sex offences against children. He served ten years in prison and the crimes committed against Becky were part of the sentence he served.

He has been released and did a sex offender rehabilitation programme when he was behind bars. For a BBC Three documentary called Can Sex Offenders Change, Becky met three offenders who didn't go to prison but got treatment in the community. Professor Belinda Winder, Research Director at the Centre for Crime Offending, Prevention and Engagement at Nottingham Trent University and a co-founder of the charity Safer Living Foundation, also takes part in Becky's documentary

and I talked to them both this week. Becky first. It was definitely hard to get people to talk to us because, you know, once you're labelled as a sex offender, people are angry and, you know, they get a lot of violence and they are scared for what people may do to them if they speak, especially to the press. But I also think that we kind of deserve to understand

why these people offend. Three different men appear in the programme. Their appearances are disguised, their real voices are not used, their real names don't feature either. What do you make of them, honestly? I think they were very defensive I think they all had some personal issues that were deep-rooted and they really do need help for generally speaking but I think they were really defensive because I am a victim of abuse I think that in itself makes them really

quick to defend why they did it they didn't't mean to hurt anybody. They didn't know that they were victims on real people that were being harmed. So I think there was an element of not sympathy, but I did feel sorry for them in a way. What kind of offences had these men committed? And just to emphasise, they did not go to prison, they were being treated in the community. Yeah, so the men that we spoke to, we class them as non-contact offences. It means that, you know, there are real victims and, you know, real children that are being harmed. But it was a non-contact or an online offence. And at least one of the men attempts to blame the fact that he had been abused himself. Just explain what happens there.

Andrew claims that he was abused himself and that's the reason that his mind has developed this attraction towards children and then tries to almost justify this idea of the abused becomes the abuser that I actually struggle with quite a lot in the film, because of course, many people that are abused then don't go on to abuse other people. And I just could not comprehend why if you've been hurt like that, you would ever want anybody else to feel that way. And something else that crops up in what I should say is a really interesting documentary

is the notion that they have progressed, and I use that term advisedly, from viewing legal porn, perhaps addictively, to looking at clearly indecent images of children being abused. What do you think about that? Again, it's something that I really, really struggled with and almost got defensive in that they were using that as an excuse, if you would, at first, because I don't understand if you didn't want to do those things, why would you take enjoyment in looking at somebody else doing it? and and also if you know they just they say that there was no

desire they were no was no attraction there um it was just an escalation of porn but I don't understand if you didn't have that desire in the first place how you would get to that point how you could even look at an image like that um and yeah I just really really struggled with that but you know when I did speak to professionals they said yeah you know this is to do with isolation this this actually happens and it happens more than we think. I just want to play a clip from the program this is one of the men who features he's called Kyle that's not his real name he first viewed images at 13 he was arrested at 19 he's now 22.

Here he is talking on this documentary about the impact his treatment has had on him. For you, was it an attraction to children or was it... kind of describe that to me? So I didn't really understand at the time myself much either, but going through the rehabilitation programmes, they helped to get you to understand. And I worked out that it was because I was so isolated, I was feeling very depressed, I'd gone through quite a bit.

So I was then using imagery and harmful sexual thoughts, that kind of thing, to make myself feel good at the time. So it's not an attraction to children that you have? No, it was just that build-up, because the original stuff that I was looking at wasn't effective anymore, so I then moved on to the next step and moved on to something slightly worse and something slightly worse until it reached that point, because that was what was giving me the adrenaline rush at the time.

Did it ever occur to you that, should I be looking at this? I knew it was wrong, but when you're in that moment you don't think rationally. Well Professor Belinda Winder you have treated Kyle and not his real name just to emphasise that attempt at an explanation what do you think of it is that quite common? Yes it is I mean people commit sexual offences for a range of reasons, and these include problematic childhood, bullying, physical, sexual, emotional abuse, use of sex as an unhealthy coping strategy for when life is tough, things go wrong, feelings of loneliness, isolation, feelings of inadequacy or powerlessness, not feeling close to others, and the use of normal pornography that becomes more extreme and further down the route to illegal and child abuse images. And certainly it's when people are emotionally numb and pushing themselves for a reaction and become just isolated from what is right, what is logical, what is rational. And I should say that all of those explanations I've given for how people might end up committing sexual offences, none of them excuse people's behaviour. We're real responsible for our own behaviour, but they perhaps help to start explaining why people have ended up committing an offence. So when you hear that clip of Kyle, he is one of the people you have helped in your organisation.

Is he close to acknowledging his own behaviour and close to understanding how he came to commit the offence? In other words, is he someone who might be changed by treatment? Yes, I mean, we want people to be aware of what led them down this dark pathway to committing an offence. For many of the treatment and services, we don't need people to understand completely, but we need to be able to work with what were the kind of precursors to this, this isolation, inadequacy, not being able to talk to others, all of these, we need to know what to work on to help them build a positive and pro-social life going forward. And I guess I would say that perhaps about 86% of people who've been

convicted of a sexual offence won't go on to commit another sexual offence so probably when when you look at the tabloids and we hear all these you know horrific stories and there is nothing like a sexual offence to that create such a tsunami of tragedy around people. But at the same time, so many people also understand what they've done and will seek support and help to make sure they don't commit another offence. But it's precisely because they've been convicted that they're less likely to commit another offence because they're being monitored all the time. Their lives have been totally changed by their conviction.

Yes, it's partly because they are being monitored, but it's also very much about people having to face themselves and having to come to terms with the fact that they have done this damage and they've committed an offence. So I would say about 85% of the people I meet in prison are just as disgusted with themselves as the rest of the population are. So some of it's about the supervision and monitoring, but it's also about people understanding what a dreadful mistake they

have made. And it might be a series of mistakes because until someone is convicted, they don't have to come to terms with what they've done. The programme is called, very simply, Can Sex Offenders Change? Belinda, many of our listeners will be desperate to hear that the answer to that question is yes, but you seem to be saying that in the right circumstances, with the right attitude and the right treatment, the answer is indeed yes. Absolutely it is.

But what we need to do is to get to people before they commit that first offence. 80% of sexual offences are committed by someone with no previous conviction sexual or otherwise and it is really important and certainly the charity safe for living foundation and other charities work towards preventing a first offense as well because we you know we don't want to get to a point where there is so much damage done to victims their family friends and to the partners and the child and parent of people who've committed an offence who become the secondary victims as well. So, you know, we can do a lot to support people who have

committed an offence, but we certainly should also be doing a lot more to prevent those first offences. If you are concerned that somebody close to you might be thinking of committing an offence of this nature, what are the signs that you need to watch for? It's difficult because people are very good at hiding what they don't want other people to see. But I would say, for me, one of the things would be if someone's getting obsessed with pornography, shutting themselves away,

they're not communicating anymore to their partner and they seem to be just shut up in their little office looking at pornography. That's, for me me one of the danger signs or a kind of sexual preoccupation and that's when you're sexualising everything or just can't seem to get enough sex or enough sexual outlets. This implies that they should be talking to their potentially to their GP or to services like ours and others around the country about this kind of problematic sexual behaviour,

which may, for some people, lead to an offence. Professor Belinda Winder, Research Director at the Centre for Crime Offending Prevention and Engagement at Nottingham Trent University, also one of the founders of the charity The Safer Living Foundation. And you also heard from Becky, who was behind what is a very impressive documentary called Can Sex Offenders Change? You can find that on the BBC iPlayer of course and if you're looking for further assistance and advice you can find links for organisations that might well be able to help you on the programme page, the Woman's Hour programme page on the Woman's Hour website bbc.co.uk forward slash Woman's Hour. And if you want

to hear that interview in full you can get that edition of Woman's Hour of course on BBC Sounds. That was Tuesday's programme of this week. Ravinda Bogle is a chef and restaurateur whose book Joconi is subtitled as Proudly Inauthentic

Recipes from an Immigrant Kitchen. The recipe she made for us this week was coffee raskulas with mascarpone ice cream and espresso caramel. The raskulas are my favourite thing. They're traditionally from Bengal and they are like sweet dumplings of joy. But this one I've taken a bit of a liberty with because selfishly I love all the flavours of tiramisu and I thought how do I put the flavours of tiramisu into the texture of a rascola which is what I really love, that kind of lovely spongy fluffy texture.

So this is a rascola crossed with a tiramisu oh you are making me so jealous of her i'm not sitting next to you trying one i wish i was there i know don't we both but i mean it's interesting that you've called your recipes proudly inauthentic of immigrant cuisine. What do you mean by that? Well, I think, you know, the idea of authenticity can only really ever be subjective. And I've always found it slightly restrictive. And I think when you're an immigrant, you come through so many borders that your cuisine becomes very, very diverse. And when you land up in a new place, you just often have to adapt because you can't get the things that you're used to getting. So the kind of food in the book is the food of immigrants. So it's the food of people who have the ache and longing for what they've left behind,

but also the wonder of their new landscape. And it's when they reconcile these two things that they create a completely new cuisine, which is what I think immigrant cuisine is, which is always proudly inauthentic. Now, there's a short story accompanying this recipe called The Audacity of Rasgullas. What's it about? It really is about a woman who has come from the hospital. Her husband has died and she finds herself in a room full of mourners and she's reflecting on her past, a very painful past. So the husband who has died, you know, you'll see in the flashback, was very abusive.

And it's sort of about her finding a triumphant moment, you know, finding her emancipation through eating these raskolas. Shall we hear a part of it, which you very kindly read for us earlier? Here we go. She recalled the first quarrel, the raised hand, the insistent clutch of hair that left a bald patch, the fist in the face, the alarm, the cowering and the rage. Afterwards, he calmly stepped over the wreck of her and vanished for the next few days. Soon enough, she discovered he had a mistress, a pretty woman with large breasts who wore ornate gold toe rings. Once the profound humiliation had congealed, she accepted the bleak cards fate had dealt her. She cleared out any naive illusions of romantic love, instead making room for the

absence of tenderness. She buried her pain deep, never to be excavated again. She walked over to the refrigerator and opened it. Inside, she found a small white Corelli bowl, which she pulled out. She helped herself to a spoon from the cutlery drawer and sat back at the table. At any other time, the two small rascolas suspended like pearls in sugar syrup would have been just that, a happy encounter between milk, sugar and rose water, but at that moment the act of eating them seemed absurd, perverse even. The woman who had led her, heaving with tears and sighs into the kitchen, watched her uneasily. She lowered the spoon into the first spongy ball, pierced it, cut off a piece and brought it to her lips.

Ravinda, why was it important for you to tell this story about this woman in your recipe book? There are a lot of stories and in a a way, I pay tribute to all these wonderful maternal figures who taught me how to cook. And when I think of them often, I think that they've been written out of history, they've been marginalized, all of their experiences, and I felt it important to have an account of those experiences, the good, the bad and the ugly. But I also think that food is life. And, you know, often our memories of food are attached to painful things, bad memories. And I think it's important to write about that. You know, it's not always sort of white picket fences and lawns. It can be painful. And

yeah, I think it's important to speak about that. And what was your experience growing up as the fourth daughter in a traditional Punjabi family? Well, it was like being in a Jane Austen novel. You know, my mother really believed that to marry well, girls had to cook well. And, you know, so and do all those kind of feminine feminine things. So it was it was interesting. And I was the youngest. So I watched my sisters get married and and then I moved to this country when I was seven. And, you know, going to school and seeing another life and other options was just wonderful. You know, I knew I had other options.

And what was it about Mada Jafri and Nigella Lawson that made you think cooking might be a career and not just a woman's duty? Well, I'd never seen that before. You know, I just sort of watched woman after woman in my community join this sort of cult of domesticity. And it was only really when I came to this country and, you know, I loved food. Food always connected me to those sort of that ache for home. And when I watch people like Mother Joffrey and Nigella Lawson, I just saw them as these really

kind of powerful female role models that showed you that there were other options. You know, my mother always said, well, you'll learn to cook and you'll cook for your husband and children. And I thought, well, actually, I want to cook for many other people other than just husbands and children. Can't blame you. That's Ravinda Bogle, who was on the programme this week. And you can find that recipe on the Woman's Hour website. And if you'd like to hear loads and loads of different interviews and conversations about food and recipes, you can subscribe via BBC Sounds to the Woman's Hour Cook the Perfect podcast.

Mary Stewart has been called one of the great British storytellers of the 20th century, and she sold over five million books. She was a big name. Her 1954 bestseller, Madam, Will You Talk?, has been dramatised for Radio 4 in two parts, and it begins tomorrow afternoon at three o'clock. The writers Jane Casey and Harriet Evans are both successful authors and big fans of Mary Stewart.

We'll hear from them in a moment, but first, here's Mary herself telling the BBC why she thinks her books do so well. My heroines do tend to have the same basic ideas of right and wrong that I have. The readers identify themselves very readily with the people I write about and want to do so. Now, I personally never want to identify myself with an anti-hero or one of these sleazy slobs of women who just have nothing better to do than sit and think about the next chap they're going to bed with. I always think, well, that would be very nice,

but why don't they get out and do a job of work? And then they would find that their lives smoothed out and were filled. Well, quite. Let's hear from Jane Casey and Harriet Evans. And here's Jane. At the age of about 12, I was browsing through my mother's bookshelves and found Madam, Will You Talk? and sat down and started reading it. And it was as if the whole world changed that day, the way that I saw everything just changed, because she was such a compelling writer. She always centred women in the story. It was told from a woman's perspective. The setting was incredibly vivid.

The peril was really well done. I was there with the heroine, having the same experiences as her, even though I was a 12-year-old sitting on the floor of my bedroom. And the hero was incredibly dashing. And the whole thing was just such a heady combination and I think from that point on I just wanted to read more and more of that sort of thing.

Now I think Madame Will You Talk is set, is it the south of France? It's a rather a racy location isn't it? It's set in Provence and she said that she originally the reason that she wanted to write it was because she wanted to write about Provence. She wanted to bring it to life. She missed it. So she was writing in the post-war era where, you know, everything was a bit grim. And Madame Will You Talk is really full of sunshine and good food and fast cars and glamorous locations and all the things that, you know, people have really missed out on. Harriet Evans, I know that you've come relatively recently to The Charms of Mary Stewart. Is that

right? I was in my late 20s. And I was recommended her by just a variety of friends of mine who had the same reading tastes as me. So people who love Georgette Heyer or Agatha Christie or mid-century, 20th century female authors. And so I didn't have the experience which lots of my friends and Jane have had. And when I put on Instagram and Facebook that I was coming on, you know, the number of people who said, I love Mary Stewart. I read her when I was 12. I read her when I was 14. You know, I read her a bit later. And it was that thing for me of, which is quite rare, and especially in these lockdown times is really valuable. You are totally transported to a specific place. And she wrote such different kinds of books each time. But whether you're in, you know, the Wilds of Skye or Crete or a crumbling palace in Lebanon or in the south

of France. You know, the descriptions in Madame William Talk, you just totally believe you're there. It's so escapist. It's wonderful. And was she critically acclaimed in her heyday, Harriet? Well, I looked this up because I'm a member of the London Library and they have lots of useful things online. And there's a really interesting piece by a researcher called Faye Keegan about how she was reviewed compared to Ian Fleming because they wrote exactly the same number of books pretty much and they were writing he was writing James Bond roughly the same time hers were being published and the disparity between the way they were received is just hilarious well and it's you know irritating and I'm sure she probably found it a bit irritating he gets reviewed far more than she does but his reviews also refer to his kind

of mastery of the genre and how he's really great and at the same time say this bit was completely unbelievable that wasn't good whereas Mary Stewart is sort of castigated the whole way through and there's this absolutely hilarious description of what she's bought with her royalties in a review of one of her books and it says with her royalty she's bought her jaguar some chinese porcelain and a deep freeze he's born now would care what ian fleming bought with his and there's constant references in reviews of her work to her husband who was a very well respected professor of geology as if that's relevant and it's this constant thing with female writers, which endures today, or let's just sort of try and put you in a box. If we can kind of do you down a little bit,

then we'll be able to contain you. Whereas, you know, Ian Fleming, go forth. I was looking up Alastair Maclean, who is, he published his first book in the same year as Mary Stewart. He had a very sort of similar blend of action and romance. But of course, he was a man, he was writing about men. He was paid $50,000 for his first novel, which was headline grabbing and huge. And you know, he'd sold very well. Mary Stewart was paid 50 pounds for her first book. She also wrote, and I really I was intrigued by this, about the court of King Arthur, Merlin, all the mystical stuff. And she was good at that as well, Jane. She was. I mean, she always wrote the books that she wanted to write, which is the sort of sentence that strikes terror into a publisher's heart because you really didn't know what she was going to come up with.

She really was passionately interested in the story of Marilyn and the story of Arthur. And she wrote in 1970, I think, a book called The Crystal Cave, which her publishers sort of said, you know, we're not sure about this, but we'll put it out and see how it does. And it was a phenomenal bestseller. So much so that she ended up writing four more or three more in the same vein. And I think actually, it did her reputation as a crime writer no good at all, because they were perceived as being much more respectable, and much more, much more like literature, than, you know, these silly little adventures with women in them. And I think they sort of overshadowed her a little bit. And maybe

that's why we don't have such a strong sense of her as the innovator and the incredible creative power that she is. I am going to force you both to name your favourite Mary Stewart so people can perhaps get started with everything she's done. So Jane, what would you recommend? My absolute favourite is My Brother Michael, which is set in Greece just after the war and deals with World War Two shenanigans. And Harriet? Mine would be The Gabriel Hounds, which is about a very plucky, fearless young woman who ends up in Beirut and then goes up into Lebanon to find her aunt who lives in a crumbling castle. And it's just such a feat of imagination and such a wonderful exploration of a part of the world that we sadly know all too well now but seen in a different way. Harriet Evans and Jane Casey

celebrating the work of Mary Stewart and that does sound a nice indulgence for tomorrow afternoon starting at three o'clock on Radio 4, the first part of Madam Will You Talk and if you can't hear it then of course you know what you do. You do know, don't you? Do I need to? Yeah, BBC Sounds is where you go. Woman's Hour is back live on Monday morning, 2 minutes past 10. It is Listener Week, which means that everything we discuss

on the programme next week has been suggested by you and we're kicking off on Monday with everything you ever needed to know about the pill and nits. Monday morning after the news at 10 o'clock. Are you still there? Good. There's someone I want you to meet. Their name is Sean, they're 16 and they're in trouble. Follow Sean's journey by subscribing to Power Up on BBC Sense. The world is dying. It's time to take action.

Power Up. Power Up. Power Up. Power Up. Power Up. I'm Sarah Trelevan, 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.

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