Woman's Hour - Cush Jumbo, Church leader survivors, Exonerated sub-postmistress

Episode Date: January 8, 2024

Cush Jumbo is the award-winning actor known for her roles on the stage and screen, from The Good Fight to Macbeth. She joins Clare McDonnell to discuss starring in - and executive producing – the new crime thriller series Criminal Record. Cush stars as DS June Lenker, a police detective locked in a confrontation with an older detective, played by Peter Capaldi, over a historic murder conviction.A BBC investigation into one of Africa’s most influential pastors has uncovered hundreds of allegations of abuse, including a number of British victims. TB Joshua, who founded the Synagogue Church of All Nations in Nigeria, built an evangelical empire that drew presidents, Premier League footballers and millions of followers from across the globe - including from towns and cities across the UK. Multiple victims claim they repeatedly tried to raise the alarm with British authorities, including the Foreign Office, but an adequate investigation “never took place”. Two UK survivors of his abuse - Rae and Anneka - join Clare to discuss their experiences as ‘disciples’, why they left and the law changes they hope will result from this exposure.The Post Office Horizon scandal is once more dominating the headlines. Today, a petition calling for the former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells to lose her CBE has received more than one million signatures, and yesterday the Prime Minister told the BBC the Government was reviewing options to help victims of the scandal. More than 700 branch managers were convicted of false accounting, theft and fraud based on faulty software. Currently, a public inquiry into the scandal is ongoing and the Metropolitan Police is investigating the Post Office over potential fraud offences arising from the prosecutions. One of the women who was falsely accused was Jo Hamilton. Her story has been told in the ITV drama Mr Bates vs. The Post Office, where she was played by the actor Monica Dolan. Jo joins Clare.What do you do if your child refuses to go to school? Today, the Government is expected to announce funding for a new initiative aimed at tackling school absences in England. More than a fifth of secondary school pupils in England are persistently absent. The new scheme will see funding for school attendance mentors, an initiative which has been trialled in a pilot by the charity Barnardos. Clare speaks to Nadine Good from the charity, and hears from head teacher Simon Kidwell.

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, this is Claire Macdonald and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. He was a man whose religious services would attract 50,000 people a week, whose portrait sat on the desk of Nelson Mandela's daughter, and his funeral brought the streets of Lagos, Nigeria to a standstill as thousands flocked to pay their respects. But today we hear from two women who say they were sexually abused by that man, T.B. Joshua, a charismatic Nigerian leader of one of the world's biggest evangelical churches. They are just two of dozens of survivors who say Joshua was abusing and raping young women from around the world several times a week for nearly 20 years.

Star of stage and screen, Kush Jumbo joins us as well. Kush is one of the stars and also executive producers of the new Apple TV series Criminal Record. She plays DS June Lenker, a police detective locked in a tug of war with an older detective played by Peter Capaldi over an historic murder conviction. Also, as school absences reach almost twice the level they were before the pandemic, today the government announced its plan to introduce 18 new attendance hubs across six regions

and also to increase direct support to children and their families with the expansion of the attendance mentor programs now for the past year children's charity bernardo's has been running a pilot involving attendance mentors in middlesbrough so we're going to check in with them to see how much of a difference that has made and as a petition calling for the former post office chief executive paula venels to lose her cbe receives more than one million signatures. We're going to speak to one of the women accused of false accounting, theft and fraud in a scandal that saw more than 700 branch managers unfairly convicted. Jo Hamilton's story is told in the ITV drama Miss Debates versus the Post Office. And Jo will join us live.

Remember, you can text the programme on anything you hear if you want to get involved. The number is 84844. Texts will be charged at your standard message rate. We're on social media. We are at BBC Women's Hour and you can email us through the website as well.

Now for the past two years BBC Africa Eye has been investigating serious allegations against the former head of a global evangelical church headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria. It is the synagogue church of all nations, SCOAN for short. They have interviewed more than 25 former members who shared eyewitness testimony and other corroborating evidence of sexual assault, rape, child abuse, physical violence, attempts on life, bribery, modern-day slavery, torture and forced abortions carried out by the church's leader, the late T.B. Joshua. Now, their sources allege Joshua carried out hundreds of incidents of abuse over the course of two decades inside a Scowan compound in Lagos.

They refer to life inside the compound as a cult. Well, TB Joshua died in 2021. Today, the church has one of the largest online followings of any Christian organisation in the world. Among the sources who provided eyewitnesses on camera testimony to the BBC are five British victims. Now they were between the ages of 15 and 21 when they were first recruited into the church. In some cases their transport to Lagos was paid for by TB Joshua in coordination with smaller churches in the UK from Winchester, Haywards Heath and Derby. Delighted to say I'm joined by two of those UK survivors now, women who are part of his church,

or as they prefer to call it, a cult. Welcome, Annika and Ray. Thank you both for joining us on Woman's Hour. Thank you for having us, Claire. It's nice to meet you. Thank you so much. And Annika, you are very welcome as well. Ray let's start with you take you back to when you were 21 years of age you abandoned your degree at Brighton University and you were recruited into this church and that was the next 12 years

of your life as one of TB Joshua's so-called disciples in Lagos and you were involved for almost 13 years. Let's start with why you now want to tell your experience and for others to listen. Wow that's a loaded question Claire, thank you very much. I think because it might sound a really out there experience but it's actually so much more common than we think. You know, say there's like a cult on every doorstep. Everybody knows someone that has been in some kind of closed group where they've had people that they've lost, people that have disconnected from them. And I just think it's really, really important that we speak out.

A lot of those groups are completely control you by fear and psychological manipulation. And so speaking out is part of gaining freedom and not just for myself, but for the many, many hundreds of people who are still trapped in that terror of not being able to talk about

the atrocities that happened to them and their friends. What took you there? You were 21, you were doing a degree. What took you to Lagos? How did you find out about this church? Well, I think first off to say, for me, I see it as a cult when I was there. And I don't think anybody knowingly joined a cult. I did think I was joining a church.

So my whole drive to go there was I was looking for a solution um for me personally um I see myself as a gay queer person and um I was looking for a solution to that because I was like gay and God that don't go together and you know God's the greatest I I need that so I can't have both um and I was recruited into the church by watching VHS videos of miracles that I found very seducing. And and that's why I went. I went to see and experience the real, real power of God. Annika, let's bring you in at this point. You were slightly younger than Ray. You were 17 when you went to Nigeria to meet TB Joshua. It was meant to be six weeks, but you stayed for more than two years. So first of all, the same question to you really. Why did you go there? How did you end up there? VHS tapes were still the thing going around and there were these VHS tapes circling

within my local church and they were shocking graphic healings supposed healings and I was no ordinary teenager at the time and I was seeking out that kind of extreme faith in action as it were and when I saw these VHS tapes of this church in Nigeria I was my mouth was open wide I thought wow that this for me at the time was like the bible in action I thought this is what I was looking for and I just got sucked in immediately through these visuals from these VHS tapes and that's how I came to know about the synagogue. And you were very young when you were there I I just want to point out at this stage, I know you both described it as a cult, the church is still going, it still has many followers, and they would say this is something historic that is attributed to a particular man who is no longer with us. They do not see themselves in that way. I know you two have a very different

experience of that. But take us then to Annika, to daily life inside the church. What was it like? How were you treated? Well, it was painted as a sort of training discipleship. So those of us who had given our lives to this ministry, we were worker bees. It was a never-ending cycle of no sleep, of work, and of memorising the Bible. And we were completely controlled and monitored 24-7. And even though at the time we thought it was a holy pursuit, you know, really we were more like slaves. We were owned by T.B. Joshua and we were not ourselves while we were there.

And a lot of the time I was terrified. But because of the mind control, we justified it constantly that it was all in the name of Jesus. Ray, you're nodding your head throughout all of this. Clearly, a lot of that resonates with your experience. Yeah, absolutely. I'm nodding because yeah, that's the experience I had as well. I think it's important to say that during our time there, we didn't have access to our passports. We didn't have access to finances. He was a master manipulator, as many psychopaths are. And yeah, we were like, like Annika said, like his puppets. We lost ourselves in the pursuit of what we thought was holiness. And we wanted to help, you know, I guess, better the world, right?

We, everybody that went there wanted to help people. And yeah, the tragedy of it all is the complete reverse reverse happened really um it was a dangerous and damaging regime and you went there in your eyes as you say as a holy person as a christian you thought well my homosexuality and god don't mix so i'm going to get myself involved in something that might be able to help me. When did you realise that this was something a lot darker going on here? When did it start to touch you in that way? Two years after I walked away.

I didn't realise when I left that I had left a cult. I still thought that I was in a church. And it was only when somebody approached me in 2015 and said to me, Ray, I need to talk to you. Something really bad happened to me there. I don't know that you're going to believe me. No one's going to believe me. And I immediately, because of my own personal experiences of abuse during my time there,

said to her, oh, listen, I know, I believe you. And that was kind of for me the snowball the beginning of it rolling and from there yeah just reached out to lots of people and got the same accounts and you didn't see yourself even after you left as a victim as an abuse victim not at all no I didn't I kept everything completely secretive. I believed that this man was a prophet from God, that he was kind of unt his legacy. And that's what we're doing right now. We are undoing that legacy. It's incorrect. He is not a saint.

He is the utter opposite. And he deserves to be seen for who he really was. The purposes of this interview is not to rake over your trauma, but I think it's important to touch on what happened. And Annette, can I put that question first to you Annika I do beg your pardon Annika can I put that question first to you about when that started sorry could you well when when the abuse began okay for me the the physical and sexual side of the abuse started probably within six months but it started very slowly it started where it would start as a fatherly sort of uh

affection and it probably got worse and worse it was a it was a typical frog in the pan sort of situation where I didn't notice but it was also framed for me in a biblical scriptural way so everything was justified by scripture so um I it did progressively get worse and for me rather than a slow progression my the blindfold that fell from my eyes was quite instantaneous, actually, because of the intensity of the abuse. Once it got to a point where I was like, okay, this is not a spiritual interaction, this has become abusive. And yeah, for me, it was instantaneous. I knew exactly where I was. It was a blindfold off my eyes moment so and it wasn't the same experience for you right by the sounds of things because you had to once you'd left you still didn't know that what you've been subjected to was was abusive I knew that what had happened was wrong um I was extremely fortunate um that the incidents that I went underwent from a sexual abuse perspective were were four or five times. I had put that down due to his indoctrination to him being a person who had,

he used to say high places are slippery places. And that, you know, I wasn't to judge him. It was God's judgment. So I kind of brushed it under the rug, thought it was an isolated incident and that had only happened to me. I had no idea that my friends were going through this on a daily basis for the 12, 13 years I was there.

When I found out, I kind of involuntarily vomited. I was mortified to find this was happening systemically every day. And yeah, it's just ghastly that you could be in a place that you thought was heaven. Complete opposite. It was like hell. And it is very Jekyll and Hyde. And it's hard for people to grasp how someone who may appear holy and charitable and funny was dark, sinister, psychopathic. And, yeah, a hardened criminal.

Annika, you managed to escape. As you say, yours was a much more instant realisation, this is wrong, I'm in the wrong place. How long did it take you to get out of there and how did you manage it? It was a very fortunate set of circumstances where in the moment, I was actually in South Africa at the time I'd been sent to set up a branch of the church. And TB Joshua told me that the abuse would stop because I'll finally becoming my own woman of God, in a sense, helping set up this branch. But he came as a crusade for a crusade,

and the abuse continued. And it was then that I realized, so my visa had run out to return to Nigeria. So I had a door open, this amazing crack of opportunity just appeared before me to return to London. And it was the very scarce moment that I had my passport so it was my door out of there and I I knew it was and it was one of the most terrifying experiences knowing that I was getting on a plane and I wasn't coming back and it was a big secret because I couldn't tell anybody else because if I if if they'd have known they would have never allowed me to go in the first place it would have kept me and um that's how I was able to escape I wouldn't have gone otherwise. Ray you were sent to bring her back weren't you? I was yeah um I was sent by him on a mission to retrieve Annika from

from the UK um and take her back to Nigeria um I didn't understand why he told me that, you know, Annika was destined to work for the Lord and that she was undergoing like a spiritual attack. And that he wanted me to go to London and speak to her and bring her home to where she belonged. And there was no real context given to me on that. And over the course of about three or four days, he saw me in isolated periods of like five minutes at a time and was feeding me information, which now looking back in retrospect, I see he was just coercing, manipulating and preparing my mind. And he was asking me, what's the worst thing that can happen to a man in your country? Like, what's the worst crime? And I was like, well, pedophilia and rape. And what would and what would happen to that person well sir they'd be put in prison and he'd be oh okay thank you I just wanted that information that's very informative thank you bye bye see you

later and then you know next day he'd call me in relation to taking Annika home and so these two conversations were going on in parallel and I didn't understand that he was manipulating my mind so I yeah I was sent to bring her back which I think was probably terrifying for you Annika seeing me we've talked about this haven't we um walking in the middle of the night I found her at a bus stop um and yeah I was he was on the phone to me pretending to be my mom he was like hi Ray is your mother on the phone and I was like this is really weird he's never spoken to me like this and was telling me exactly what to say to her and yeah basically also my loyalty was like

be loyal to me no matter what happens no matter what comes be loyal to TB Joshua. I just want to put that that moment back to Annika what was that moment like when you were at the bus stop and you saw Ray? I wasn't surprised I knew it was going to be happening which is why I hid um I actually rang TB Joshua on the phone to tell him I wasn't coming back because I knew he would send people to find me and I hoped that if I told him maybe he wouldn't send anybody like what's the point but you know there Ray was coming towards me um I wasn't afraid of Ray because you know deep down you know it's woman to woman person to person and I you know I told her the truth but I did try my hardest to try and make it clear that I'm not interested anymore he he's not a good person I'm not coming back but um I knew her mindset so it was you know when someone's not a good person, I'm not coming back. But I knew her mindset.

So it was, you know, when someone's in a cult, you can't change their mind. It's a very personal revelation. And I knew it was like talking to a brick wall, really. Ray, back to you then. So you returned and it took a few years to leave. Why did you leave? I left because, as you get with any cult there's kind of a reward and punishment um regime um and T.P. Joshua loved to kind of love bomb one minute and

then you know you'd find yourself as the dirt under his shoe the next um I went through a lot of that uh I had quite a um questioning inquiring mind didn't like it and so I'd get punished um and one of those punishments led to me being placed in a social isolation for about two years in the compound um so to be clear I wasn't in a closed room like you would be in solitary but I wasn't spoken to I wasn't given work I had nothing to do so I'd wake up in the morning um albeit we were sleeping two or three hours a night if we were lucky so all of that time I'd be shunned and isolated I'd find myself in like derelict buildings on his compound banging my head against the wall I had a complete mental breakdown. And the irony of that is there was a tiny little chink,

a tiny little crack in that psychological ring of indoctrination. And that crack was the beginning of the unraveling for me. I got a tiny bit of critical thinking back and began to think, maybe you don't know me. Maybe you're not a prophet that's all-knowing. Why are you telling me things about myself that I innately know are not true? It's an incredible thing you've done, both of you, incredibly brave speaking up about this, revealing what you've both been through.

Very important. It must be emotionally and mentally exhausting. What do you want to happen now i know raid that question to you you're hoping for a change in the law aren't you yeah so um being here in the uk we recognized coercive control which is what we were under in a group context um we recognize it um in a domestic situation there are parameters set out in law and you can prosecute however that does not extend to groups and according to the family survival trust who work in this area they estimate there's more than 2 000 cults in the uk you can set up a charity at the charity commission you can raise

public funds and under the human rights act there is freedom of religion. Unfortunately, there is a big loophole for psychopathic leaders to indoctrinate, coerce and control. We need those laws expanding to a group to recognize that a person can coerce a group of people, not just one person. And then we can start prosecuting these people before the crimes become so atrocious like they did in our case. Thank you so much, both of you, for joining us. Such incredibly, as I said, very honest, very powerful, very brave, but such important work as well.

Ray and Annika, thank you so much for coming on BBC Woman's Hour. And you can watch Disciples, the Cult of TB Joshua on BBC iPlayer and listen to the new season of the podcast World of Secrets on BBC Sounds. We have to say we did contact the church about the allegations in this report. They didn't respond to them, but they said previous claims against TB Joshua have been unfounded. The Foreign Office as well did not respond to these specific claims,

but told the BBC that they take all reports of crime, including sexual assault and violence against British nationals overseas, very, very seriously indeed. Thank you both for joining us. Thank you, Claire. Now, let's talk to a star of stage and screen, Kush Jumbo. Many of you may know her from her role as Luca in the US legal drama The Good Fight or from her star turns as Hamlet. And now, of course, Lady Macbeth at the Donmar Warehouse.

Kush is also executive producer and star, one of the stars, in a new Apple TV series, Criminal Record. She plays DS June Lenker, a police detective locked in a tug of war with an older detective, played brilliantly by Peter Capaldi, over an historic murder conviction. Now, she thinks the wrong man has been convicted. He doesn't want her to dig up the past, possibly because he was the investigating officer on the case. In eight extremely tense episodes, it explores themes of racism, misogyny within policing and the criminal justice system.

Delighted to say Kishumbo joins us now. Good morning. Hello, good morning. Thank you for having me. You explained that brilliantly. Well, thank you very much. Tell us about your character then, D.S. June Lenker. Brilliant character, fantastically portrayed, so tense this. Tell us about her. Yeah, June Lenker is quite interesting. She's not a copper at the beginning of her career. She's kind of at the beginning of the middle, if you know what I mean. She's around my age, her late 30s, and she has been in the domestic violence unit for a few mean. She's around my age, her late 30s, and she has been in the domestic violence unit for a few years. She's now moved over to CID, so she's the beginning

of a new part of her career. Absolutely loves her job, but is also a mother of a 12-year-old in a long-term relationship, and not sure why, but she is feeling extremely dissatisfied with her life. So we meet her at a bit of a crossroads. But ultimately, she's a type of officer that does the job for the right reasons. And she, yeah, until she runs into Hegarty, she's feeling a little bit of a crossroads. And she buffers up against DCI Daniel Hegarty, played by Peter Capaldi. And what's brilliant about this drama is that you'd think that would be a very simplistic narrative

about this progressive woman who's come from the domestic violence unit and this old detective who's, there's allegations of, you know, a false confession and all of that. It's not that simple, is it? No, it's not. It's one of the reasons why I love the show, actually,

and I loved working with Peter. This show is all about two generations crashing into each other. And the idea that each person feels that they are following what they think is the truth and the right process. But Hegarty's process is one from 30 years before. And June's is one from now. And they actually have more in common than they don't have in common because of the way they attack what they do but other than going to meet him she never would have gone down this rabbit hole of this case but after a chance piece of information from an anonymous call and a woman that has gone missing she goes to meet him as the leading

investigator of this old, old case. And there's just something really odd about the way he behaves, brilliantly done by Peter, that just makes her want to open up a little chink of this box that then completely explodes in all these different directions and makes her realise that there's something to be truly discovered and brought to justice here. Yes, and it's sort of the layers come up as you watch more and more episodes. She's a female mixed race detective, she has to work with some

pretty racist misogynistic colleagues and I was struck by that as a motif that runs through it because of the hierarchical nature of the police that she you know there are looks exchanged with female colleagues but she has to kind of swallow it because she understands the terrain she's working in what kind of research did you do on this I mean did you talk to officers is this kind of the area that women still have to sit in well I think at a base level um a woman has been a woman from the very beginning. So we've all been practising being women for quite a long time. So we've become kind of experts at repression and kind of knowing how to deal with these paper cuts and microaggressions.

And if you're of global majority or black, you're mixed race, you're Asian. You also have been that for a very long time. So you're an expert at dealing with with those things and knowing um which battle is the battle to fight and then i suppose you take that and you put that within any kind of structure ours is a is a police force and it's an additional layer for a person to have to deal with and i i wanted to look at all the different ways that that can happen in a space but i certainly hope and feel that what j June is experiencing is will be felt by audiences that don't happen to be police officers I think these are scenarios that happen in all professional structures they are very universal themes aren't they um how did it feel I know you worked with Peter Capaldi before I think you worked

um which which drama did you work with him on? We worked together twice. So many, so many years ago. We did Torchwood together. Torchwood, yeah. And he was playing the Prime Minister and we became great, great friends. And then he directed me in Getting On, which I did with Joe Brand and Joe Scanlon.

And that was hysterical. Peter is a very, very, very hilarious person. I love him. I get on really well with him. And we've wanted to work together for years we've been trying to find something to do together um we both have an interest in thrillers and police and darkness but we also wanted to do something which kind of used the idea of somebody about to end their career and somebody kind of at the beginning

digging up what the person at the end is trying to leave buried um yeah how was it working together then how is it working with him because not only are you acting together your names both names come up as executive producers how was that to have a bit more of a reach into a drama it was amazing working with him because um as I said Peter's actually very fun fun and cheeky and I love him. And because of that, we made a decision not to rehearse together hardly at all our scenes. Some of our scenes are eight or nine pages of dialogue and they're all about the cat and mouse of who is giving what piece of information, how, when, are they lying, are they telling the truth? Does somebody leave having won, do they not win, they're these little skirmishes that we have.

But because of trying to not read each other too much, we couldn't be chummy on set together, so we kind of stayed apart. But in terms of development of the show, I've absolutely loved producing it because the privilege of being able to go, do you want to do something together great what's the idea and then working with STV and Apple to create something from the very beginning is that as an actor of course usually you are majority in front of the camera or on stage by the time you get to a character people have been working on that character for months

ahead of you and then you've got to spend all this time getting to know them and then putting them in front of an audience being able to get in at this level meant that by the time me and Peter got to set we knew these characters inside out we knew exactly who they were so from an acting perspective that was amazing but also I I've always written things and I've always been a maker of things and I have a real interest in the development of projects and collaborating with people and there's something really satisfying about being able to shape not only the work you're making but the people you're working with and you can have a direct effect on the kind of people that are working in your crew how you shoot things when you shoot

things and I think that's an important part of being creative. Talking of which, male violence against women's strong theme opening scene is all about that. And your character is beaten up several times by male offenders she's investigating. And it is brutal. It's incredibly well done, but it's visceral. How hard was that? And again, as an exec producer, how did you shoot that? How did you make it so that you weren't the only, how did you shoot that? How did you make it so that you weren't the only woman involved in all of that? I mean, I'm like I said, I'm a fan of a thriller. I like drama and I like the work that I do, but I'm not a fan of gratuitous violence for the sake of entertainment. And as an actor, you're sometimes put in these scenarios where without really considering it,

if you're watching it as an audience, that stunt sequence or that scene where a woman in particular is being attacked by men will be shot over and over and over and over and over again. I can sometimes shoot a stunt sequence like eight or nine times. And the body doesn't always know that you're not doing it for real because you're being held down by your neck for so many hours of the day and the only people standing around you are men then the mind starts to get a little bit confused so you have to be really sensitive and smart about how you choreograph who's around what you do but at the same time I wanted people to understand that June is not some kind of Marvel superhero who just does all these things she goes after danger looking for truth to defend other people but she's a

vulnerable human being she has a kid at home she could die in the process of this job so it was important to show um but yeah it was great being able to talk about how we do these sequences when we do them who's choreographing them what does this piece of violence mean versus this piece of violence, how triggering is this, how is it not? And also to make sure that our crew had the right mental health support because it's very tough for crews to watch these scenes over and over again as well. Yeah, it's tough as a viewer, but it's absolutely brilliantly done.

Before we let you go, you're playing another extremely strong female character. You're rolling Macbeth at the Donmar opposite David Tennant. Just let us know. I only work with doctors now. Just former Doctor Who's. How did you want to update the role of Lady Macbeth for a contemporary audience? Well, people keep telling me when they've now been to see it that they feel this about it, that I've updated her somehow. But but when I'm I've wanted to play this

role for a long time but I haven't played it because I haven't felt like it was the right combination of things I think that the phrase Lady Macbeth is probably known by more people than people that have actually seen Macbeth and I think that's because it's become a bit of an archetype in our culture of Lady Macbeth equals evil controlling woman probably controlling a man to do something um whereas I don't come at characters that way I came at it from having spoken to David and Max Webster about what they wanted to do and being so excited about the idea of a couple that essentially lost a child and have been trying to have more and can't or maybe have had trouble or we don't know

and are in a community of people that all have children and where their culture is all about the heir, the legacy, what you leave behind. So okay we came at it from the perspective of a couple who are essentially suffering with a psychosis and are in grief. And I know people, and I'm sure we all know people that have had fertility issues, miscarriages, have dealt with grief. Those are just human things. They aren't made up crazy things. Those are just human things. So when you start to look at it from that perspective, and then you continue with the choices that are made in the play, which I think is really about, I just kind of wanted to have a nice project together. It just turned out that it was murder, but, you know,

it could have been painting the bedroom. It was just that I just wanted a little bit of lightness, you know, and they get, everything kind of unravels from there. So I try to approach everybody that I play with compassion because they're human beings, they're not archetypes. Well, what you bring is incredible understanding. And I know there's an awful lot of GCSE students trying to get tickets for your performance right now and finding it very difficult. But thank you so much for joining us, Kush, on Women's Hour. It's great to have you on.

Thank you so much. Kush Jumbo and the brilliant Criminal Record is going to be available to watch on Apple TV from this Wednesday. Now, let's talk about school absences. The number of pupils missing a significant amount of their education is about double the level it was before the pandemic. Figures for 2022-23 academic year in England show just over 22% of pupils were persistently absent, which is defined as missing 10 percent or more of their lessons and a poll just out from the centre for social justice found almost a third of parents believe it is not essential for children to attend school every day well today the government has

announced there will be 18 new attendance hubs across six regions bringing the total to 32 they say they are increasing direct support to children and their families with the expansion of attendance mentor programmes to another 10 areas. Well, for the past year, the children's charity Barnardo's has been running a pilot involving attendance mentors in Middlesbrough and has just started in four other areas. Two, let's talk all of this through with Nadine Good, Director for Children's Services in North England for Barnardo's and also Simon Kidwell, President of the National Association of Head Teachers and Head of Hertford Manor Primary School and Nursery in Cheshire.

Welcome both of you. Thank you, Claire. Good morning, Claire. Nadine, let's just start with you. You've been running this pilot. How's it been going? What difference has it made? So, yeah, we have been running the pilot since about October 22 in one pilot area initially, Middlesbrough, where we've been working with around 335 children in education, engaging them back into the education as best as we possibly can using our mentor service. So far, and it's still early days, the results are looking extremely promising. So we've had an 82% increase in attendance from those children in the pilot area. And of those children, 66% have also reported an increase in their mental health and wellbeing by being re-engaged back in the school. And what does an attendance mentor actually do then?

I mean, that's an incredible improvement. How do you achieve it? What do you practically do? Yeah, so I think you've hit the nail on the head there, Claire. It's practically do. So this is a face-to-face intervention by and large. So this is a matching of a mentor, a qualified mentor employed by Barnardo's to be matched with a specific child and their family and building that trusted relationship through that adult

so that they can navigate what can at times be a really challenging environment for children and families. Education, the family may be involved with children's social care, they may also have mental health or physical health needs and numerous barriers and being there as that trusted adult to help navigate and ensure that there's re-engagement for that child back into education. Simon it's difficult to sort of say you know wave a magic wand because this is the issue when children aren't in school it's a multiplicity of, isn't it? What have you found? So there's certainly been a different attitude

to attending school in terms of illness. So when children get the normal respiratory illnesses they get at this time of year, we've been telling children to stay off during the pandemic and then shifting that attitude for parents has been really difficult and we are seeing an increase in pupil absence and staff absence and we must also remember though that some of the winter bugs which are coming out they're flooring people

we've got staff who are who are not just being off for a few days they're missing school for a few weeks so it is difficult at the moment and I think I do welcome the government's initiative and I think one of the actions is to continue with some of those measures that we did during Covid of improved ventilation and hand hygiene. As far as though that it's interesting just to pick up on that point about parents having a different attitude to their children attending school regularly it's shifted a bit since before COVID. Have you noticed that? Yes, naturally, we've seen a significant increase in attendance.

And I think that keeping them off school, part of that we feel could be to do with parents working from home. So if a child is under the weather and they're working from home, it's a little bit easier than having to get them in. So it's promoting that sort of culture where parents send them in if they've got those normal winter books that children can actually still attend school with, because that's the main issue that seems to be

impacting on attendance. What do you think will make a difference? I mean, we've heard a little bit and we'll hear a little bit more about this this pilot scheme for attendance hubs and attendance mentors what kind of difference would that make in your schools? I think the initiative is fantastic and Nadine uses the word relationships and developing that relational practice with our families is so important as well as a head teacher I work as a trustee at a 15 school multi-academy trust and one of our schools the Oaks Academy and crew has seen significant improvement in the last few years in the amount of children who are persistently absent and the attendance overall and that's to do with developing a culture where attendance matters across the school making sure they've got consistent approaches in the school for teaching

and learning which as Dean says it helps children navigate the school day. And also they are offering a breakfast club for all pupils. So that's eliminating some of those barriers for children so they can get to school with a full stomach and get into school. So it can be done, but it takes a lot of effort and a lot of investment. And what the government's announcing today is great, but it's a very, very small amount of money they're committing towards it. If you compare it to the billions they invested in academic catch-up,

they're investing a tiny, tiny proportion of that money when we all know as educators that pastoral catch-up is really important and that's been ignored largely. Well, I'd love to hear from everybody listening this morning. If you have a child at home, if you've made the decision to keep them off yourself, or they are just refusing to go and do share your experiences, 84844, and whether you welcome this kind of intervention. Nadine, I guess what we're talking about here is all manner of social issues, as well as issues pertinent to that particular child. Because obviously, when there are issues in a family that is going to

affect the child and maybe their school attendance what kind of specific issues have you seen that keep children away yeah it has been a real mixture of wider family issues so it could may well be the child themselves who have emotional well-being or mental health issues or it could actually be their parents so we talk about children not going to school perhaps because they are a young carer but their parents and I think that was exacerbated through Covid so therefore part of our mentor role is to help families engage with wider services because clearly there are other agencies out there which can help the family and not just the child themselves staying at home. I think there are most definitely issues around cost of living and poverty.

So Barnardus has done research into the number of children who don't have a bed, for example. So we had one child who'd been sleeping on a sofa for two years. So coming into school every morning for a standard curriculum was a real challenge because that child was exhausted um and i think where bernardo's brings its strength is the independence of our brand to help families where some of these issues are very stigmatized and we can work with a family in a very supportive way and an independent from school and from other local agencies helping families to help themselves this is about developing the self-efficacy of families we haven't met children and families who do not want to be part of education it's

fundamental for children to be at school we as adults see that through their education but children themselves see that through their social networks. So we are seeing children and families who want very much to be engaged, but they have sometimes lost their way in how they can re-engage. Yes, lots of people getting in touch with the programme on this. This texter says not all children that haven't returned to school come from underprivileged backgrounds. Many children who are now not in school come from educated backgrounds where their parents have decided that the best thing for their mental health is to either home educate or seek alternative provision wake up government don't blame the pupils and don't blame the parents but listen to them and this texter says i think many parents holidays take preference over education as well that number 84844 if you want to text the

program simon kidwell holidays often come up but i, to the point that we just heard from Nadine there, you know, people can't afford certain things like a bed, you know, a basic necessity. What is your view on how government is helping on that front? Because all of that, you talked about funding and investment in the education system. But clearly, there's an awful lot of families out there and the kids get caught up in this who need other kinds of help and they're not getting it. Yeah it's a wider issue around us the lack of investment in central services that cuts to social care that cuts to local authority budgets as well we had attendance officers with local authorities so we do need investment in our schools and in terms of holidays Claire I think holidays is a bit of a red herring because holidays are not the large part of the non-attendance issues.

There was a lot of media reports about holidays last week and holidays have returned to 2019 levels. So holidays are important and we need to make sure that parents prioritise holidays in holiday time. However, it's not the main issue. The main issue is around illness and making sure there's proper support, especially around children's mental health. I mean, the government has said today that £15 million, that's extra,

and they're doubling the support to 1,000 schools as well. We've had a similar line from the Labour Party as well. They're going to put um more money this is from shadow education secretary bridget phillipson she's due to give a speech on labour's vision for schools which is expected to lay out uh tackling persistent absences labour introducing better support around mental health breakfast clubs primary schools and a reset of

the relationship between schools and family and schools and government. It reaches out into all corners of life, doesn't it, Nadine? And I guess the point is, unless you catch these problems while children are at school and they are very firmly on the radar, this spills into adult life and people slip through the net, don't they? Yeah, absolutely, Claire. And so in our pilot area in Middlesbrough, we have also been working with some primary aged children, looking at ensuring that we don't, that families don't develop the habit of non-school attendance. I think we can get in there really early. The transition from primary to secondary is a stress point for almost all children,

but most especially for the children that we've been working with. And to the point earlier around wider children's social care, I think health plays a determinant in that. So the mental health support teams, which should be rolled out to all schools across the country, is something that Barnardus is keen to see developed. They do prove to be very effective in helping support children with their mental health and wellbeing whilst at school.

Thank you both so much for joining us. It's such an important issue and one that's going to be talked about by, well, all across the political spectrum today and tomorrow. Nadine Good, Director for Children's Services in the north of England for Barnardo's and Simon Kidwell there, President of the National Association of Head Teachers and Head of Hertford Manor Primary School and Nursery in Cheshire. This text says schools need to do more for neurodiverse children. Both of my sister's children have not been able to attend school

because the school has failed to support each child's neurodivergent needs. This has caused extreme anxiety for each child and subsequently prevented the children from attending. Thank you for your response on that, the text number 84844. Now here's a story that has well significantly risen up the news agenda thanks to a drama. The post office scandal has continued to dominate the headlines. Today a petition calling for the former post office chief executive Paula Vennells to lose her CBE has received more than one million signatures. And yesterday, the Prime Minister told the BBC the government was reviewing options to help victims of the scandal.

More than 700 branch managers were convicted of false accounting, theft and fraud based on faulty software. Currently, a public inquiry into the scandal is ongoing and the Metropolitan Police is investigating the post office over potential fraud offences arising from those prosecutions. One of the women who was falsely accused was Jo Hamilton. Her story has been told in the ITV drama Miss Debates versus the post office, where she's played by actor Monica Dolan. And delighted to say Jo joins me now. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Morning. I mean, did you think that a TV drama would have this impact?

It's been huge, hasn't it? Oh, it's just amazing. We've been battling for so many years, well, decades, and nobody has listened to us. You know, Westminster is almost like impenetrable and everyone's just sort of oh yeah they're there you know off you go um and this has actually brought us to life and people can now see just what has been going on because you know it's horrific the way people have been treated and and it well it it's certainly risen up the political agenda

and it's an election year, so they better listen to the people at long last. How does it make you feel about the British public? Because people are very angry indeed on your behalf. Yeah, well, I can't thank them enough. You know, we've been banging away for years and it's never, ever, it's had a bit of publicity here and there,

but there's never been, you never really felt you could tell your story. The inquiry's been going on. We all gave witness evidence, but it doesn't get covered in mainstream media because technically it's kind of boring stuff. It's the post office. But what they have done to people, the drama isn't really a drama.

As you see by the documentary, it is true. Every bit of that happens because it's just awful. Tell us your story then for people who are unaware you were falsely accused of stealing £36,000. There's a very dramatic scene in the drama where you're on the line to the helpline and the number literally doubles in front of your eyes. Talk us through what happened.

Yeah, that really did happen. And they said, you've got to pay the money. And I said, well, I don't know. I didn't owe £2,000, I owed £4,000. They said, well, your contract says you've got to make it good. And I demanded the area manager come down and sort it out. And I said about the computer, and she said, well, you're the only one that's having problems.

And I'm going back to 2003 when it's almost like it was God. If it said that, it should obviously be there. And it always sounds like there was this big pot of money and I opened the safe and it had gone and I didn't know where it had gone. The money never existed in the first place. And that is the travesty of it. It was just a number on the screen. And I actually believed it was right and I was wrong.

But it became more than a number on the screen, didn't it? Because it became real money that you had to pay back. So talk us through that. Well, the first time they kept my wages and then I reported another one and they kept my wages for that. Then another one and I put the money in and then it climbed to £9,000 and we had to remortgage the house and put the money in

because I kept ringing them and they just said, well, you've got to pay what your contract says. And I had a 40-year lease on the shop. And I always thought people might not believe me. They might think I'd done something wrong. So I remortgaged and put the money in and then it just kept hemorrhaging. And then I kept quiet. And I always thought

ignorantly or naively um i always thought one day i'd press a button and it would it would all write itself um because i knew i i mean i wasn't stupid and i never had a problem when it was paper-based but once it went electronic i i always thought it was something i was messing up you know i was i was touching the wrong button um even though for years you'd run this ledger uh on paper and you'd never messed up never had problems no and so i let it climb to 36 grams so eventually when they they rang up and said you've got to send back 25 grams in the morning because you've got too much cash i'm like no so i rang the federation for help and they said um go find yourself a good criminal lawyer and get yourself signed off sick and that was their only advice to me was to um basically go and get myself legal help

I was gonna say you you felt a sense of shame as well didn't you because you didn't tell your husband initially did you no no I had to tell him when he had to sign to remortgage the house and obviously I didn't want to tell them it was getting worse um so I I just kept quiet but then um one of my customers was a criminal lawyer fortunately you see her is in poor trade and I literally went to her house and we just cried you know I couldn't explain it um and the rest is history but we got almost trial they wouldn't disclose anything and then they said well okay if we'll drop the theft if you plead guilty to false accounting repay all the money and the money has to be paid on sentencing and don't mention horizon and I know I, I never realised the significance of it because I still thought I was alone and I was the only person it had happened to. So I always technically

thought I had actually done something dishonest by accounting saying the money was there when it wasn't. So I pleaded guilty. But fortunately for me, the whole village turned up in court, including the vicar. And yeah, it was the most surreal day ever, I think. And the judge didn't send me to prison. So you experienced the sort of the worst of humanity and the best of humanity through all of this by the sounds of things. When did you realise it wasn't just you? Well, because of the publicity, because so many people turned up in court there were 74 people it got put in the national papers because the gazette was linked to the mail and the express and then people started phoning the shop saying i know someone else has happened to

and then we gradually and computer weekly saw it they contacted me alan saw it he contacted me. Alan saw it. He contacted me. And it's it mushrooms. And then when we realized we're all told we were the only ones, then I got really angry and it kind of formed a bubble around me that I was like, right, we're going to get them. And the rest, yeah, is history. And tell us how your story ended then. I mean, how much money you had to pay back and whether you've had any compensation because the post office have put their hands up and they say compensation has been paid out to a significant number of people. What's your experience? Well, I guess I'm lucky again that I was criminalised because they repaid. Once you get your conviction course course you have a chance to join

a compensation scheme um so i have had some monies and my life has changed i've paid off my mortgage i've cleared all my debt so i'm now in a good position but the group that actually took the post office to court that weren't criminalized which some five people have had almost nothing they haven't even had the money that post office has taken off them back and this is i think probably the most scandalous thing of all that the litigants in the original court case have not had compensation they've invented all these schemes and they push out all these numbers that we've paid this and we've paid that, but they haven't paid the group. Like Alan hasn't been paid. He's had a tiny interim payment and it's just wrong. People are dying.

60 people have died, all told, since the beginning of it. Tell me then finally what you think about this petition for Paula Vennells to lose her CBE, Chief Executive of the Post Office, reaching over a million now. It's quite amazing. I mean, she should never have been given it in the first place, in my view. And she should have given it back by now. I mean, can you imagine? I'd be so embarrassed. I would have just handed it back. But who knows? You know, I don't know what happens from now. I don't know what the process is. We've all written to the forfeiture committee who are quiet at the work. And I do believe that people will find themselves in court over this because it's shocking the way they've behaved and the way people have been treated. And I just, you know, the fact that it's now gone up the political agenda is just like, thank God we've had some wonderful MPs who've climbed on board. But like single voices here and there don't have any effect because Westminster just seem to be deaf to people. You know, we are their constituents. Why don't they listen?

Well, I think they're listening now, Jo. Thank you so much for joining us. I have to say, I misspoke. Of course, Paula Vennells is the former chief executive of the post office. And a statement from them says this. We're deeply sorry and are doing all we can to right the wrongs of the past as far as that is possible. Offers of compensation totalling more than 130 million have been made to date. The vast majority have been agreed and paid. And we're continuing to make interim payments in other cases. And we share the aims of the current public inquiry to establish what went wrong in the past and the accountability for it. That was Woman's Hour, talk to you tomorrow. That's all from today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time.

Will you please welcome the 2023 BBC Reith lecturer, Professor Ben Ansell. I don't think anybody expects to be asked to do the Reith lectures, so it's an enormous honour but it's an enormous responsibility. Hello, I'm Anita Arnand. In this year's BBC Radio 4 Reith Lectures, Professor Ben Ansell explores our democratic future and what we must do to protect it. Democracy is our legacy from past generations

and it's an obligation of ours to secure for future generations. It's up to us. That's the 2023 Reith Lectures. Listen on BBC Sounds. 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's faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy.

And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.