Woman's Hour - Disparities in maternal deaths, Vardy v Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial, Ellie Downie, Emergency Alert System, Small Pipes

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

A new report from the women’s and equalities committee is calling on the government to eliminate what it calls ‘appalling disparities in maternal deaths between black and white women’. Black women are 3.7 times more likely to die in pregnancy, childbirth or six weeks afterwards than white women. Nuala discusses the issues with MP Caroline Nokes, who chairs the committee, and Sandra Igwe, who founded the Motherhood Group to support black women. As the government prepares to launch the first nationwide test of a new emergency alert system on our smartphones this Sunday afternoon at 3pm, domestic abuse charities are concerned about the potential risk to domestic abuse survivors. Nuala speaks to Ellie Butt, Head of policy, publc affairs and research at the charity Refuge.Last year the libel trial between feuding footballers' wives, Coleen Rooney and Rebekah Vardy, gripped the nation. Now, the legal tussle has moved from the Royal Courts of Justice to London's West End stage in a show called Vardy V Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial. Nuala talks to the director, Lisa Spirling, and adapter, Liv Hennessy, to find out how they turned seven days of court transcripts into a play. The former European Champion gymnast Ellie Downie is No 4 on our Woman’s Hour Power List. In 2020 Ellie spoke out about systemic abuse in the world of gymnastics – contributing to a major independent review into the sport. She retired from gymnastics in January this year – in order to protect her own mental health. She joins to discuss what impact she thinks her honesty about her own experiences has had long term.Multi-award-winning Scottish smallpiper Brighde Chaimbeul is a BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award winner, and is performing at King's Place this weekend in a concert that showcases the Scottish smallpipes.Presented by Nuala McGovern Producer: Louise Corley Editor: Karen Dalziel

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.

Hello, this is Nuala McGovern, and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Now, did you follow the Wagatha Christie trial, as it was called? It was between Rebecca Vardy and Colleen Rooney over leaked social media posts. Well, two of my guests today are intimately familiar with the whole saga. Off at the footballers' wives. They created a play on a stage that is a football pitch and they use the court transcripts verbatim. So they incorporate the messages

sent by participants. You know, as I was watching it, I was wondering, would your private messages stand up to public scrutiny? There is currently, you might have seen in the news today, a debate between messaging platforms

and the government about whether platforms should monitor users as part of the online safety bill to try and root out child abuse images. And do you believe private should or indeed can ever really remain private in this day and age? What about screenshots? Well, with all of these debates, of course, there's always the question who is protected and who suffers. You can text the programme. The number is 84844. Text charged at your standard message rate. On social media, we're at BBC Woman's Hour and you can also email us through our website. Staying with phones, we're also going to talk about the planned emergency alert system on Sunday and how domestic abuse charities are advising those who may have a hidden second phone for safety.

So that's coming up. We also continue our conversations with our Woman's Hour Power List today. It is number four on our list. Ellie Downey, one of Britain's most decorated gymnasts who has spoken out about abusive behaviour in British gymnastics. I'm looking forward to speaking to her. And you'll also meet the woman playing small pipes with a big sound. But first, let's turn to a new report calling on the government to eliminate appalling disparities in maternal deaths between black and white women.

The Women and Equalities Committee of Parliament, They've been looking at why black women are 3.7 times more likely to die in pregnancy, childbirth or six weeks after giving birth. Asian women are 1.8 times more likely according to UK figures for 2018 to 2020. And I really want to hear your experiences on this one, good or bad as a black or Asian woman when you were pregnant or perhaps a new mother. How were you treated before, during or

after? Again, the text number is 84844, social media at BBC Women's Hour or email us through our website. If you'd prefer to send a WhatsApp message or a voice note that number is 03700 100 444. This has been an

issue you might know that we've covered for a long time now and although things are improving slightly MPs say it must be given more priority. Caroline Noakes is chair of the committee which published its report this morning and she was joined by Sandra Igwe from the Motherhood Group. They're a group that support black mothers. I spoke to them both just a little earlier and Caroline began by giving me more detail. The message we got from black women was that they felt they were not listened to during their childbirth experience and they felt that they were marginalised, that they were facing microaggressions and it's just wrong that anybody should face that sort of

racism during treatment in our NHS. And so we are simply saying that the NHS needs to do better, there needs to be more training, make sure that staff are culturally competent. And the Department for Health, the Royal Colleges, those experts working in the field need to listen to organisations like Birth Rights, like Five Times More, and act upon the information that black women are providing them with. Well, I want to bring in Sandra here, who is the founder of the Motherhood Group. When you hear some of the issues that Caroline is raising there, I'm just wondering what your experience was. And perhaps if some of those things are resonating.

Absolutely. They all resonate with my personal lived experience and also the experiences that I've also heard through the birth rights inquiry, which I co-chaired as well. You know, my pregnancy, giving birth on both occasions, I was ignored when I raised my concerns. I was dismissed. All of my concerns and worries were brushed under the carpet. And I absolutely knew that I was treated differently based on the colour of my skin which I actually raised with the healthcare practitioners on the day and I really felt like I was dehumanised and I didn't believe that my words were actually taken seriously and it felt like I was a nuisance in the system rather than being on the receiving end of you know adequate

care. So let's talk about that Sandra because I'm just thinking you're in a pretty vulnerable position. You're about to give birth. You speak out. And what do people say back to you? They're not saying much. They're saying that actually my cries, my screams, didn't coincide with my labour contractions. So why are you crying, Sandra?

In fact, a practitioner doctor said she's not going to administer me any epidural until I stopped crying. And she walked out of the room and I had to beg and plead for her to come back. And she came back two hours later, to which I had to stay still and bite my lips because, you know, the notion that black women cannot even show their emotions or express themselves in the fear of being seen as angry or aggressive. And you have two children, correct? I have two children. Any better the second time? No, even worse.

And I didn't get any pain relief at all when I asked and begged for pain relief for hours and hours. And in fact, the inquiry also reflects that black women are the least likely to be able to get pain relief. So my experience wasn't a standalone. It echoes many other experiences faced by black women. Caroline, let's go back to this. You mentioned that this is 20 years that this has been known about. The Conservatives have been in power for a very long time. Why do you think they're not taking action and that the interventions aren't happening in a way that was previously recommended? Well, we heard from the Health and Social Care Select Committee two years ago that there needed to be between £250 and £350 million more go into maternity services. We know that last year,

the minister set up the Maternal Disparities Task Force, which started with regular meetings. They're going to have another meeting this month, but there's been a lull in activity and that's not good enough. But predominantly, you have to make sure that those women who are having poor birth experiences are included, that they're put around that table and that they're listened to because they are the ones who know that they're not getting the pain relief in a timely manner. They're the ones who know that they're facing microaggressions and indeed some outright racism being told that you feel pain differently. And that's patently nonsense and just wrong that that should be happening in our NHS. So I want the government to recognise that this is a problem, to accept there needs to be

more training across all of those professions in the NHS, accept that we need to have people who are going to champion diversity and inclusion, and make sure that Black mothers' voices and the voices of everybody from different ethnic communities and backgrounds and religions, because we know that Muslim women in particular are treated differently when they're wearing a hijab and recognise that we need to make sure that we drive this disparity down and the women are given the support that they need through their childbirth. Let me bring a little of Donna Ockerton, the senior midwife who's been conducting independent reviews into the maternity service failings over the past 10 years. She was joined, she joined Michelle Hussain on the Today programme earlier and had this to say. So I think, first of all, I would say that I absolutely endorse, I read the report last night and I hear from women on the ground that they do not feel listened to. Their views are not acted upon. They're not at the centre of their care. And one woman said to me last week,

we're treated as hard to reach, but you know, actually, we're easy to ignore. Easy to ignore. Sandra, how do you think that can be turned around? I think Caroline Noakes definitely mentioned most of the points that I would have been happy to share, but definitely committing to be being an anti-racist organization I know the birth rights inquiry created the you know recommendations making us people like myself black and brown women and birthing people decision makers in our own care and within the wider maternity system as well as creating a you know safe and inclusive workforce culture so that everybody feels safe whilst working in the

maternity system or receiving care within the maternity system as well. And do you feel that it is racist, Sandra? Absolutely. You cannot deny that race has a lot to do with the ill treatment of black and brown birthing people. You know, the statistics back it up. My experiences and, you know, I echo with hundreds, thousands of other black and brown birthing people um you know the the statistics back it up my experiences and you know I echo with hundreds thousands of other black and brown women's experiences in um you know accessing care and also the lack of understanding around cultural um differences and barriers which is why it's really important to have education and training around what it is like being a black mother, accessing or going through the maternity system as well. Listening also to some people talking about this report, Caroline, they did talk about wider medical conditions

and mental health conditions that can be at the root of why black maternal health and also Asian maternal health can be so precarious for these women? I mean, surely it's larger than outside of the maternity services. Oh, absolutely. This is an enormous multifaceted problem. And it's about underlying health conditions, comorbidities. It's about housing conditions. It's about education. It's about making sure that women are supported, not just during their pregnancies, but pre-conception. But most of all, it's about making sure that women are listened to and understood and not ignored. And whilst we all recognise it's not going to be a very simple, you know, here's the silver bullet,

this solves it, it's going to be really complicated. But look at things like Professor Marmot's report talking about socioeconomic disparities and then reflect about those people who are living in the poorest housing conditions in the most deprived neighbourhoods and recognise that they need targeted support and intervention, that they need to make sure that continuity of carer is prioritised for people who might have complex pregnancies, and whether that's high blood pressure or whether it's diabetes. We have to recognise that across the piece, there's an enormous number of challenges that have to be addressed to make sure that Black women are treated as well as they possibly can be and that

we don't continue to see this disparity because if we're back here in 20 years say oh well you know it's shifted a little bit but it's still only two and a half times more that's still a failure isn't it but is this as Sandra said she very much sees it as racism some others might see it as an issue of deprivation of poverty oh look it's really complicated and there are elements of deprivation there is no doubt about that there are elements of underlying health conditions there are elements of not having continuity of carer and levels of safe staffing but equally time and again the message we get from the birth rights inquiry, the message that we get from Five Times More, the message that we get across those women who have been surveyed and given information. And Donna Ockenden's report acknowledged that there

were 9,000 pieces of missing ethnicity data. We're just not collecting it accurately enough. The data isn't there to support interventions that are needed. And it's going to take a whole of government approach. So yes, of course, the Department for Housing, levelling up and housing needs to look at people's housing conditions. We need to work more with the Department for Transport about air pollution in specific neighbourhoods, because we know that that produces poor outcomes for babies. And recognise that this is a whole of government approach. It isn't enough to say, look, this is the Department of Health's problem.

Actually, we have to address everything together in order to change this statistic. And Sandra, let me turn back to you and kind of throw that point to you as well about whether it's about poverty and deprivation, or indeed, do you really feel it was down to the colour of your skin? Really down to the colour of my skin in fact so the traumatic experience I had whilst giving birth you know the midwife then proceeded to ask me you know what did what do I do for a living and I told her and you saw her body language actually started to change she then gave me a private room offered me tea and coffee some toast and her tone changed and the care that she gave to me after finding out you know my profession I wish I wish I had that upon entry of the hospital so I clearly knew that she

had stereotyped me and you know had preconceived notions about who I was just because of the way I looked as a black woman coming into maternity care. So I think race has more to do with the reasons for these poorer outcomes for black and brown birthing people. What would you say today to, let's say, a young black woman is going in to give birth or has found out that she's pregnant? I mean, how does she navigate the system with the way it is, with the horror stories, quite simply, that you have relayed? I mean, it's quite frightening, but I also would want to encourage a black mother to be a real advocate for yourself. You know, before giving birth, I had no idea about these statistics

and I had to quickly turn into my biggest advocate. I'd say make sure that you trust your own instincts and when once you raise your concern the first time and they ignore you keep raising them keep raising them until you're listened to you know and making sure that you get a second opinion and if you can't afford a doula please do get a doula as well to make sure that you have somebody on behalf of you who can speak as well. If you're feeling that you are experiencing ill treatment because of racism, whether it's covert, overt, again, raise that concern and make sure that it's escalated. That's Sandra Igwe from the Motherhood Group that supports black mothers. And we also heard

from the MP Caroline Noakes. Now, the Department of Health and Social Care told us in a statement, the NHS is already one of the safest places to give birth in the world, Noakes. Now, the Department of Health and Social Care told us in a statement, the NHS is already one of the safest places to give birth in the world, but the department is, and I quote, absolutely clear that we must ensure maternity care is of the same high standard regardless of race. The government also said the Maternity Disparities Task Force,

made up of mothers, clinicians and key organisations, is focusing on how to eradicate disparities and improve maternity outcomes for all mothers. Now, as I was listening back to that interview, some of you were getting in touch on 84844. Here's one. Good morning. I never message these programmes,

but thoroughly enjoy listening to you. Thank you very much. At this time, I feel compelled to partake. Of Jamaican heritage, my daughter had her second child last year and was treated like a third-class citizen, never mind second. She was discharged shortly after giving birth, even though she expressed how much pain she was in.

After discharge, she returned to the maternity unit due to the pain and awful discharge from her wound after having a cesarean section. Again, she was sent home. Over the next day or two, her condition deteriorated and she was eventually blue-lighted in an ambulance as she had sepsis. I do not

need to say more. Thank you for messaging. Another here from Jaina. Hi, Woman's Hour. I'm an Asian woman, UK-born, whose birthing experience was very difficult. After a traumatic emergency C-section, where they didn't insert a catheter, they did so after surgery

and without any pain relief. They refused to give me any pain medication. And when asked, they said, you should be strong enough to take this. You don't need it. It still makes me feel sick

and saddened when I have to recall this. More needs to be done to support women of colour. We are not seen, we're marginalised and our voices are not heard. Well, I hope your voice was

heard this morning, Diana, and thank you for getting in touch. 84844. You may know the government is preparing to launch the first nationwide test of a new emergency alert system on our smartphones. That's this coming Sunday afternoon at 3pm. Domestic abuse charities are concerned about the potential risk to domestic abuse survivors i'm joined by ellie butt head of policy public

affairs and research at the charity refuge welcome ellie good morning thanks for having me so why are you concerned particularly about this alert system so we're worried about survivors of domestic abuse that have a hidden phone or a secret phone. And this is quite common because of a rise in what's termed technology facilitated abuse, where perpetrators might have cloned a phone and be monitoring all usage, they might be checking who a woman's calling, what website she's going on. So that can be really difficult for a woman to keep in touch with family and friends, or perhaps she wants to work with a specialist domestic abuse organisation, plan to leave, find out what her options are. And so women sometimes have a secondary phone that's hidden from the perpetrator,

and the alert could alert the perpetrator to the fact there is a phone in the house. So it's really important that women who are at risk because of their hidden phone know how to turn off the alerts and turn those off before the test on Sunday afternoon. And that's why you're here. So what's exactly expected to happen on Sunday and what are you advising people? So on Sunday at 3 p.m., there'll be a siren type noise that will go onto all phones that are connected to 4G or 5G. The alert will make a sound even if they're on silent or do not disturb. So these can be switched off. And there's lots of detail about how you can do this for different providers on the Refuge website. But in summary, you need to go into your settings, search for emergency alerts and then toggle off emergency and severe alerts. And then it won't make a sound.

And if you've got a device that you really don't want to be discovered by someone in your home, then it won't make a sound. The Cabinet Office have just told us this. Let me see. The alert goes out as a signal sent from mobile masks. If a phone is switched off or on flight mode, then it won't receive the signal. However, because the signal will continue to be broadcast for up to 30 minutes, if a phone is switched back on in that time,

then it will receive the alert. If the alerts are disabled on a phone or it remains switched off for longer, then it will not receive it. Yeah, so we're advising survivors of domestic abuse with a hidden phone to switch them off because, of course, the test, we know when that's going to be, and that's really well publicised. But the point of this system is to warn people about emergencies. So in future, these alerts, we won't know exactly when they're coming, but there might be a flood in a particular area or some other issue that the government want to alert us to. So if you are at risk because you've got a hidden phone,

we really advise you to switch them off. Oh, so this isn't really just about the emergency alert system this time. It could be any time. Absolutely. The Cabinet Office have launched this programme so they can alert us to emergencies in particular areas. Of course, this is really important. And most survivors will have a primary phone as well that they will receive these alerts on. But what we're really

concerned about is these hidden phones that women are using for their safety or so they're not so isolated. And that could be a real risk if perpetrators discover that women have a secret phone. So we're urging them to switch those off and there's lots of help and support if they need it. And Ellie I mean do you think that message is getting out I know you're here and talking about it today but you know sometimes these uh even about the emergency alert system it may not be that everybody's copped it. Absolutely that's a real risk a real concern so So we're doing what we can to promote the fact that this test is coming and these tests can be, the alerts can be switched off if you need them to. And we really urge the government to keep promoting this message as well, that they can be switched off if they're going to cause you a risk upon. and your guide on how to do this is on the Women's Hour website and our social media at BBC Women's Hour, just to let people know about that.

Just before I let you go, though, the online safety bill is back before the House of Lords tomorrow. Refuge and also the violence and against women sector are calling for a code of practice to be brought in. Can you briefly tell us about that? Absolutely. So there's a real gap in the online safety bill still, even though it's

reaching near the end of its legislative journey. At the moment, the bill doesn't say anything explicitly about women or girls or what platforms need to do to prevent and better respond to the abuse that takes place on their platforms. So with a coalition of charities and academics, we've written a VORG, Violence Against Women and Girls, VORG code of practice that we want to be added to the bill. There's already codes on terrorism and child sexual exploitation and abuse. We really need the government to fill the gap so that social media companies know exactly what they need to do in order to stop their platforms being abused by perpetrators. There's an amendment that's been tabled to that effect led by Baroness Nicky Morgan and we're really calling on the government to look at that amendment and accept it because it will make it a stronger bill.

Ellie Butt, Head of Policy, Public Affairs and Research at the Charter Refuge, thanks so much. I just want to go back for a moment to black maternal care that we were talking about. A message from Mary. I'm a retired midwife. I'm outraged with the allegations that black and Asian women are treated differently to white women. In my experience over many years of practice, I never witnessed any difference in care. All pregnant women, despite race, were all treated on their symptoms and not on the colour of their skin. Keep your experiences coming.

84844 is our text number. And at BBC Women's Hour is our social media handle. Or, of course, you can email us through our website as well. Love to hear from you. Right, I want to move on. I suppose about phones, in a way. It's about court. It's about a way. It's about court. It's about a play.

And there is, of course, one of, I suppose, a very much watched court trial. It was October 2019. There was months of amateur sleuthing. Colleen Rooney, the wife of footballer Wayne Rooney. So she revealed,

if you're online, in a series of dramatic Instagram posts, who she suspected of selling her private stories to the tabloid newspapers. If you remember, Rooney explained that she had blocked all of her social media followers on one private account, except for one person. And she posted fake stories to try and smoke out the culprit. She ended the post when she'd figured it out. It's Rebecca Vardy's account

yes her fellow wag wag you'll remember the tag given to wives and girlfriends of footballers and the wife of footballer Jamie Vardy so the infamous sting operation and the accusations that led to this very high profile libel trial between the two at the High Court last year

somebody who was it I wonder who came up with the Wagata Christie trial at the High Court last year. Somebody, who was it I wonder, who came up with the Wagatha Christie trial. So the legal tussle, it has moved from the Royal Courts of Justice to London's West End stage. I had the pleasure of watching it last week. Vardy v Rooney, the Wagatha Christie trial.

It's on in the Ambassadors Theatre. I do see over it. It's beside Agatha Christie's mousetrap and they have on there the scouse trap. It's beside Agatha Christie's mousetrap and they have on there the Scouse trap. It's on until the 20th of May and then it's going on tour all around the country.

Let me bring in to Women's Hour adapter Liv Hennessy. Good morning. Hello. And we have director Lisa Sperling also with us. Let us start with the tagline. We couldn't make this story up, so we didn't.

Tell us about that. I think for us, when we were first approaching this play, it just kind of had all the ingredients of a really great drama. There was mystery, betrayal, lots of celebrity culture, legal terminology. So I think for us, we sort of felt we couldn't make it up. And it was such a real moment in time that we decided to stage it. Well, let's talk about the staging of it. Lisa, do you want to describe it?

I mean, I was kind of taken with the green when I first walked in. We have, it's a courtroom setting in the sense of that you have the seat for the judge, you have your witness box, you have your kind of area, which is where the barrister and their clients sit. But you also, because of the connection to the football world that this play has, it's on a pitch in the sense of that. And we also, Liv's genius was to bring in our pundits, who are essentially our narrators, who take us through the action

and are able to compress seven days worth of court trials down into 90 minutes plus injury time as you would with a football match they're excellent they also play some of the other characters for example Rebecca Vardy's agent on one side Wayne Rooney at another point they do indeed so you've got they also play Jamie Vardy and Harpreet Robinson who is the FA official and And so they're able to give us a sense of the world also outside of the court, because obviously there are only certain people that came to the court, particularly we didn't have Caroline Watt

and Jamie Vardy was mainly outside of the court. Yes, so we kind of get to see inside because these are verbatim court transcripts. I can't underline that enough. Let's talk about using them. There is a long history of turning court transcripts I can't underline that enough um let's talk about using them there is a long history of turning court transcripts into plays but often more serious situations I think my listeners might be familiar with but this yeah obviously it's a bit different uh to the kind of normal stuff I mean um Tricycle Theatre now Kiln Theatre many years ago they did the sort of um tribunal play so like the riots bloody sunday this was very different it was

seven days of court transcripts sort of like filtered down into a very short play really and that's why we sort of needed the pundits because I mean when I approached this first of all I did not know anything about libel law and uh are you an expert now I actually think I am yeah um so I think it was a really tough thing to uh approach an audience with and that's why we needed those pundits to come in and explain things like waiving source protection and explain the way the reverse burden of proof works and in my mind all I wanted to do was to explain very complicated legal terms like it's the offside rule and that was my main thing as I went through

so yeah that's sort of why we have the pundits for comic effect and also for some clarity. Shall we listen to a little in this we will hear Lucy May Barker playing Rebecca Vardy and Tom Turner playing Colin Rooney's barrister, David Sherborne, QC. Here is Sherborne questioning Vardy on the stand about the private WhatsApp messages that she sent to her then-agent, Caroline Watt. Can we turn to the next example? Page 1951.

The next example refers to someone called Mrs F in order to protect her identity. Just to give this some context, Mrs F's a well-known celebrity, right? That's correct, yes. Mr H is her estranged husband. They were separated due to marital difficulties. And Mr G is a well-known footballer. Now, without giving away too much information,

there were some pictures of Mrs F on a beach, dancing around, wearing relatively little clothing. Let's read together what you said to Caroline Watt. Oh, my God, have you seen how badly Mrs F is behaving? And she says... I haven't seen it, oh, look. And you say... Leak the story about her shagging Mr Juby on Mr H's back.

I tried before, but the son already knew about it and couldn't prove it as usual. To which you respond... Ugh! What you say is, ugh, you're annoyed you can't leak it, aren't you? It's more like an ugh, not an ugh. You're annoyed, aren't you? No. I was actually just joking about that one. You were just joking?

Yes, I was. You use the word leak, don't you? I did use the word leak, but that's not what I meant. Oh, I see. You don't know what the word leak means then? Well, there are two meanings, but that's not what I meant. Oh, I see. You don't know what the word leak means then? Well, there are two meanings, but that's not what I meant by the word leak. You say this is a joke. Is that your evidence to the court? Tom Turner playing David Sherburn QC

and Lucy May Barker, as I mentioned, playing Rebecca Varley. The lighting is fantastic as well. And apart from putting the spotlight on these characters, it also puts a spotlight on what about our private messages stands up to public scrutiny. I was asking my listeners about that, but they might be a bit shy about answering which many are, I think. But how much do you think as well what we're seeing in that trial is somewhat a reflection of society today?

I think it definitely is. I think for us, we thought about this play as a comedy of manners, a sort of modern look at contemporary society. And what is a friend? What is a follower? How sort of relationships operate online? It's very different to how it used to be. So yeah, I think the reason that people are laughing quite often is because it's the public meets private. So you have Rebecca Vardy on the stand, her public persona, she's poised, she's smart, and then you go into her private messages

and she's saying something completely different. And I think that's why people laugh, because I think a lot of us feel the same about that. So you think there's a identifiable aspect? Definitely. Because during the trial, there were criticisms, both of you will have seen, of course, that people were laughing at two working class women who were out of their depth in the courtroom. I'd be curious, Lisa, as well, about how you feel about that criticism.

Part of the reason I wanted to do this and I got involved was I felt like it was a a chance to see to actually see more of these women and in their own words both the whatsapp messages but also to see so much more of what they spoke about when they're in the witness box and particularly for colleen but also for vardy this sense of uh you know in colleen's case a woman that has been in the public eye since she was 16 years old and that they have put up in some way with the amount of scrutiny and the sort of obsession of the media and the press and the public and when we talk about um private messages but also talk about social media for me i feel like this story is about is in some ways about control is about two women who are trying to control the narrative about their lives and they've gone about it in very different ways.

And one is to go on social media and to share it only with their private followers. And when that has gone public in some way, they've tried to bring back control. And in Vardy's case, there's a sense of going, well, someone has said something about me and the rest of the world now has an opinion and I now need to try and change that opinion. And the moment that we're in, in terms of what you publish publicly or privately and the blurred lines between those two things, we've had lots of conversation with people who work in the legal system

and they talk about this as a landmark case in the sense of in 10 years' time, we may well be in a point where when we follow someone on Twitter or we're unable to follow them on Instagram, that there'll be terms and conditions about what you sign up for about what you won't shed or so before i follow somebody i've got to yeah and i think now there is this almost there's a moral obligation a moral code that goes well if i've let you into my inner circle and you're considered a friend whatever that means on social media you're not going to share that in

some way but those lines feel really blurred at the moment. And I also think we're really bad in this country for kind of almost pulling people down because they want to share something of themselves or they want to be more popular or they want to, in some ways, monetize the way that they're working and everything else. But everybody is doing it. We're all marketing a version of ourselves and we sort of pull them down if it goes too far. So do you feel then, Lisa, there's almost a snobbery about people making money in this way? Totally. And there's also a sense of, you know, working class women done good.

And the fact that the sense for these women that they've ridden on their husband's coattails because they're footballers. And actually everything we found about these two women by studying the trial, the research that we've done, is that they're intelligent, they're confident, they're really clear. The level of research that they've done into the case themselves, what they presented for themselves, they're just, they're fighting their own battle to a certain extent. Do you not feel, though, that the audience is laughing at them? I think they start off laughing at them. And I think the gesture for me is that they come in and they're presented with something that feels excuse me slightly ridiculous slightly over the top as you say you couldn't make it up so we didn't and they can't quite believe it my hope is that when they come

away from the trial they're asking big questions about the public domain and relationships and society today because there's this there's this incredible moment I don't want to give it away where um one of the barristers talks about the abuse that Vardy has received and they say that some of that abuse out loud and the audience finds that hilariously funny and then they say something else and the audience kind of goes oh that's a bit dodgy and then they say something else and they go oh you've gone too far and I think we we we relish in other people's lives and what's happening and yet we then pull them down when it's gone too far. It almost reminds me now that you're talking about it like a Shakespearean drama.

You know, when the audience is like in there. I mean, I've been, as I keep telling my listeners, to three plays last week. And this one most definitely was rowdy. And I mean that in a really good way. I don't mean in the way that we're reading about in some of the papers at the moment yeah I loved it I have to say and I think it's an awful lot of food for thought and particularly between

the private and the public so it's going to go on tour as well I've noticed which is going to be very exciting I did have an idea for another play for you yeah were you watching Gwyneth Paltrow's yeah is that

knowing smiles that i'm looking at no it's a couple of people i mentioned obviously in the in the depth trial as well of what it is but i feel there's something you know you even mentioned who came up with the coin of wagatha christie i feel like twitter and other social media can be really negative but where British humor or British uh punditry does incredibly well is that these taglines the fact that you've got you know Wagatha Christie uh Scouse Trap there's a there's a there's a genius behind it and this feels like a very um British trial and a British conversation and I don't know I don't know if it would happen in other countries in the same way I don't know if we get obsessed I think as well with the Gwyneth Paltrow case that was very different to what's happening here something that really drew us

to this case is because it's a libel case and what is so fascinating is that Wagatha Christie is a very clear illustration of a precedent that exists in the UK which is that people of great wealth are capable of legally protecting their reputations. And another thing for me, like obviously I've got an arts background, so coming to a legal case was very daunting. But I've always seen the law as a kind of like, very much black and white, there are answers to it. And in the arts, it tends to be a bit more nebulous. But actually, what I found when I looked into libel law was that fascinatingly, the burden of proof is that what constitutes a public figure.

There's nothing fixed to that. People have to constantly fight that out in court. What's the metric for the damage of someone's reputation? There's a lot of intricacies that exist here. And to be honest, these are the quiet powers that do exist in the UK. And we're interested in showing them in a way that's fun and accessible. Well, it was. Vardy versus Rooney.

The Wag at the Christie Trial runs at the Ambassadors Theatre until the 20th of May then goes on tour to Woking, Liverpool, Southend, Dublin, Salford and Brighton. I think you'll have audience enjoying it all through that. Thanks so much for coming in. Thank you. Thank you. Now I want to a lot of you still getting in touch about Black Maternal Health 84844. I will read some of your messages before the end of the programme. But I want you to meet another of the incredible women who made this year's

Women's Hour Power List. This year made up of women in sport. The list features remarkable women across the board. Our finalists, you might remember, were split into five categories. I'm delighted to be joined by another of our change makers. So those disrupting the status quo and changing the future of women's sport as we know it. It is Ellie Downie, a former British Olympic gymnast and European champion,

who in 2020 took the brave step to speak out publicly about the culture of physical and mental abuse in that sport, in gymnastics. Her accounts of weight shaming that she experienced throughout her career, along with the testimonies of her sister Becky and many other former British gymnasts, led to a major independent review. Now, the findings of that, which were last year, revealed a shocking catalogue of systemic abuse

in which athletes were made to train on injuries, punished for needing the toilet, sat on by coaches, shouted and sworn at, and also had their bags searched for food. Now, British Gymnastics have since published a 40-point action plan, which they say will address and go beyond the recommendations made by the review. We'll have more on that in just a moment. But for Ellie, speaking out as she did, she says it had a major impact on her career and her mental health.

And in January of this year, announced she would be stepping back from the sport. So much that was going on. Ellie, welcome. Hiya. So good to have you with us and lovely to see your face again, as I do, since I did at the Power list a day which was great to have you there now you as I mentioned decided to speak up about what you witnessed while training as a gymnast along with your sister talk our listeners through a little bit of what it was that you experienced yeah so I think like in gymnastics a lot of the things that we experienced was just classed as normal and what you needed to do to kind of get to the top and I can only speak from my experience really but I had a lot of weight shaming throughout my career which was ultimately

just having a massive impact on my mental health and I mean I started the sport when I was three years old and started kind of getting weighed when I was about eight or nine years old so um yeah um you can see how like over the years it would take a bit of a impact on your mental health kind of constantly being told you're not like the correct body type to be a gymnast or like you need to lose muscle you've got too much of it and for me that was always really hard for me to understand because I was always being pretty successful and winning me that was always really hard for me to understand because I was always being pretty successful and winning medals and was always on national teams and stuff so I could never really um come to terms with why they always thought I wasn't good enough to kind of be doing

the stuff that I was doing and for me that was always hard to just kind of get my head around and yeah just took a bit of a mental toll on me. Yes, and then you did speak out. You were still competing when you put out that statement. You and your sister Becky were the only British athletes that were competing that did speak up. And I'm wondering where that courage came from, particularly after being, it sounds like, beaten down for all those years.

Yeah, I think it kind of stemmed from the Netflix documentary athlete a and then I think the people in within like British gymnastics kind of just started um I guess just think we're also in lockdown at this point so a lot of time to kind of think about stuff that happened and uh some of the other girls who weren't on the program would start to come out and me and Becky just thought it'd be really powerful for kind of us who were currently on the programme to speak out about our experiences but unfortunately for us

I don't think it really worked in our favour I think people didn't really like us for doing it within the programme and I think me and my sister would both say the same that we definitely suffered some consequences in terms of making teams and kind of treatment after that for doing it.

Was it overt? It was more like just like we'd go to national camps and people wouldn't speak to us and like mainly from like the coaches and stuff like that, like people weren't very welcoming towards us after that and um just things circling like you should be careful about helping them because um they might try and like take you down because they saw it as like a big threat that we kind of spoken out and I mean for me and my sister we only spoke about your experiences that actually happened so it's not kind of our fault that that those things had happened and been allowed to happen over the years so um yeah for us kind of like feeling like we're getting punished after that was not fair

yeah did you is regret the right word i don't know uh speaking um it's not a regret but sometimes i think would things have been a lot different if I hadn't done it like I don't regret it because I do think it's pushing the sport in the right direction very slowly but at the same time I do think things could have been differently in terms of like some teams I would have made and it could have just taken my career in a different direction so I do have a statement from British Gymnastics I'll read a little they say Ellie has been a tremendous ambassador for the sport and in speaking up about her experiences has been part of helping us to reform the sport

we've spoken with her in depth and are committed to doing so they talk about undergoing significant recent change and has very different leadership of both the organisation and the performance programme and that they're committed to learning from the past and published Reform 25, a comprehensive 40 point action plan to address and also go beyond the recommendations of the White Review. You did decide, however, though, in the aftermath of speaking out to retire from gymnastics. And I can't imagine because you've just talked about all that you went through taking that moment to speak out. And then this way you feel you were treated after speaking out to then leave the thing that you loved and were, of course, so amazingly good at. Yeah, it was definitely wasn't an easy decision. I mean, within all this time as well of like us speaking out and COVID and like just a lot of uncertainty, like I'd with the passed away as well. So like there was just a lot going on at that time.

And I just didn't really feel like I had some of the support that I needed and I kind of made the decision to give it like one more go last year and really try and come back and make a team and I ended up being first reserve after kind of doing things that I got told if I would do xyz to make the team and then I would kind of be going. And I kind of did that and didn't get picked still. So I was just like, I don't really know what to do. Like my life feels very out of control. I feel like no matter what I do, I'm not going to make a team again. So then I just kind of made the decision to step back, retire.

I took some time out of the gym and I just felt a lot better for it. So, yeah, ultimately it wasn't easy. It took me a lot of months to kind of come to terms with it and just like be in my own thoughts and really think about the decision long and hard. But I know how I'm so much happier now. I feel like I don't have all of that mental stress and pressure every single day.

And just like some of the mistreatment was just not nice and I just don't think you should kind of treat people like that it's not um yeah I don't think it's normal yeah I mean something else that's quite unusual is that your sister is still competing and I saw you know how much you are cheering her on from the sidelines uh her team won gold and a personal silver at the European Championships over the past few days and I'm wondering is that bittersweet um not really because I've kind of like if I'd never like been there and done it myself I think I would look at it and be like oh I like really wish I was there but I've been to a lot of European championships and a lot of world championships and the Olympics. So I kind of don't look back and really regret anything.

Like I can happily just watch her and really support her because I know it's not been easy for her either. And like her mental strength is just insane to keep going and keep training and yeah keep winning medals so but do you feel for becky now for example and that world of gymnastics and girls coming up after her of course is it different you know i read a little bit of uh what british gymnastics are saying um i mean like i said i can only speak from my experiences, but even what I experienced at the back end of last year, for me, it hasn't changed. I didn't think it was changing fast enough. And I know there's people within the sport who aren't agreeing

and have actually decided to step away, like professionals, not necessarily the gymnasts, but other professionals. So I think, I don't know. Yeah, I think it's maybe changing very, very slowly. But yeah, I still think they've got a long way to go. You spoke about your experiences

and your sister made the statement as well, as I mentioned. But when that White Review released its findings, there was physical, there was emotional abuse for many girls um were you surprised by that uh no because i felt like i'd witnessed quite a lot of it um like i wasn't like physically abused in any ways and like i'd saw some people like shutting cupboards and like being hit and stuff like that that I didn't really experience any of that but

like the mental side I would probably say 90% of gymnasts definitely have experienced some kind of like mental kind of abuse I would say and I almost hate using the word abuse because it sounds so strong and powerful but when you like really think about it like it kind of is so yes yes and that's your experience if there was one change that came faster than the others what would you like that to be um i guess just to like always put the gymnast first and like i think sometimes the decisions aren't made like jointly i think it's sometimes too heavily one-sided by the coaches and I would just like that to be covered a little bit more because at the end of the day like gymnasts are really starting to get older in the sport now I think they felt like they had a lot

of control over you because you were a senior when you turned 16 so you're no age when you're 16 and I think they just felt like they could make a lot of decisions for you because you were essentially a child um so I just think that everybody's getting older and even like still the younger kids they need to have a lot more say in like what they're doing and obviously it's like a 50-50 relationship you've got to trust your coach and they also have to trust you as well and like the gymnast wants to work hard then they they will so so making it gymnast centered which of course on the outside you might think it would be that but i understand what you're saying um let us turn to something very positive making it to number four

on the woman's hour power list uh how did you find out and how does it feel? Well, I knew I was on the list when I got invited to the announcement of it, but I didn't know where I'd placed. And I think as you announced it all in sections, I think as the sections got on, I was getting a bit more and more apprehensive. But to just be in the mix with people like Leah Williamson and Dina Asher-Smith, it's just kind of mind-blowing to me. Like, they're such amazing sports stars. And for me to come number four,

it's just, yeah, pretty incredible. Well, we're so glad that you are. And thank you so much for chatting with us. And we'll be really excited to see what you do in your future months. I'm glad to hear that you're feeling more stable and more grounded in these weeks and months since you retired. Thank you.

Ellie Downey, one of our women on the Woman's Hour Power List. Thanks for everyone getting in touch. Let me see. We're talking about black maternal health a little earlier. I'm a third generation Caribbean woman. I had our daughter by emergency C-section that was in 2019.

But my husband and I have doctor titles due to having PhDs. I believe my title being an academic, being married and also that we live in a sought after area

led me to being treated wonderfully. I stayed in hospital for 10 days to be monitored. I was made to feel listened to and respected. I do think your background and preconceived ideas, sadly, do impact on how you are treated. I always wondered if I was a single mum on benefits,

would I have been mistreated? And that's Dr. Isabel. Another here, let me see, Angela. My experience is that in each of my three pregnancies, it was never acknowledged the level of pain I was in and how close I was to giving birth. After my first pregnancy and when in labour with my three pregnancies it was never acknowledged the level of pain I was in and how close I was to giving birth. After my first pregnancy and when in labour

with my second and third I refused to leave when they tried sending me home and it was the right decision as I gave birth shortly after. If I hadn't refused I would have given birth on transit home

increasing levels of risk. Nothing has changed. I must say midwives are wonderful but differences in race and the individual support needs to be acknowledged and addressed

to save the lives of women and their babies i welcome this discussion keep them coming eight four eight four four now i want to turn something a little different small pipes we are joined by britcha heinbel multi-award winning small piper who is breaking stereotypes and proving that the pipes are not just for men in kilts. She has recently released her first solo album. She's performing later this week at the Folk Weekend. When did you start playing and what attracted you to the small pipes? Thank you so much.

I started learning the pipes when I was very young. I think I was around seven or eight. But that was mainly the Highland pipes I started with, the more popular big bag pipes. But when I was around 14 or 15, I met two guys, Finn and Hamish Moore. Hamish was involved in the kind of revival of the instrument in the late 80s, 90s, and was the first kind of person to remake them in kind of a modern world.

And they gave me a set to try. And since then, I've just loved them and they've become my instrument. Could you describe them? Yeah, so... Compared to the highland pipes, for example, that people might be familiar with. Yeah, so technically they're very similar, but sound-wise they're a lot more mellow. That's due to them being blown by a set of bellows

rather than with your mouth. So you have a bellow strapped to your elbow and the air goes through these bellows so it's kind of cold air rather than like warm air from your mouth so it kind of affects the tone. And why do you think there are less women playing these pipes? I think historically piping has been quite a male-dominated area. I mean, you know, social history and then the military adapted the pipes. But there's definitely more women playing the pipes now

and there's a great support network in the world of piping. So I know you're going to be playing at the Folk Weekend. There's one song, The Call of the Red Shank. Is it Peleliu? Yes. Am I close to pronunciation? Yeah, that's it. And so tell us a little bit about this song.

Yeah, so this song comes from my new album, which was out just a few days ago. And it's basically based on the call of the bird, the red shank, so pilu, is kind of the vocables of the bird and kind of based on Gaelic vocables. And this is just the melody of the song. And where do you start if you're going to compose a piece? I think there's two kind of paths I take personally. One is kind of taking a piece of traditional material, whether it be a song or a tune, and kind of that would be my starting point and improvising from there. The other one is just starting from scratch and picking like a drone tuning or a certain mode and so that would just be like certain notes that I pick on the

chanter of the pipes and just play around with that until I kind of come up with a melody. Do you think little girls will start picking up the small pipes? Yeah absolutely I mean if you like the sound of the pipes you should go for it the small pipes are great they're very diverse you can play with lots of different instruments. They're great fun. So I would absolutely encourage that. With a very big smile, as you say it as well. Thanks so much for joining us on Women's Air.

So lovely to have your music. That's Brie J. Heinbill, small piper as she is and playing this weekend, as I mentioned, at the Folk Weekend. I want to go back to some of your messages before we end the programme. We're talking about maternal care. Here's Charmaine. She says,

Today we're focusing on maternal care, black maternal care. But the frightening truth is it's not limited to maternity care. If we choose to look, we'll see the same disparities across other areas of health, education, the criminal justice system, employment.

The list is just endless. If we choose to step back and take a holistic view we have to accept that there is systemic racism in the UK. Whether it's deliberate or not is irrelevant. The fact is a significant proportion of our law-abiding, hard-working, tax-paying population is routinely and

casually discriminated against and that results in the unnecessary loss of life and lifelong trauma. Thanks for your messages. Tomorrow, have you been watching Race Across the World? Well, the BBC One programme

where travellers can choose any route they like but no flights or phones. Phones today we keep talking about. Tomorrow, I'll be joined by Cathy and Tricia, two best friends

setting out on the journey of a lifetime. Join me tomorrow at 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. What happens when a life coach takes over your life? For the last 18 months, I've been investigating claims that a UK mentoring company is actually a cult.

What we're doing is helping human beings actually gain control of themselves, not for us to gain control of you. I don't know who I am anymore, bro. Absolutely no idea. The only money he had to give them was his house. Controlling its members. It was more about apportioning blame to my parents. These toxic groups called families. Intimidating critics.

When I'm asked questions. They said, if you leave and you turn against us, we have all those personal recordings of yours. We'll come for you next. How do you feel, Paul, about the fact that so many people think you're running a cult? We're not running a cult. Because they don't know what a cult is. They're slewing us, they're smearing us.

I'm Katrin Nye, and from BBC Radio 4, this is A Very British Cult. Listen on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who'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.