Woman's Hour - David Carrick sentencing, Shamima Begum story, Danielle Deadwyler, Carmel McMahon

Episode Date: February 7, 2023

Former Police Officer David Carrick will be sentenced this morning. BBC correspondent Helena Wilkinson joins Nuala. Shamima Begum left the UK in 2015. Now, for the first time, we have a better idea of what she might have been doing in the four years between then and her re-appearance in a camp in Syria in 2019. We know that she has married an IS fighter, had three children and lost three children in the last eight years – but what else happened? Nuala McGovern is joined by the BBC’s Josh Baker, host of the podcast I’m Not A Monster: The Shamima Begum Story and Dr Gina Vale, a lecturer of Criminology at the University of Southampton who specialises in terrorism. Danielle Deadwyler's extraordinary portrayal of the civil rights activist Mamie Till-Mobley in Chinonye Chukwu’s Till (2022) has earned her a BAFTA nomination for Best Leading Actress. The film tells the true story of Mamie’s pursuit of justice after her 14-year-old son, Emmett Till, was tortured and lynched in 1955. Danielle joins Nuala McGovern to discuss grief, Mamie’s legacy, and the ongoing fight for civil rights. As low-slung trousers come back into fashion and high-waists are all the rage we ask how fashion, age and generation determine where our trousers sit and how we feel about it. Hannah Rogers Assistant Fashion Editor for The Times joins Nuala. In 1993, aged twenty, Carmel Mc Mahon left Ireland for New York, carrying $500, two suitcases and a ton of emotional baggage. It took years, and a bitter struggle with alcohol addiction, to unpick the intricate traumas of her past and present.  Carmel has now written a book, In Ordinary Time: Fragments of a Family History.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Lucinda Montefiore

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 Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello, you're very welcome to Woman's Hour. Now, I have a conversation with the actress Danielle Deadweiler to bring you this morning. Her performance in the film Till, about the lynching of a 14-year-old boy, has been called Oscar worthy. But as you may know, she did not get nominated for Best Actress, nor did any black woman in that category, and it caused an uproar. So we're going to speak about that, but also what it took to emotionally and physically recreate the character of maybe Mobley Till, that is the mother of Emmett Till,

and also how that woman's actions ignited the civil rights movement in America. Also this hour, you might see in many of the papers today, the TV pick of the day is the Shamima Begum story. And what a story it is. The 15-year-old London schoolgirl, as you'll remember, went to Syria to join the Islamic State group. She's now 23, living in a camp in the north of Syria with thorny questions about what her future holds. Well, Josh Baker, he has met her. He's from the BBC and he's been following her story since

2014. He'll be with us, as will Dr. Gina Vail, who studies radicalisation. Instead, to emigration. When people emigrate, they often live with feet in two worlds. And the author Carmel McMahon, she describes that experience so beautifully as she recounts moving to America, but with deep roots still in Ireland that eventually pulled her back to its west coast. The memoir covers decades of deep change in Ireland, but also within Carmel. So I'm very much looking forward to speaking to her about all that. And thinking of the changes that decades bring, is your waist where it used to be? How much has it transformed? Now I'm asking because apparently low rise jeans are on the way back. Now I didn't like them the first time round, if I'm completely honest. I'm much more of a

high waisted woman myself. But maybe you're ready to take on that lower waistband again, or maybe it's first time round. Though being round, I have found you can make jeans with a three inch zipper quite uncomfortable. Some of you getting in touch already. Let's see. Here's one that was coming in during the news. As a very short waisted person, I quite like low sung jeans. High rise jeans end up just under my bra. Well, is that your experience or something else you'd like to tell us about when it comes to how you wear your jeans?

84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. You can also get us on social media. That's at BBC Woman's Hour or through our website. You can email us. Or if you prefer to send a WhatsApp message or a voice note, use the number 03700 100 444. So again, the text number 84844.

I can see quite a lot coming in so far. Thanks so much for them. But I want to begin this morning with a serious story and that is that the former police officer David Carrick will be sentenced at 10.30 this morning. So just in about 25 minutes time. Last month he admitted

to 49 offences against 12 women between 2003 and 2020 and yesterday at the hearing in Southwark Crown Court the prosecutor Tom Little KC read out details of the 85 serious offences including rape, sexual assault, false imprisonment and coercive or controlling behaviour and also personal statements from 11 of the 12 victims. One of the women said she felt she had encountered evil. Well, to take us through these latest developments, I'm joined by BBC correspondent Helena Wilkinson,

who is live at Southern Crown Court right now. Good to have you with us. Thanks so much for spending a few minutes with us here on Woman's Hour. What did we find out really yesterday in court? Good morning. So as you say, we are waiting for the sentencing hearing to begin here at Southwark Crown Court

in about 22 minutes or so. The judge, Mrs Justice Chima Grubb, is going to begin those sentencing remarks. But yesterday was the first day of this two-day sentencing hearing. And we knew already, didn't we, about those 85 offences that Carrick finally admitted to. You may remember that he previously had pleaded not guilty to the charges, but he pleaded eventually guilty to 85 offences. And we heard from the prosecutor,

Tom Little Casey, yesterday in court, he said 71 of those were of serious sexual offending. He said the reality was that it didn't matter who the victim was, he would rape them, sexually abuse, assault them and or humiliate them. He talked about, the prosecutor talked about Carrick choosing older women, younger women than him, but all in their own way, the 12 victims all in their own way were vulnerable. And we got a bit more detail as well, the full details really of what he did. Just to give you some examples, as well as the sexual offending that took place over a 17-year period while David Carrick

was a Metropolitan Police officer. These offences took place while he was off duty. But we heard in one incident, one woman who tried to leave his home, he put a black handgun to her head and he told her, you are not going we also know that

in another incident multiple occasions in fact he would falsely imprison one woman he put her in a cupboard and on one occasion that was all over the fact that she had ordered a jumper and he had told her that she shouldn't order anything so he put her in a cupboard under his stairs. He made her strip naked. She, on one occasion, had a panic attack and asked to come out, and he wouldn't let her. And what he did outside of that cupboard, he would communicate with her and whistle at her as if she was a dog.

And she was raped on at least 10 occasions. And the details we heard were absolutely horrific in court, and many of them just simply too horrific for us to report. It's quite something. I know they have a couple of the photographs of him with a gun this morning I saw in the papers as well. But I wonder, do the women feel that they've had their voices heard in this case? Yes, an important part of a sentencing hearing are what are known as or called victim personal statements. So a victim of a crime is offered the opportunity to write a statement and that can either be read by them in court or it can be read on behalf of

the prosecutor. They don't have to if they don't want to. But what we heard yesterday were 11 victim personal statements. They were read on behalf of the 11 women. And some of those women, some of his victims were in court yesterday. They were in fact sitting about five feet behind David Carrick, who was in the dock. And he himself barely looked up throughout the hearing yesterday as those horrific details were laid bare in court but in terms of what we heard yesterday the impact on victims on his 12 victims and the trail of devastation that he has left behind just to give you some of what we heard yesterday you mentioned in the introduction one of his victims described when she met David Carrick she said she met evil. Others said they couldn't trust men anymore and I think perhaps most damningly as well we heard in those victim impact statements

a number of women described being nervous of the police. One even went further to say that she would not call for help in case a male officer like Carrick was sent we know that Carrick used his power and control to stop his victims reporting and yes yesterday it was their moment in court those statements read on their behalf 11 of the 12, to really outline exactly what damage and continued damage that Carrick's crimes have on them. And of course, you do bring that point of what does this mean for the Met going forward? The inspector of the constabulary, Matt Parr, said this week that one in 10 police officers should never have been able to make it through the vetting process.

And people will be asking, how did he get away with it for so long? These offences are over a 17-year time period. Yes, and the Metropolitan Police have been very clear. They say that he should never have been a police officer. And not only that,

but they missed opportunities to try and stop him. We know that there were nine incidents in which he came to the attention of various police forces. But the Metropolitan Police saying that, yes, we put our hands up and we missed those opportunities.

If we had put all of those incidents together, then we would have seen that picture, that behavior of this man, and he could have been stopped. Now, we had a statement before the first day of the sentencing hearing, which, as I say, was yesterday from Assistant Commissioner Barbara Gray,

again apologizing for the harm and devastation that Carrick has caused to the women and also saying that they are determined to root out the corrupt officers. Work is already underway, she has said. And what she said we're going to hear in the coming weeks. They'll be speaking in more detail about the important progress, her words, that they have made and what our next steps will be. But yes, absolutely incredible, really, that this man, over 17 years of his offending, he managed to get away with it. Our BBC correspondent, Helena Wilkinson at the Southern Crown Court, thank you

so much. That sentence will come in in the next 15 minutes or so. I will bring it to my listeners when those details come into us. Thanks, Helena. I want to move on now instead to an American actor, Danielle Deadweiler. I don't know if you've caught it yet, but her extraordinary portrayal of the civil rights activist Mamie Till Mobley in Chinoya Chukwu's Till has earned her a BAFTA nomination for Best Leading Actress. The film tells the true and harrowing story of Mamie's pursuit of justice after her 14-year-old son Emmett Till was tortured and lynched in 1955 for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Now Mamie insists that the images of the open casket, which contains her son's brutalised body and face,

be publicised to show the nation what was done to him and also that the viewing of that casket be public. We also see in the film how her grief turns to action and galvanises support for the civil rights movement. I've got a clip of the film to play to you. This is Mamie warning Emmett, who is played by Jalen, before he leaves his hometown of Chicago to visit his cousins in Mississippi. All right, now you're going to miss your train.

Beau, when you get down there... Oh, not again, Mama. I've already been to Mississippi. Only one time before, and you started a fight with another little boy. He was picking on me. You're in the right to stand up for yourself, but that's not what I'm talking about. They have a different set of rules for Negroes down there. Are you listening?

Yes. You have to be extra careful with white people. You can't risk looking at them the wrong way. I know. And she calls him Beau, as you might have picked up from that clip as well. Her performance is astonishing. But you don't have to take my word for it. It would be Goldberg, who stars, as Mamie's mother, called it the best performance she has ever seen. So I got to speak to Danielle yesterday and I asked her how it felt to hear that review from Whoopi Goldberg.

Whoopi's biased. In the right way. will be amazing. It's a given that she would care for it in this kind of verbal manner because that's the way she's cared for the film in a very maternal fashion in the way that all the producers have. Now, it's just so interesting

that you use the word maternal fashion because that is the emotional connection that comes through this film. You know, I can't take my eyes off you when I'm watching it. And it's all shown through the perspective of Mamie, the mother of Emmett Till. How did you first feel when you started reading about this film centered through those mother's eyes? I felt like I was entering a world that hadn't been, you know, that had been withheld because, you know,

it's a blip or treated as a blip in history often, predominantly. How about that? And it's ridiculous, right? And so you're coming into it and you're saying, oh, look at the beauty of this relationship. Look at the beauty of this mother and son. Look at how joyful they are together. Look at how, you know, I'm marveling at, you know, the parallels between myself and my son and her. And all of that stuff is lost on us. And so I did not know those things either.

And so there's just this wonderful intimacy that you begin to be invited into. It's an intimacy that is often neglected in various histories, but specifically about Black American women or Black women globally, where we lose knowledge about how they came to be who they are for movements or just how integral their place in history has been. And this was a story from the 1950s, the most harrowing, shocking story, but really they gave rise to the civil rights movement and galvanized. But as I was watching it, and I'd just be curious for your thoughts on this, I was really struck by that central figure, mother figure. I've interviewed Eric Gardner's mother,

who was a black man killed by the police, his mum, Gwen Carr. And I just think that image of a heartbroken, grieving black mother is something we still see. For example, I'm thinking of Rovon Wells, who is the mother of Tyree Nichols, who's been in the press just over the past couple of weeks. And it always stops me. He was, Tyree Nichols was killed by five police officers. There's the allegations.

They are all black, but they talk about systemic racism within the force um i'm struck by those images that are still there maybe was intentional and that's what we learned from the film we learn about how she goes about inciting the public, inciting the South, the North, the globe to move, to be active in the need to support those who are oppressed in the South, right? And that's the same thing that Ms. Wales is doing in this loss of Tyree Nichols. She is saying the same thing. I need you to witness this thing. I need you to witness this brutality.

But she showed his image, her own image of him from the bed. There's a sensitivity in thinking about the image that Mamie chose to have taken and the image that Miss Wells chooses to have shown. These are from their perspective, from one of care, from one of love, from one of memory and witnessing, you know, the beauty of the humanity of the people that were lost. When it's shown from these, you know, these other purviews, right, of people who happen to be present, who are just documenting to catch, you know, systemic ill behavior or, you know, the or the body cam image, which is supposed to also catch systemic behavior to halt it.

Like those those perspectives don't are not they're just not that they're uh loving yes and i understand of course how traumatic it can be for black people to witness or relive at times this footage that is put out in this day and age and maybe was doing something um at that point uniquely trying to draw attention to a problem that people perhaps hadn't been, hadn't seen, let's say, in that way previously with the open casket. So what was that process like, getting to know her, getting to know her relationship? It's beautiful. It's loving to look upon these memories. They had a life. They had a real beautiful life. And that life was just snatched.

You have a son who is 13. I read in an interview that he read as Emmett in one of your auditions. I'm just wondering what that experience must have been like. Yeah, he did. He's a sweet young boy. He helped me out. We've done a film together, but he, we did the scene where Mamie tells Emmett to be small. Oh, yes, because he's going to Mississippi and because she is worried for his safety. It's so different to the city of Chicago. And instead, there was the Jim Crow South. And she just thought that he, you know, might need to behave in a different way than he would usually yeah she

she so yeah we did that scene together it's a it's a difficult scene it's it's uh it's it's trying to be the utmost of loving and the utmost of full of admonishment and whatnot but there is a kind of joy and laughter that he brings to it. And you don't want to scare your children, but you want to scare your children. Yeah. You kind of feel you have to. And it's a last minute effort at telling him that life is not the same for all of us.

Even though she, you know, recognizes that she has turned a kind of blind eye to the atrocities of the South and said, you know, earlier in the film that that's their problem. And that's the thing about this. It is literally everybody's problem. So in the same way, how you spoke of earlier that Black people are tired of having to witness these kinds of videos, I would, you know, say that white people should be tired of witnessing these videos yes if they're you know everyone should be tired of of having to deal with this kind of violence because at the end

of the day this is a residual effect that does affect all of us we've talked a lot about the grief the pain but there is I mean the colour in the film is incredible, right? Every set, every scene, it just pops. And I'm wondering about hope or joy. Obviously, so much came from Emmett throughout that earlier part of the film, but also Mamie needs to have people get on board in the midst of this horrific incident.

Chinoy did this purposefully, this color, and a lot of people talk about it because you don't presume that it would be any kind of beauty in places where atrocity happens in this way. But it is, you know, and that's to say that black people in the South were marvelous. Like, I mean, in Chicago, I mean, these Southern people migrated North to Chicago. So this, the color that you witnessed there is the color that you witnessed there, the joy and the hope and the resistance that you, that you feel has come to this place of, of warmth of other sons, you know, right? Like the, the, the, the text

is, is here too. These things are deeply connected. And so it's that those hopes and those joys are congruent. I mean, there's a lot of things surprising about the film and it's wonderful, but that is one that just caught my eye. And I think you've described it so well as sometimes we don't expect those juxtapositions to happen at the same time. You received a BAFTA nomination for your performance in Till but there's been a lot of

conversation, you won't have missed it, about the list of Oscar nominees for Best Actress this year and the fact that you have not been recognised nor indeed have any black women. And following the nominations the director of Till, that is Chinoya Chukwu, she denounced the film industry for upholding whiteness and also for perpetuating an unabashed misogyny towards black women.

Would you agree with that characterisation? And has it been your experience? I would say that we've the cinema cinematic history is 100 plus years old. I would dare say that the system is deeply, deeply impacted by systemic racism that has shaped our country. And if we're still dealing with systemic racism in this country, that is leading us to the loss of a Tyree Nichols that carries us from the loss of Emmett, there's a trickle-down effect of how racism impacts our lives, from the educational system to the film industry to everything, any part of quotidian American life. And so, yes, there is value to what Glenn said. And it's just it's imperative that every quality of our life begin to truly deeply interrogate and shift and rupture and change and radically shift the way they seek to add to actually be an equitable institution. Well, I wonder then, because perhaps when we're looking at the Oscars, I'm thinking that we're drilling down into one part. Some of the

stats I have, for example, 14 black actresses have been nominated in the Oscars for Best Lead Actress. Only one, Halle Berry, has ever won. And some might ask, does the process need to change? But I think what I'm hearing from you, Danielle, instead, is that society needs to change

first, instead of it from this academy out. I don't know. Give me your thoughts. I think it's from both ends. You can't just start from one way and then think it's going to, and there is no trickle down effect, right, the economy. That's not how it works. You know, it's got to come from every angle. If, you know, if Hattie McDaniel is the first to win one, right, and then the first nominee is Dorothy Dandridge and the first actual winner is Halle Berry, there are numerous decades in between that begin to make us critically assess whether, you know, these things are. And then, I mean, bringing it to Michelle Yeoh, who's, you know, the first Asian American, I mean, Asian actor to be nominated. It's a, it's, it's, it's, you have to begin to question why are there these gaps? I mean, before I was even in consideration for anything, you know,

these are the things that I've witnessed. And so these are critical questions of how do you begin to actually bring equity to spaces that have long been led or deeply impacted by white supremacist ideologies and thought and practices? You know, if we've had challenges in the government and we've had challenges in education and we're witnessing people right now trying to stop the truth of American history being taught in our schools, speaking specifically about Florida and Governor DeSantis and the desire to eradicate and erase Black and queer lineages from American history. If you see people trying to do this literally in our faces, like it's not a gas,

it wouldn't be a gas that it's a part of other institutions. What does it feel to be at the centre of a storm like this? You give the performance of a lifetime. It's not just Whoopi Goldberg that has said it.

I could start reading the list. Everyone I've been reading called it Oscar worthy, but then it doesn't happen. And you're held up as some sort of representative of this controversy. What does that feel like? Are you happy to take it on? Funny, I feel like I'm in the quiet.

Really? Yeah, I do. I feel like I'm in the quiet. Everyone else is having the conversation. I'm just, I do. I feel like I'm in the quiet. Everyone else is having the conversation. I'm just, I'm witnessing what's all around me. It's kind of like being, you know, Dorothy in the Wiz. So you're the eye of the storm. It's calm where you are, but everything is trundling all around you. Yeah. And I mean, it's a thing of who should be answering these questions? Should they come to me or should they be for others who are either the beneficiaries of the privilege of these spaces and should be much more critical of what that looks like around them? What do you think?

Don't ask me. But I did ask her lots of questions and thanks so much to Danielle Deadweiler. You can still catch her performance, her extraordinary performance, in Till. It's in cinemas in the UK, I have to say.

It blew me away. I thought she was amazing. Let me move on to something else I've been watching and listening. Also fascinating. The background to it. In February 2015, three schoolgirls from Bethnal Green left home and got on a flight from Gatwick to Turkey. From Turkey, they were smuggled over the border to Syria

where they joined the Islamic State Group, also known as IS. All three of the girls were quickly married to IS fighters. One of them, Khadija, was killed when an airstrike hit her home. The second, Amira, is missing at this moment, presumed dead. And the third is Shamima Begum. Yes, you will know that name because she's been in the headlines since she re-emerged in 2019, asking to come back to the UK. The government declined this request. And then in 2019, the then Home Secretary, that was Sajid Javid, stripped Shamima Begum of her British citizenship,

a decision that was appealed but unsuccessfully. And now, for the first time, we have a little more of the picture of what Shamima Begum did in those four years while she was living with IS. And that is thanks to the BBC's Josh Baker, who has interviewed her several times over the course of a year. He also spoke to other members of IS,

including Shamima Begum's husband, that is, Jago Rydick, and has collected the interviews together for the podcast I'm Not a Monster, The Shamima Begum Story, and has also created a documentary airing tonight on BBC Two called This World, The Shamima Begum Story. Josh is with us in studio. Good morning, Josh. Morning. How are you? Very well. And also with us is Dr. Gina Vale, who's lecturer of criminology at the University of Southampton and specialises in terrorism. Good morning, doctor.

Good morning. Lovely to have both of you. Well, let me start with you, Josh. I just want to know, what was it like the first time you met Jemima Begum? She was already such a famous name in the UK. Well, I sort of came to this story in quite an unexpected manner in the sense that back in 2015 when she left, I was actually in East London Mosque making a documentary about the community.

Now, during the course of filming that, it became clear that three girls from the community had gone missing. One of them was Shamima Begum. Now, at that point, the mosque sort of became this focal point, not only for the community, but for the girls' families, for the authorities. So it sort of was there witnessing this unfold firsthand. And I followed the story for a number of months after that, and then sort of forgot about it. Fast forward seven or so years, I'm in Syria doing something completely unrelated, and I get the chance to sit down with Shamima Begum. And we sort of get chatting, and she was aware of some of the journalism I've done. And through the course of that conversation, eventually, she decided to give me what she says is her definitive account of the last eight years.

She was aware of your journalism. That's really interesting. So series one of the podcast series, we followed an American woman's story. And bizarrely, we ended up getting a lot of members of ISIS listening to that. And some of these members of ISIS are detained within the camp where Shamima Begum is held. So she was sort of aware of it through that. I also want to let people know that you spoke to her husband, Iago Rydick. It's the first time we've heard from him, the first time I've definitely seen him. If I was to ask you, what's he like? What would you say? Do you know, over the course of the last sort of i guess 10

years i've interviewed lots of people who've been parts of uh terror groups but he is in the sort of smaller percentage that i find genuinely intimidating he's you know physically he's a very small man he's not in the best of health but he's got this sort of icy coldness to him that can cut through anything he really likes to intimidate and own a space. He's definitely a dangerous individual. Well, let's hear a little of what he spoke to you about. She had got a little bit of understanding about how the marriage life works. So that helped her out a lot.

What were those sort of values that she'd come to understand? Respecting of the husband. Trying to please the husband. Obedience, of course. Obedience to whom? To the husband. To the husband? Yes.

So you expected Shamima to be obedient to you? Yes. What does obedience look like to a husband? When I ask her to do something, then she does it. It's not very hard. What if she doesn't want to do something, then she does it. It's not very hard. What if she doesn't want to do it? If she has a valid excuse, she doesn't have to do it. It's an interesting way of phrasing it, a valid excuse, because that doesn't seem like there's much choice in that dynamic between the two of you.

No, there is not, actually, no. There's no choice? No. So what you want, she has to do? Basically, yeah. It doesn't seem, from where I'm standing, that that's a particularly healthy place for somebody to be. That doesn't seem like two people are equal

in that relationship. We're not. But she chose for that and she's happy with it. She's's happy with it she's very happy with it and i'm happy with it so when you say so she's not equal to you in that relationship in terms of i am the one in charge basically yeah would that be expected josh maybe from other people you've spoken to the guys of is yeah i mean it's pretty chilling, that clip, isn't it? I mean, so just a bit of context here. So Shamima Begum has told me that she chose to join ISIS because she was heading in her mind to a utopia. She believed there was this society that had been created for her. So she, you know, made the decision to go. When she gets there, she's

basically put into something called a Madaffa, is like a guest house if you will for unmarried women and the only way out of a Madaffa is in essence to get married. Now this is the man that within about three weeks of being in this Madaffa that she ends up being married to and it sort of sets a broader point about

a woman's place in ISIS so you know I think a lot of people have struggled with Shamima Begum know, I think a lot of people have struggled with Shamima Begum's story saying, look, a lot of the time I spent at home and parts of that story that she's told me aren't true. But also it's important to understand that largely ISIS expected women to provide the next generation

of the caliphate, the caliphate cubs as they called them. Now, some women did indeed participate in some of the more extreme elements, but their role was largely in the beginning to serve men and to breed. Shamima Begum also spoke to you about her marriage. I want to play a little clip also from the documentary and then we'll bring in Dr. Gina Vale as well. First, you say, you know, I want to get married and then they take down your information and they ask you what your preference is for what type of man you want to marry like age and nationality and language and I mean if you want to be more detailed you could even like say what you want them to look

like and they would just like get the list of the men because the men have also given their information just kind of like pair you up pair you up and so it goes and she was paired up as we heard with Diego and his thoughts on it. Listening to some of that Dr. Genovell, I know you've also of course been following the story of Shamima Begum from the beginning. Why do you think she is such a polarising figure? It's because she doesn't neatly fit into any category. She defies all of our expectations on multiple levels. She was a minor when she joined, so she's not the typical person that you might think be joining a terrorist organization. She's also female. That in herself is often bucking the trend of what we consider to be a normal terrorist.

At the same time, if you reverse that, she's also not a normal British woman in the fact that she's joined a terrorist organisation. So she defies a lot of the categories that we understand and expect from youth within our society. And what about, I suppose, the category or the role that she is supposed to play or does play within IS? So it's painted as that of a mother, you know, Josh related there to that generation of Caliphate Cubs, for example. Where does she fit in that picture, do you think, looking at her over the past few years? Because many people want to know, who was she? What does she do? Who is she now?

Well, unfortunately, you've hit the nail on the head between what was she supposed to do and what she actually did. And of course, the latter point has a lot of mystery involved within it. She cleared and wiped a lot of her social media accounts, unlike other British women. So there's a lot of her social media accounts, unlike other British women. So there's a lot of uncertainty about what she did do. What she was supposed to do, as Josh said, is the fundamental role for women within Islamic State was as wife and mother and really that intergenerational indoctrination role for the next children to become the next

leaders of the caliphate. But there is also a really important element that can't be forgotten about the structure of Islamic state. They tried to build a state. And so women played a vital role in that. The group segregated all of its public institutions and spaces. And so women had to adopt some professional roles as teachers, nurses, doctors, clerks, administrators, cleaners, for argument's sake. And so that was a really vital role for women to contribute to the state building apparatus of the group. Fast forward

then to late 2017, when the group was starting to crumble territorially. And that's when we start seeing evidence of women taking on combat roles. But again, we have very little evidence beyond the testimonies of her contemporaries and individuals that will talk about her as to what she did. What did you think, Josh? Because you asked her. She insists she sat in a room for a lot of it. Well, that's definitely not the case. So there are times throughout all of this where Shamima Begum is undoubtedly trying to deceive and conceal things.

And we'll go into some of those things tonight, like, you know, who she was potentially living with while she was in IS. But at the same time, there are times where she is seemingly being candid with me and possibly to her detriment. You know, she has admitted to me in the past that she was in love with the idea of joining ISIS. And then she's gone in to explain how she came to fall in love with that, the indoctrination process, the influence of her friends and what led to her decisions. Excited when she crossed the border and saw those visions, which we're so familiar with now of, you know, IS soldiers dressed all in black with guns and she termed it exciting. Totally. I mean, can you imagine, you know, you're confronted by, as a 15-year-old girl, you're confronted by men who are carrying weapons

who are clearly dangerous and that shows the mental state that she was in, what she thought she was going to i've read opinion pieces that you've done before dr gina vale um and you have said repatriation is the way forward for people like shamima bagum but this morning i noticed in the telegraph they're saying that a report into prevent that's the government led anti-radicalization program it said it shows I think the report is going to be out in full tomorrow, but it shows that seven of the 13 terrorist attacks in the past six years have been carried out by extremists who have been referred to Prevent. A recent one people might remember is Sir David Amess, the MP.

And I'm just wondering why you think for people like Shamima Begum, repatriation is the answer? Well, preventant and repatriation are two separate issues. You're talking about two ends of the timeline, preventative obviously being before someone or at the early stages of someone being. So now we are dealing with the fallout, the result, four years down the line, or at least in her case now, eight years. But we need to consider what the alternatives are to repatriation. And in my mind, they are more concerning than if we repatriate her, put her through the British judicial system

and actually have some form of de-radicalisation and reintegration process that she could go through. However, we've already seen in the case of Shamina that she has escaped SDF custody. And this is a possibility for others. So what do we do when we no longer have control? I just have to mention Shamina was a young woman who went before Shamima. In fact, I learned lots about her in your documentary. I didn't know before she was one of Shamima's best friends. She is still, for what we know, living within IS. Also a London schoolgirl.

Also strange that we never really heard that before the three girls went, because she really led the way. But you're saying she's a different case, just to put that in context for our listeners. Could I put some context? Sure, please do. To this point, because I think,

so just for people to understand. So essentially what happened at the fall of the so-called caliphate in 2019 is tens of thousands of people who had been with IS, men, women, children, walked out of the ashes of the caliphate. They ended up in sort of temporary detention facilities. You've got people from more than 56 nations, thousands of people. And the big question is about what do we do with them?

At this point, the world is sort of divided. Other nations are deciding to repatriate. Canada did it very recently. And sort of the argument is, you know, well, if you bring the Shamima Begums of the world home, you have to monitor them, you have to try them. There's a huge cost there. And as was said earlier, you know, that is one side of the coin. The other way to look at it as well is leaving them there does not necessarily keep us safer either. It's a very complex thing because, as you said, they do escape, they do regroup with ISIS, and also you have children who are growing up in these camps who have only ever known the ideology of the group. And it is called a tinderbox, that particular camp, Al-Rak, where Shamima Begin is currently living. She's isolated from the other women. They are very much loyal that particular camp, Al Rock, where Shamima Begum is currently living. She's isolated from the other women. They are very much loyal to IS and no doubt also provide a danger, many people think. I want to thank Dr. Gina Vale.

We could talk about this for longer. It's so interesting. Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Southampton. Also, Josh Baker, who you hear, the host of the BBC podcast, I'm Not a Monster, the Shamima Begum story, which continues on BBC Sounds and here on Radio 4. And the documentary, This World, the Shamima Begum story,

is on BBC Two tonight at nine o'clock. I recommend that you watch it. Thanks so much for all of you getting in touch on a lighter topic of jeans, where you wear your trousers. Low slung trousers apparently are coming back into fashion. High waists have been all the rage, but we're asking how fashion, age, generation, how do they determine where your trousers sit

and also how you feel about it? Let me see. Waists on women's jeans. I personally don't care where the waist sits, but it does great that so many women's jeans don't have pockets. True, Louise. Low slung trousers means there's a drafty area

because you can't tuck tops in, says Sarah. I love low waist jeans, says another. I'm only five foot three and I don't have a lovely long torso. Short waist suit me and I hide my muffin top with baggy teeth. Let us bring in Hannah Rogers, Assistant Fashion Editor for The Times,

joining me to discuss the lows and the highs of our waistbands. Hi, Hannah. Hello. Good morning. Good morning. Great to have you with us. So what I'm reading is that many in their 20s are opting for a low rise jean. But then as you get even a little older, a more tailored look with a higher waistband seems to be the trend. I'm kind of surprised, though, that both opposing trends are happening at the same time. Yeah I think I think you make the right assumption there. I think most of us kind of look

at a low waist and are either reminded of our teenage years and perhaps years with a slightly more naturally flat stomach and think you know what, maybe not for me anymore. Maybe I'll get a high waist and I'll feel a bit more secure, a little bit more flattering. But to your point on them both being on trend at the same time, I would say that the low waist is something that we have seen on a lot of designer catwalks for this season. And let's just say that what happens on a designer catwalk doesn't necessarily translate to what works in real life for the rest of us.

Yes, I mean, I do remember the first time around, they're recording it in the papers this time, the Y2K trend, but they were cut so low. The zipper was only about three or four inches long. You had to have a flat stomach,

the hips kind of protruding for many that were taking photographs off I was never that woman um is that what we're looking at again is it any different to what it was uh first time around no no I think it's kind of as as terrifying as it was the first time around uh kind of if you can picture Christina Aguilera Britney in her heyday that is the that is the style it's very hip bone centric for sure um and you know it kind of it's big on TikTok put it that way and that obviously is where Gen Z your teenagers your your 20-somethings that's where they go to live if you google if you search on TikTok hashtag low rise it comes up with videos that have had nearly 180 million views

so I think this is a trend that maybe they're finding for the for the first time they're seeing it the first time around and they're adopting it because they can because I think these tricky trends are a little bit easier to adopt when you're younger and a bit more brazen but it's you know I'm just thinking about that um because we've become used to more of a body positivity movement in many ways or curvier figures that are being embraced more widely. And I didn't think that this was going to make a re-emergence. What do you think is behind it? Is it TikTok or any particular person? Because if I think back first time around, what comes to my mind is, yeah, definitely Christina Aguilera,

Britney, maybe Destiny's Child. You know what I mean? There were kind of these icons, I suppose, that were definitely pushing that trend forward. I think an obvious place to point is the catwalk. So in September, the last round of shows, about to have the next round in February, where we saw the spring-summer trends for this year. Brands like Balmain, Chanel, Miu Miu, Saint Laurent, they all had hipster trousers on the catwalk.

Now, most of us don't look at those catwalks and decide how to dress from there. You know, very loyal fashionistas do, maybe influencers do, most of us do not. But what's happened is those trends trickle down and that's a really obvious thing to say. But you can now find these trousers in Zara, in Mango, they're going to be popping up on a high street rack near you. 8-4, 8-4-4 if you want to get in touch about where you wear your jeans. Or your waist, has your waist

transformed or maybe it's just the jeans are going up and down and our waist is staying in the same place. Our waistband is definitely moving. Let's see, here's Kate. She says, I discovered high waist vintage style cut specifically for women which after years of wearing uncomfortable jeans were a revelation. I will never go back to

anything else. I am with you on that Kate. Vintage works better. Let me see. This is Betta saying, I've always worn my trousers just below my hips. Never understood the idea of having a waistband around my stomach. How uncomfortable. But it must be just how somebody is built, whether these jeans are going to be comfortable or not. Is it? Of course, of course. And, you know, finding that there is no right waistband and I think we need to throw away this idea that we need to be wearing whatever is on trend because a pair of trousers is very difficult to find any person and it's all about finding the pair that suit your body type you know I for example I look good in a mid-rise but I hate wearing them because they

give me terrible trapped winds that's just a practicality I have to live with and you know a high waist I like because it makes my legs look longer my waist is one of my smallest areas that's something that I like to make the most of but you know if you look actually just going back to TikTok and I don't want to you know bang on about it too much but going back to your point on body positivity a lot of these young women who you know aren't necessarily this kind of like uh you know skinny heroin chic look that was hot the first time these trousers came around you're seeing young girls who have these curvier figures who are wearing low-rise jeans with body chains very proudly so in as much as i think this trend does kind of propel uh that very skinny figure that we thought we had buried

in the noughties I actually think this new generation are embracing it in all body shapes and it comes down to what you feel good in right? Yes I don't feel good in low rise but that's I'm allowed be partial about that. Now before you do though, I do want to ask you about Hilary Alexander, the former fashion director of the Daily Telegraph, who died at the age of 77. I believe she coined the term supermodel. Tell me a little bit about her influence. Hilary is a legend. And, you know, granted, I am a couple of generations below her. But what I do remember is Hilary coming to give a lecture when I was doing a fashion journalism course when I was at university trying to get a taste for my career. And I actually ended up sharing a cigarette with Hilary outside.

And I thought it was amazing how approachable and what a sense of fun she had. She had amazing advice and she wasn't kind of snooty and she didn't have these kind of airs and graces that I would have expected a fashion journalist of her calibre to have. She was very warm and she was very encouraging of younger generations and I think that's just kind of one element of her personality that will be missed in the industry. Hannah Rogers, thanks so much. Assistant Fashion Editor for The Times. Well, I'm going to go back to 2011 now.

Carmel McMahon was newly sober and beginning to write again when she heard of the death of a young woman who, like Carmel, had emigrated to New York City from Ireland in the mid-90s. The body had been found in St. Bridget's Church in the East Village in New York City. There was something about this news, writes Carmel in her introduction, that kicked me in the gut.

An image flashed across my mind's eye, a kind of map with a thousand points of connection. This young woman, St. Bridget, New York, the Great Famine, the Catholic Church, the English occupation of Ireland, the Celtic and pre-Celtic peoples of that land. It was too much to look at, so I pushed it all away. Luckily for us, Carmel didn't push it away for too long,

and the result is her book, In Ordinary Time, Fragments of a Family History. Wonderful to have you with us. Thank you so much, Nuala. It's great to be here. Now, before we talk about the young woman, Grace Farrell, who died in 2011, I want to ask you about St. Bridget. She is somewhat of a guiding presence in this book and as well this year in Ireland acquiring a bank holiday for the first time for a female. Tell me why she is this guiding light. Well, you know, I think she is.

She symbolizes for many women the power of Irish womanhood. You know, she's a saint that I didn't know very much about until I encountered Grace Farrell's death in New York City at St. Bridget's Church. But I think the holiday this year has made many more people aware of her life and of her legacy. She was an incredible woman. She started Ireland's first art school. She started Ireland's first monastery and convent. And she was a very powerful figure in the fifth century in Ireland. Well, let's turn to Grace Farrell then, indeed, where it intersects.

Why did her death have such significance for you? At the time, I was two years sober myself. And when I learned of Grace's death, you know, it was something that was talked about among Irish immigrants in New York at the time. There was a lot of media coverage on her death. And one of the stories was in the New York Times. And there was some commentary by the coalition, a representative from the Coalition for the Homeless, who made a comment like Grace's parents had come and taken the body, but they had refused to believe that she was homeless.

And it was very sad. And something about that stuck with me because I had known people in recovery who were homeless, and it's not as clear-cut a thing as people might realize because often people do have homes, as Grace did. And I wondered if people hadn't really gotten in touch with the idea that she had grown up in a home in Ireland, that she had been born in Ireland in the 1970s outside of a marriage. So all of that history, I felt was very relevant. And that history, I think many of our listeners will be familiar with the horrors of Ireland exposed by the Magdalene laundries with mother and baby homes.

And the last of those institutions were enclosed down until the 1990s. Your own mother got pregnant in 1966 when she was unmarried. She went to England, which was very common, and she went to, she gave birth to your sister, Michelle,

but there was a terrible accident where Michelle died. At this time, your mother was married and already was pregnant with you and had your older brother. But how much was the death of Michelle, that little girl that was born outside of marriage, talked about? It wasn't in our home, you know,

and I don't think that was so uncommon. You know, I think the story of her life of being born outside of marriage and then the terrible trauma of her death at the age of five. I think that, you know, we went to her grave with my father, you know, twice a year, but my mum never came with us. I just think it was too much for my mother to talk about, you know, and especially under the circumstances when she found out she was pregnant with Michelle, she had to go to England, where in fact, she found, you know, some sort of refuge as many young women did in the 19, you know, of my mother's generation. So that would have been no doubt traumatic for her to go to England, also to lose that little girl that she held on to when you weren't able to in those circumstances. But you write a lot

about trauma and how it reverberates through generations and even from ancestors. Explain that to our listeners. So when I started writing again after sort of a two-year break, after I got sober, all of this stuff was coming up for me. And I felt that, you know, I had nowhere to go with it. I felt like the trauma of losing my sister was, you know, when my mother was six months pregnant with me, had reverberations for my life that, you know, it was something that I couldn't articulate or explain, but it was this painful presence that I felt. And right around the same time, an American psychologist and neuroscientist brought out her research on intergenerational trauma.

And that was like an enlightening moment for me that, you know, that the trauma can be passed down generationally. It's a physiological thing. And at the time she was talking about trauma that's passed from mother to child. And she's since done a lot more research on parental trauma and on the trauma that can be passed from father to child. But that was her name is Dr. Rachel Yehuda. And her research was very it opened a lot of doors to thinking about how the past has reverberations and the present. And I know you used alcohol as an emotional tool, but you did come to stop. What do you think was the game changer there? You know, God, it was really this moment when I realized that alcohol has, you know, on both sides of my family tree, both, you know, generations of us have used

alcohol. And when I was thinking down the line, I was thinking, you know, why would this illness not touch me? You know, why do I think I think I'm so different, that I would get away unscathed, you know, because there's a lot of denial around alcohol use, you know, I knew I had a problem, but I couldn't speak to anybody about it. I was sort of googling recovery meetings in the next, you know, neighborhood, like, I, you know, there's a lot of shame around it. But I think when I realised, like, it's much bigger than me. The roots go back. They're much deeper

than what I can touch. And just in my last minute, you are back on the west coast of Ireland now in County Mayo. You have had feet in two worlds. Do you feel you're home? Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah. From the minute we arrived, I knew I was home for sure. And I have to let our listeners know that you have such a big smile, as you say that in such a beautiful part of the world to be in as well, in the wilds of County Mayo. I wish you well. I just want to let our listeners know again, that is Carmel McMahon.

And her book is In Ordinary Time, of course, a reference to the Catholic Mass, Fragments of a Family History. It is a wonderful read. And as if one Irish woman isn't enough on Woman's Hour 2 today, we have another one tomorrow. If you'd like to join us, we have the actor Jessie Buckley, who is in Women Talking, another incredible movie. So do come back and join me tomorrow.

Same time for that. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello there, I'm Simon Armitage and I've just walked into my garden shed with a chair in my hand. It's my writing shed and the chair is for my guests for this series of The Poet Laureate Has Gone to His Shed, including Ian McKellen, Pam Ayres, Loyal Karner and Lucy Beaumont. So pull up a virtual seat next to me and listen in on my chit-chats with the great and good of this world. People who've stopped by for a natter and a cup of tea, but often end up bearing a little bit of their soul or spilling the beans, if you'll allow me several good old-fashioned

mixed metaphors for a moment. Listen through the keyhole by searching for The Poet Laureate Has Gone to His Shed 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.