Woman's Hour - Lady Lavinia Nourse; Early labour; Chile’s constitution

Episode Date: July 7, 2021

Lady Lavinia Nourse is calling for those accused of child abuse to be granted anonymity until charged. Speaking exclusively to Woman’s Hour just over a month after she was cleared of child sex abuse, the 77-year-old widow of the High Court judge Sir Martin Nourse was cleared of all 17 counts of historical child sex abuse involving a boy under the age of 12. In her first broadcast interview, she tells Emma Barnett what she wants to achieve by speaking out, and the trauma of the ordeal. Emma is also joined by Lady Nourse’s legal representative Sandra Paul from Kingsley Napley.A new study on a risk model that may improve the prediction of preterm birth has just been published. Researchers say predicting the signs and symptoms of preterm labour make it challenging to diagnose - and often times this leads to unnecessary treatment such as extra tests, bed rest or even hospitalisation which can be both common and costly. Lead author, Dr Sarah Stock from the University of Edinburgh hopes it's going to improve decision making for women and clinicians around what to do if someone has some signs and symptoms of preterm labour.This week in an historic first, 58-year-old Elisa Loncon from Chile’s indigenous Mapuche people was chosen to lead the drafting of the country’s new constitution . The new constitution will replace the one inherited from Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship, blamed for the high levels of inequality, social injustice, and high cost of living that sparked deadly protests across the country in 2019 and beyond. Constanza Hola, a Chilean journalist working for the BBC World Service, joins Emma to discuss.Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Frankie Tobi

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome. An exclusive interview begins today's programme. Lady Lavinia Norse was grieving for her husband, the senior judge Sir Martin Norse, when she was accused and then subsequently charged with 17 counts of sex abuse involving a boy under the age of 12. Just over a month ago, aged 77, she was cleared of all charges after a three-and-a-half-year ordeal and a two-week trial that she says has left her life in pieces.

Her lawyer, who I'm speaking to later in the programme, says the Crown Prosecution Service did not assess the evidence rigorously enough. Lavinia Norse's case came in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal. The fallout saw a slew of high-profile figures being falsely accused, named, but without any charges brought. Today, in her first broadcast interview, Lavinia talks about what it was like to face her accuser in court and the impact that the allegations have had on her life. She's decided to talk to me here on Woman's Hour because she wants to try and make sure this never happens to anyone else. She told me how the ordeal began. I had been in London and the accuser, if that's what the word I suppose I have to use,

took me into a public park, Lincoln's Inn Fields, and simply blurted out the news that I had abused him as a young child. So you met up with him and he was known to you? Oh, yes. And when he said that that and with the accusations that he put to you what was your response i was just for starters i i didn't even know what abuse between a a woman and a young child boy could be because i'm of an age one doesn't understand these things not entirely stupid but i, I couldn't understand what he was talking about.

I mean, it was something so alien to me. I was so shocked, so deeply shocked that I was almost incoherent. You can't imagine what that's like to suddenly be told something so devastatingly awful. No, it was ghastly, absolutely ghastly. Did he tell you he was going to go to the police? No. He said that he thought there was a way forward. There was constant referral to,

oh, well, there will be a way forward. Well, I don't know how there can be a way forward well I don't know what how there can be a way forward after such devastating accusations and of course it's difficult for me talking to you because I know who accused me but of course I can't say who accused me and this makes conversations with people like you and anybody else extremely difficult because I can't be very honest and frank. And that's what makes it so appalling and makes things like this so difficult because I can't be truly honest about it.

Do you want to take a moment? Do you want to take a moment? Do you want to take some time? I understand that this is incredibly difficult for you to talk about, but I know that you want to talk about it. I do want to talk because I want to help others. Which we will come to about what you want to do with this. But in the way that we can, which is restricted, I just want to keep going with how this unfolded, if I may.

Yes, of course. Because he did go to the police. He did, nearly a year later. And you were questioned by the police? Yes, no, I was called in and then I was interviewed I think it was five hours I can't remember exactly how long it was but I have to tell you that at that time I was in the middle of moving house and you know I had removal lorries in and out. I was moving from a very large house to a small house. And it was the most awful, awful experience. Awful, awful experience. And what was made even worse was that the conversations that I had with the accuser had all been taped.

So he had been recording you? Yes. After that questioning, which will have centred around what you were being accused of, child sex abuse, were you told other details of what you were being accused of? Oh there were 17 charges yes which I don't wish to go into. But you were you were hearing I suppose this detail for the first the first time. I mean, it was news to me. Up until that point, I knew nothing. I had no idea, except it just came under the general heading of sex abuse.

But since, as I said earlier, that I wasn't particularly familiar with what that meant. But anyway, they seemed to come up with 17 different aspects of things that I might have done. Did you expect it to go to court? No. And what happened next after those hours of being interviewed? I waited. I think I wasn't charged until 20. So I waited a year and a half.

To be charged. And then what was the process like after that? Because it did go to court. Yeah, it was just, I can't really talk. You can imagine that, because my husband was such a senior lawyer, the shame and just the terror of being in a court and looking at a judge in the sort of clothes that my husband used to wear

and the whole panoply of the court you can't imagine what that's like for someone who's lived in the law all her life, I mean not associated with it but I mean well I was associated with it but I mean never in my wildest dreams did I think I would ever

find myself in that position just to look at the papers, you know, the Crown Prosecution papers, just made me feel terrified. I mean, to see that in print, that wasn't almost enough to finish me, let alone the actual process. It was simply terrifying, absolutely terrifying. How long after your husband died were you charged? He died in November 17, and I think I was charged in...

What year are we in? 21. It must have been in the summer of 20. So it was a long time to live with it. And unfortunately, well, not unfortunately, but the accuser was very happy to let it be known widely in London and in and around Newmarket, where I live, that using his name and freely admitting that this is what I had done. And so a lot of my friends had been told of what I had done long before I was charged. I

mean the police told me, because when I was interviewed by the police they said we've got a list of the people that have been told. I mean intolerable on top of everything else. I didn't know who was looking at me, where I could turn for, I didn't know who I could trust because I didn't know who knew what had been said to anyone. I just, you know, you just disappear into your house and try to keep strong and stay there, but it's not easy. Of course, talking about Sir Martin Norse,

who was your husband for many years, a former High Court judge. So when you're talking about him, I'm just letting our listeners know. He was a former law justice of appeal. Yes. He was in the High Court of Shortwell. Yes. Why I'm also saying that is when you talk about your life and how you had seen the law up until that point.

I was in the law. The whole of my life was in and around the law. And you were a widow. Yeah. Dealing with this. Exactly. And then we also went into lockdown. Oh, yeah.

It's just, you know, people have expressed how difficult they found lockdown. Well, with the problems I had and lockdown, it was just intolerable. I mean, I'm very lucky. I seem to feel that God's given me the strength to deal with this, but I don't quite know how I've got through it. I'm going to be talking to your lawyer, but she has told us that she was very worried about you going into that trial. You lost weight. As you say, you didn't know who you could trust

and your world became very, very small. It was two weeks of the trial. How can you describe going into that trial? Hell that's all I can say I've never been so frightened lonely and utterly miserable I didn't I had my legal team, but that was all. The press were out there every day photographing me and harassing me. And it was terrifying. And, of course, knowing, I suppose, if it hadn't gone that way, I could have gone to prison.

Were you prepared for that? Luckily, my legal people were very gentle with me. I asked the question but they very carefully sort of skirted around it. They didn't say no but they didn't say yes you will go to prison. But I knew perfectly well that there was a very high chance that if I was found guilty that I would go to jail. And I just find it really frightening that people can tell lies, that actually can send an innocent person to prison. And that's what would have happened.

You had to go through the court case with the complainant, with the person known to you, alleging those things in front of you. And he chose not to be behind a screen, which is normal. And so I had to face him face to face. What was that like? Well, I think, well, it was horrendous. He was as close to me as you are now.

And to have to sit for the best part of a day and a half and listen to all the ghastly things that were said about me. It's just horrendous, that's all I can say. It's a nightmare. Absolute nightmare. The jury was out for a short time? I believe so. Jonathan Kaplan, my utterly amazing QC, he told me that we left the court, they then had an hour for lunch. So it was actually only two and a bit hours they were out.

And he said that given the paperwork that the jury would have to go through, they had obviously made up their minds pretty quickly that there was no case to answer if that's the right word and so they came back very quickly the moment that they had to go out I think those two and a half three and three and a half hours of probably the worst of my life. I remember it was pouring with rain and I sat there looking out the window. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't do anything. And I'd been like that for weeks

and then they almost had to drag me back into the court because I was so frightened, absolutely petrified of what was going to happen. Do you remember hearing yes i do that you were cleared and you know i just i just still didn't believe it i mean i had to go through 17 times not guilty but after the first one i just i almost collapsed. In fact, I did collapse laterally. It took me days to believe it.

Sometimes even now I can't quite believe it because I know that may sound strange, but when you've lived with something for so long and the fear and the trauma of what might happen, it doesn't go overnight., it doesn't go overnight. It just doesn't go overnight. And I'm better now than I was two months ago. But even so, I'm still plagued with nightmares.

And then people kept saying, oh, well, you must be celebrating. But then you're not celebrating any. What's there to celebrate? There's nothing. I'm left with a shattered life which I have to pick up and hold my head up and but what's been said, what's been written

will live with me forever and yet the person who has made these accusations walks free and can continue to say whatever he likes for the rest of his life. Did you look at him when you declared? Yes, I did look at the ground all the time, but I'd been told as best I could by my lawyers to be dignified and to keep one's head up and not slouch and try not to...

Well, to try to keep one's dignity. And I think I told you earlier that I wear hearing aids and sometimes if things got very unpalatable, I would take them out. And I would still hear, but not quite as badly or as much as I would hear. Did he look at you and did he have a reaction? He was quite happy to stare me out. Do you know why he made these accusations? Yes for reasons I can't disclose to you it was very clear to the jury by certain recordings that had been made that I accused him of blackmailing me. And that's what it was, I think.

I want to talk about you and the impact on you, which you have started to talk about. But you also, in your statement after the trial, said it was particularly upsetting to the integrity and reputation of your late husband, because the complainant said he knew about the abuse and turned a blind eye. To me, that was absolutely the worst aspect of this because my husband, who was, not for me to say, but I think others will say it for me, that he was enormously highly regarded and revered

and you only have to look at his obituaries to see how highly thought of he was, than to say that he knew about it and didn't do anything. It was beyond belief. And at the end of the day, I have to live with what's been said, but at least he's been cleared. And there's no question now that he knew anything about it because there was nothing to know.

But I'm left with a mess. But luckily, his name is cleared. And to me, that was the most important outcome of... Because I couldn't... I can't help myself and my circumstances, but at least he has been cleared. Well, yes, as you say, he's not here to perhaps answer. No, I mean, that was so awful. He won't wait till he's dead.

Do you think it would have happened if he'd been alive? No, of course it wouldn't. Why do you say that? It wouldn't, because there was no truth in it. He would never have gone in front of my husband and asked that question so you don't think the accuser would have would have done this if he was here if martin were alive now none of this would have happened whether it was always going to happen after he died i can't answer but um i mean it was so so quick he died. And there were other things that I can't tell you,

but that my life was made pretty miserable from the moment he died. Let's leave it like that. Understood. You mentioned support. Your friends, some of them, came and did character witnesses in court. That was reported on for instance mary archer she's been came forward she's been the most wonderful friend well they all have you know because i gather from from sandra that not everybody wishes to get involved in a case like this because had it gone wrong then it becomes very awkward for them

but they were all kind enough to put that to one side and support me come rain or high water or whatever which one does appreciate enormously is that what has got you through the support of your friends absolutely i i mean i I I don't know that I realized it then I do now because at that time you're living in such an artificial world that I I was convinced because everything was so vicious and so nasty and the statements that had been written about me were so awful. Half the time I couldn't even read them. Sandra had to beg me to read them because I just couldn't read them. They were so awful.

And so you get embroiled in this whole machinery. And, of course, your friends are there coming all the way to Peterborough to support you that's when I realized how marvelous they were I mean I knew it but I was in such a state of unhappiness that I was not able to appreciate anything I do now and you also mentioned you received letters of support. Lots and lots of letters. I mean, from the most extraordinary people I hadn't heard from in years. And they're still coming in. And I think people feel that it's a pretty wicked situation.

I mean, I know it's unlikely to change. It's a pretty wicked situation. I mean, I know it's unlikely to change, but I find it astonishing that I'm left with this mess and I have to live with it forever. And I can't change that. But the only thing is, I think, it's taught me a lot about myself. I'm going to come out of it stronger, and I think I will do a lot of different things. I think I'll organise my life in a slightly different way.

I'll make me much more wary of people. Not badly, but I think I will make some pretty big adjustments to my life and i want to go and do um various things i would love to have gone i was going to go and teach or help children in school with their reading well i obviously that's totally inappropriate now even if you're cleared which i think is a wicked but I obviously wouldn't feel that that would be an appropriate thing for me to even consider I used to work in the prison I was on the board of our local prison and in fact they were wonderful my governor there gave me a wonderful um witness statement but again I'm too old you see and this they they have taken they they've robbed me of four years of my life and as you get older four years is a lot to be taken away

but it's not too late and i i want to go and get a degree and um which is something I would hope that I will do. In what? In history. Okay. And so... I know that you also want to focus some of your energy, which is why we're talking today, on seeing if you can change the way that these sorts of cases are handled. Yes. What do you want to change well i think there is um a movement quite well established

movement um which involves cliff richards and proctor and all these people who um were never charged um but their cases uh their names were all over the newspapers now i think the first move would be to to get the law changed on that front um so that so just to be clear to to our listeners um we're talking about people being able to be anonymous until charged which is what the likes of cliff richard with the rest of his campaigners are calling for. That would be stage one. Because it wouldn't have changed your situation because you were charged. Desperately. I mean, we've got to start somewhere.

And if this is a start, then that's what it's all about. And that's why I'm here. Do you believe those who allege these crimes, the complainants, or who then, if people are found guilty, the victims, do you think they should be named? Yes. I don't see why he can get away with it now. Why can he sally me big time and yet when the trial is over still remain anonymity? But then, of course, that's the law.

I think that needs to be changed as well. I just wondered because since Jimmy Savile, the Me Too movement and other historic sexual abuse cases, police investigations and CPS guidance have become more victim focused. Do you think the shift has gone too far? And do you think that's why particular case, I probably wouldn't have come to court if I hadn't had such a high-profile husband. They were not going to let themselves come under the criticism of not going after a judge's wife,

because she was a judge's wife. What do you hope to achieve by coming on Woman's Hour today and talking to me and talking to our listeners? Just raising awareness of the question of anonymity. Up to the point of charge, everyone remains anonymous. That in itself would be a step forward. I think it's less likely that in the immediate future you will get anonymity after

being charged. But I would like to ask the question, why can the complainant then not be revealed after the case? Lady Lavinia Norse, who was acquitted in May this year of 17 counts of sexually abusing a boy under the age of 12, speaking exclusively to me on Woman's Hour. Her legal case was handled by the solicitor Sandra Paul from the firm Kingsley Napoli, who I said I'd be talking to and joins me now. Sandra, good morning. I'm hoping we have Sandra just there to talk to me. Sorry, good morning, Emma. Good morning. Thank you very much for joining us today. You say the Crown Prosecution Service were not rigorous enough in assessing the evidence with Lavinia's case.

What do you mean by that? I mean by that, that when we come to this point, three years after this investigation started, and having spent a lot of time and energy, both in terms of the police investigation and the proceedings, probably upwards of £100,000, a great deal of emotional hurt and experience for all parties involved in this. And we get to the end of it and a jury in a relatively short period of time unanimously says, I am not sure. I find this person not guilty, it begs the question of whether this case should have been brought. Now, I don't know what the CPS rationale was, that's not something that's ever shared with me or the team at Kingsley and Ackley who represented Lavinia.

But what we do know is that often in these cases, the difficulty starts at a very early point in terms of being able to look objectively at what the evidence is in these cases. I have no difficulty with the position being, the starting position being that if a complainant believes themselves to be the victim of an offence, that should be sufficient for the police to start an investigation. But once you've got to that point, what we have to do if we're going to have trust in the system is for the police investigation to be undertaken completely impartially at that stage, looking at all the evidence, both the evidence

which goes towards the case and away from the case. And I think it's that rigour that is often missing. We're going to talk more broadly away from Lavinia's case in a moment, but I do on her specific case have a statement here from the CPS, who say that following their investigation by the Cambridgeshire Constabulary, the Cps made the decision to make those charges following detailed consideration of the evidence and in accordance with the code for crown prosecutors the crown prosecution services function is not to decide whether a person is guilty of a criminal offence but to make fair independent and objective assessments about whether it is appropriate to present charges for a jury to consider and we respect their decision of course of her being cleared but in answer to what you were

just saying there about it being evidence-based what do you have to say to that? I think the CPS have a very difficult job to do they are trying their best as ministers of justice to act in an independent way and you'll see the competing pressures on them, both from the public, from victims groups, from the defence, to make the best decision they can. And I think they try to do that. But I think that there is a great deal of pressure pushing them towards, propelling them towards,

creating systems and rules that seek to obtain convictions, not at any cost, but with some risk. And I can see where that comes from. And of course, what you want in the CPS is an organisation that's well funded, that has good lawyers in it, who are provided with good quality information from police officers who've investigated fairly. And all of that together means that we can have better trust. But are you saying this was an anomaly? I mean, for instance, Lavinia North says she doesn't believe that this would have come about if she had not been the wife of a senior judge.

Well, the CPS, I don't know whether that formed any parts of the CPS decision. But what we do know, when we look at other high profile people or people in the public eye,, not just whether this person is guilty or not, but what will happen if we don't charge them. And it's the ability to take those difficult decisions that we want to support the CPS to do. I'm just very aware that we're speaking just after the CPS has issued new guidance for rape and sexual offence investigations to, broadly speaking, err on the side of believing the victim and investigate the suspect. I am summarising that.

And also just after the government's review into rape reforms and an apology from the Justice Secretary after a low number of convictions of rapists. So there's now been the promise of sweeping reforms, again, focusing more on the accused and their credibility, rather than undermining the accuser. So we're not talking in a time or in a context where we're seeing a great number of convictions. And I think that the problem is, if we are myopically looking at simply increasing the number of convictions a much easier way is to do that perhaps than doing the rigorous work that is necessary you can just say well every other one um will amount to a conviction and we'll get it

over and done with i don't think that's what people want. What they want is to have the confidence to know that somebody has taken the time to look at this objectively and collect the evidence, which will then improve the prospects for both the defendant and for the complainant when this matter goes to court. think it's gone too far already with what's happened in the wake of Jimmy Savile towards those coming forward and making the accusations being believed? Has the balance shifted unfairly in your view? I think that what has happened is that it's got mixed up. So that, as I said, an individual believing that they are the victim of an offence should absolutely be sufficient to make the police start an investigation. And I think that's what we've got at the moment. The difficulty is if that police officer carries through that belief throughout the investigation, what they fail to do, perhaps, is to look objectively at the quality of the evidence that they have collected and that failure to look at things independently is sometimes a thing that skews the investigation

in a way that means that the evidence then does not stand up to scrutiny either when it gets to the Crown Prosecution Service or when it gets to a jury. There is nothing inconsistent in being empathetic with a complainant and accepting that complaint and then looking at the investigation independently and collecting all the evidence and having some sense of robustly looking at it. Now, I'm not saying that they should be interrogated or any of those things, but you can't just sweep aside the inconsistencies because our court system requires us to have the same quality of evidence

for these offences as any other. And I would want that, and your listeners might too, because if we're sending somebody to prison upwards of seven years, we want to sleep well. We want to know that they have had a fair trial. Sorry, to break in on what I was trying to say there, because it was relevant to what you were saying at that exact point, is that the Centre for Women's Justice said that they've advised on dozens of rape cases where the evidence is compelling and the CPS decided not to charge.

So it's the opposite of what you're saying. I can't speak to their experience all i can do is speak to my experience as a defense lawyer um and as far as i can see one of the concerns that i have as a lawyer is regarding the integrity of the evidence that we bring to a jury and ask them to determine and that is the thing that we should all be concentrating on, not the conviction rates, but is there good quality evidence to put in front of a jury? But I suppose what I'm saying to you is,

we're hearing from their experience that even when there is good quality evidence, cases are not even being taken. And that is a concern. But if I just come back to something else here with the CPS's updated guidance around these crimes, rape and sexual offence investigations, and then I definitely want to come on to an issue that's come through on our messages about people being allowed to remain anonymous, because I know you've got strong views on that. But just to go on to this,

the updated guidance from the Crown Prosecution Service say that there can be potential inconsistencies in complainants' evidence in rape and sexual abuse. The guidance studies finding that 80% of young female victims report some sort of mental health disorder following an attack, which is particularly relevant when it comes to understanding inconsistencies in the complainant's evidence. Now, not everybody who is complaining is going to be a young woman. It wasn't the case in this particular case. But I just wanted to ask you what you made of that actually being part of guidance. Well, I have a concern, as you might expect, about how we maintain the procedural elements of our trial process when we are being asked or we are asking juries to accept irregularities in the evidence and to make decisions on them our standard still requires a

jury to be sure before it's convicts and And so how do they deal with those inconsistencies? I have no difficulty with the Crown being committed to adduce any evidence that is relative, relevant or probative of the matters that the jury have to consider. I think that what we need to do is to make sure that in doing so, we don't encroach on the right to a fair trial for the defendant. A statement from Rape Crisis, and there's a couple parts to this, I just wanted to read one at this point, which says when only 1.6% of these reports talking again about these rape and sexual offence investigations then result in even a charge each year. It's ludicrous and offensive to suggest, they're not saying you're suggesting this,

but there is a narrative around this at the moment that there has been any kind of shift in our criminal justice system that benefits victims. Victims are in fact routinely let down and re-traumatised by systemic criminal justice failings as the government itself admitted last month, as I mentioned, and apologised for when it published its rape review. Many messages have come in wanting to know what you think about whether people accused of rape and sexual offences, and charged, should remain anonymous until convicted. So this is actually when they're charged. Sandra, as a lawyer in this area, having defended lots of people,

what do you make of that? So I think what we mean by anonymity here is not so much that their names shouldn't be used, etc., but rather, there shouldn't be broadcasting of that information in the media. And when we think about it in that space, I do believe that it's a conversation to have. And you've heard from Lavinia, haven't you, about the lasting impact of this, both during her trial and now. These offences, particularly allegations of rape and sexual offences when they concern children, they stain fundamentally a person's character. And whilst lots of your listeners will accept that she's not guilty, there may be some who will say, well, I wouldn't let her babysit still, because there is that lingering concern regarding a person. Now, that cannot necessarily, it doesn't have to be that way. It's perfectly possible to provide some protection for the defendant in the case by means of anonymity, as I've just described it. And that

wouldn't prevent the police investigating or broadcasting that information where to do so was a legitimate investigative tool. But we have to guard against the impact of this. We already recognise that this is a special type of offence. And we do that, and that's reflected in the fact that the complainant has anonymity for life. I have no difficulty with that at all. But given that we know the impact, I think it's a responsibility for us all to keep checking whether actually we're doing our best for those people who come out of this without a conviction. Giving those accused of sexual offences exceptional treatment by ensuring they're anonymous could reinforce the harmful myth that people are more likely to be falsely accused of sexual offences than other kinds of crime.

Again, part of the statement from rape crisis. And there's special treatment there in some ways. But as you said, perhaps there's also the case because of what the stain is on one's character if you are found innocent afterwards. There's also the issue around which we've seen people coming forward once they have heard that somebody has been accused. You know for instance the veteran BBC broadcaster Stuart Hall who was convicted in 2013 of 14 accounts of indecent assault on young girls. One victim assaulted by him when she was 17 only came forward because she heard he was being investigated. On balance, do you think people should be anonymous until found guilty?

Or when you listen to that, where do you come out? So as I said, you can create a carve-out that permits for legitimate investigative reasons for broadcasting that information. I think it's something that we need to continue to talk about, because what we see at the other end are those people who are acquitted, the impact on them. We've already created a special category, as I've said, because we treat complainants in this way, in a different way to other complainants in respect of other offences. And all I'm suggesting is that we

need to continue to think broadly about the needs of everybody who is involved in this process. Just because you are accused of an offence does not make you an unworthy person. And that is not an adjudication that we should make. It needs to be that we look at all these issues for everybody who participates in the system, not concentrating solely on one side or the other. Sandra Paul from the firm Kingsley Napoli, who represented Lavinia Norse, who we started this conversation with, with her experience of what happened. Thank you for your time and your experience and your views there, of which there will be many in response. And we've had a very powerful email come in about being anonymous for those who are accused of sexual abuse. A member of my family says this message was accused of rape

and this was the most traumatic time for all my family, affected every minute of their life and the immediate family. The person received death threats, was followed, chased in a car. Everyone in the village where they lived knew about the accusations. There was nowhere to turn, no support, no help, and a wash of pain felt throughout more so for the accused on their side. In the court, it was emphasised that the person is innocent and proven guilty, which should mean that unless you need to know the name,

you should have anonymity in place for both accusers and those involved. It is the most horrific experience, and the person was found not guilty, as we would all know, but they'd had to leave the village and move away, but not until after the trial. And many messages coming in talking about how upsetting Lavinia Norse's interview was and thank you for highlighting it, says Zina here. And another email here says,

this is incredibly disturbing however hopefully the outcome of this is a more robust due process and procedure and the realization that no one is immune from injustice thank you for all of your messages do keep them coming uh yesterday we were talking about a damning report from mps which said maternity services in england are failing mothers and babies and lessons aren't being learned. Well today I'm joined by someone hoping to help improve the care of pregnant women in one key area by better prediction of pre-term births. A new risk model has been created with the hope of what? Dr Sarah Stock you're behind this what are you hoping to do?

Hello thank you. Well what we're trying to do is improve communication about a pregnant woman's risk of giving birth in the next seven days once she presents with some signs and symptoms that they might be about to deliver early. And up to actually about a third of hospital admissions in maternity are with women that we think might be in preterm birth. And it's completely understandable that we want to treat just in case, but this means that they're admitted, can have some treatments. And often it's unnecessarily because actually only a very few women will go on and deliver it in the next seven days. So our risk predictor is going to help these women and help doctors and midwives work out the likelihood of her giving birth and therefore the need for treatment. So trying to avoid unnecessary treatment, extra tests, bed rest, or even hospitalisation, which is of course upsetting, as well as costly and perhaps not necessary.

I should say you're also an obstetrician, a researcher at the University of Edinburgh Usher Institute, and you set up Scotland's first preterm birth prevention clinic. How quickly do you think this could be rolled out? Because I know you've developed an app alongside it. Yeah, so this is UK-funded research that was developed in the NHS and we've tested it in 26 sites across the NHS with our team, which is great. So it's really in a position that so that anybody coming in with this, the risk predictor can be sort of integral to their care. It's fascinating as well, because you say the vast majority of women with signs and symptoms

of preterm labour don't actually give birth early, the vast majority. That's right. It's under 10%, probably around 5% of women with signs of symptoms of preterm birth who we think might give birth early actually go on and deliver early. So this is also about targeting resources to the right places where we've got, you know, stretch maternity services, making sure that the highest risk women get the right care and the right treatments and avoiding unnecessary treatments. Let me talk now to Zareen Khan, mum of three from London, who went through two premature births. Zareen, welcome to the programme. Hi.

You want there to be greater awareness, don't you, of how to look after women who went through what you went through? Definitely, and I think the awareness needs to be raised on preterm birth and preterm labour because it is a horrendous experience, not just for the women going through it, but the family and the baby as well. Because with your first child, what happened with you? So I went into labour at 32 weeks and obviously, well, I had a stomach cramp. So I called the hospital. They told me to take paracetamol and call them back in a couple of hours to tell them how I felt I called them back told them I

was still in pain so they called me in they still didn't believe I was in labour until I had basically gone into full-term labour fully dilated and had to have an emergency c-section to a breech baby at 32 weeks yes it must have been uh you know very difficult and very traumatic and unexpected i know that you try to be uh if i can put it like this better prepared for baby number two yes baby number two i went and saw a consultant who uh natasha singh who then put me in touch with Born Charity, who are researching and doing a programme to prevent preterm birth. And I had my second son under Born Charity and I managed to carry him to 36 weeks.

So it was quite a vast difference. Do you feel, I know that this wouldn't have been directly relevant to your experience, but an app like this, where you can track your symptoms and that feed into your records, would you have welcomed greater information and also even perhaps greater warning that this could happen? 100%. I really feel like an app like that could really help. I think everything is necessary. You need all the help you can get with when you're pregnant, especially as a first time mum being pregnant. You know, it's all new to to you if you can get as much help as

possible it's great. Thank you for talking to us and sharing a bit about your experience a lot of people will be able to relate to it either as someone who's gone through or supported someone Sarah just finally to you the report I mentioned out on maternity care yesterday made for grim reading this of course it's very interesting to kind of hear about this after that, which is around, you know, improvement and things being thought about differently. And if you're pregnant listening to this or thinking of getting so or desperately wanting to be, I should also add, I mean, how should you be feeling about maternity care, do you think at the moment? I think that maternity services in the UK are very safe. I think there's always room for improvement.

And I think that the sort of commitment to continue to improve maternity care for all women is really important. So I think that we are working very hard within maternity services to continue to improve things, but UK maternity services, there's always room for improvement, but they are a very safe service. Well, it's very interesting to hear about such innovation.

Do come back and let us know when it's rolled out and how it's going. Dr Sarah Stock there and Zareen Khan, who's also talking about her experience. And of course, I should say after yesterday, we were discussing a report specifically about England. We also heard from quite a few midwives and be very keen to come back to this and have a conversation with you about it from your perspective,

as one of the emails put it, as sort of the foot soldiers of this and how it all works on the front line. So do keep getting in touch with us. We do read your messages. You can email us via the Women's Hour website or works on the front line. So do keep getting in touch with us. We do read your messages. You can email us via the Woman's Hour website or text on 84844. And a few of you getting in touch saying

you missed the beginning or most of the Lavinia Norse interview, joined us slightly late. That will be available on Sounds in full, BBC Sounds for you to catch up on if you want to listen to that back in full and messages coming in along those lines as well. But we want to tell you

about something completely different now, because it was a historic moment on Sunday when a woman, 58-year-old Elisa Loncon from Chile's indigenous Mapuche population was chosen to lead the drafting of the country's new constitution. It will replace the one inherited from General Pinochet's dictatorship, blamed for the high levels of inequality, social injustice and the high cost of living that sparked deadly protests across the country in 2019 and beyond. Let's listen and how brilliant that we can to a bit of history being made and hear a clip of help with that. So luckily I've got Constanza Jolla, a Chilean journalist who works for the BBC World Service with me in the studio. What was she saying, first of all?

Well, she's speaking Mapudungun, which is the original language from Mapuche, the main indigenous people in Chile. And she is saying greetings, basically, from north to south, from east to west, and greetings to the oppressed groups that she mentioned. So, for example, well, indigenous people, but also the sexual minority groups and women. And she mentions women as an oppressed group that has fought against the system. So in her speech, it's very, very significant that at the beginning, she starts in Mapudungun, which is a kind of a forgotten language for the Chilean states. And they have tried to put it back in.

And also this mention to women, because she says, I am a Mapuche and I am a woman and people has elected me to lead this convention, this assembly. It was a remarkable moment, even if you couldn't understand because of how powerful the emotion was surrounding it. You could feel it when I went and watched the clip. Who is she? Why has she been chosen? Well, Elisa Loncón is a Mapuche woman.

She had a very humble childhood in the south of the country in a Mapuche community. She had to walk eight hours to go to school. Her mother was a housewife. Her father was a furniture maker. She lived in a Mapuche community. And then she made it to study. She became an English teacher, actually. And then she did a master's and a PhD,

specifically in linguistics. So that's why the Mapuche language is so important for her. So she embodies these two things. Like she's very prepared to lead this process, but at the same time, she comes from common people from an indigenous background. And she has lived two kind of oppressions, being an indigenous person, but also being a woman. Why are Chileans so keen to change their constitution and why now? What do you think it could mean? Basically, the current constitution in Chile was written, as you said,

under General Pinochet's rule, so under dictatorship. And what happened, just to explain, is that the constitution protects the right to access a right. For example, protects the right to access education, not the right itself. So what happened is when the private sector covers that access, the state says, well, I don't need to cover it. So we don't have a welfare state. They only provide the right itself if the privates don't do. So Chile has privatized almost everything. Like the pension system is totally private.

Most of education, the health system, and even water. I mean, in Chile, water is privatized. So this led in a big protest in 2019 and people started saying, this is enough. And that's why it's so important to change the constitution because in order to get a welfare state, in order to get social justice, you need to basically change the core,

which is the constitution. Which is why there's so much emotion, I suppose, attached to this for the hope that things could be very different afterwards. And what a woman to be leading that. And also, I mean, just the way you said that, you can gloss over it almost, but walking eight hours for school,

for their education that she so desperately wanted is something definitely to pause on. You can go online and the BBC have got coverage and footage of that. Constanza Holler, a Chilean journalist working for the BBC have got coverage and footage of that. Constanza Holler, a Chilean journalist working for the BBC World Service, thank you to you.

Thanks. Now we wanted to end today's programme thinking about Biba Henry and Nicole Smallman, the two sisters who were murdered in a North London park last summer. The killer was found guilty yesterday. Described as a force of nature

with the heart of a lion, Biba Henry was a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a colleague, a senior social worker who was a fierce exponent for the more vulnerable members of society. Her younger sister, Nicole, was a talented artist, singer and actor, passionate about her work in documentary making and theatre. And a friend said of Nicole that when she walked into her room, she was like a nightlight. It was subtle, protective, warm. Their mother, the former archdeacon, Mina Smallman, spoke about her daughters, the oldest and youngest of her three girls, this morning on the Today programme.

And here she is giving her reaction to yesterday's verdict to Michelle Hussein. The worst thing has happened to you. You have the result, but you still don't have your daughters. And so there's no peace, really. So do I feel a sense of relief or joy? No, I don't. I feel justice has been done, but there's work work there's still work to be done this man this 19 year old took away two of the most precious people in your life could you ever imagine forgiving him i have i already have i've been i've, actually. When we hold hatred for someone, it's not only them who are held captive, it's you.

Because your thoughts become consumed by revenge. I refuse to give him that power. He has no power in our lives. And you have been shining a light on things that went wrong, trying to make things different in the way things like this are handled in future. What do you think Biba and Nicole would be thinking of how you and your husband have faced this last year, what you have tried to do? Well, I know that, you know, the kind of women they were,

they would have been at Sarah Everard's vigil, they would have been at Black Lives Matter. So if I imagine them at all, I imagine them looking down and saying, go for it, Mum. Mina Smallman, mother of Biba Henry and Nicole Smallman. Messages have kept coming in after our interview with Lady Lavinia Norse and what has happened to her since she has been cleared of sex abuse of a child. We've got one from Frida who says,

I had to stop the car and listen to this. There are so many unanswered questions here because it brings to light the complexity of abuse cases and why so many are dropped. The accuser has not only damaged Norse, but also any future cases involving abuse victims. Thank you for highlighting this issue, says Zina. Her Lavinia story echoed the experience of two friends and colleagues who falsely, also falsely accused, are now trying to rebuild their lives. Changes to reporting is crucial and access to a fair hearing even more so. Thank you for being with us. We'll be back tomorrow at 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. A new fantasy podcast series from BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio Wales.

Beyond the forests, beyond the valleys, there's another world. Mabinogi. Lost legends and dark magic. I know how to get there. Where? The other world. An epic battle across the frontiers of reality. I think this is likely to end in disaster. Step into The Other World.

Subscribe to Babanogi. Lost legends and dark magic 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 was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know.

It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.