Woman's Hour - Natalie Fleet MP, a spike of botulism cases and Kethiwe Ngcobo on her mother Lauretta

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

Natalie Fleet is the Labour MP for Bolsover whose path into politics has been far from typical. From a very young age, teachers told her she was destined for university – something almost unheard of in her Nottingham mining town. But her future took a different turn, when at fifteen, she became pregnant by an older man. At the time she had thought they were in a relationship - but as she grew older, Natalie says she realised she had been a victim of grooming and statutory rape. She's now speaking out to give a voice to those she feels have been made to feel they should be silent, and joins Anita Rani in the studio. Lauretta Ngcobo was an author, political exile and an activist during South Africa’s apartheid. Her political activism led to her fleeing the country and raising her children in the UK, along with her husband, AB Ngcobo, an anti-apartheid political leader and a founder of the PAC - Pan Africanist Congress of Azania, a South African political party. Kethiwe Ngcobo – one of Lauretta’s daughters – has now produced a documentary, And She Didn’t Die. The film, named based on one of Lauretta’s most well-known novels, And They Never Died, tells the story of Lauretta’s life – and Kethiwe’s own life too. Kethiwe joins Anita live in the studio to discuss it.In recent weeks a number of botulism poisoning cases have emerged in the North East. This is a dangerous and potentially fatal reaction to the botulinum neurotoxin used in anti wrinkle injections. North East based BBC reporter Philippa Goymer has been investigating and joins Anita.After years of being controlled and humiliated by him, in 2011 Sally Challen was jailed for 22 years for the murder of her husband, Richard. The sentence was reduced to 18 years but in June 2019 she walked out of the Old Bailey a free woman - the introduction of coercive control as a crime meaning her sentence was reduced to manslaughter. Her son David who campaigned relentlessly for her release has just published a new memoir documenting his experience as a child survivor of domestic abuse and how the family came to terms with their histories and new lives over the years that followed.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Corinna Jones

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. favorite Fijian code. It's called Marautico. Marautico means to stay happy. Whatever you go through in life, be positive, stay happy. Experience the real Fiji. Visit Fiji.com.fj to find out more. BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning, welcome to the programme. David Challon has written a memoir looking back at his life and that of his mother, Sally Challon, who was jailed for 22 years for the murder of her husband, Richard.

David will be here to talk about his pursuit in trying to gain her release and the eventual reduction in her sentence after coercive control was viewed as a crime and the impact on his own life. We'll bring you up to speed with news of an outbreak of botulism poisoning from anti-wrinkle injections and I'm going to be joined in the studio by filmmaker Ketiwe Nkobo who has made a documentary about her remarkable mother Loretta, more shortly. But the film was very nearly not made when Ketiwe believed she'd lost crucial footage until a plumber came round to her home to check

on a leak, knocked over a box and out tumbled the missing VHS tapes. And this was the sign that meant the project was resumed and completed and the reason she's here today to talk about the documentary. So has something similar happened in your own lives? What gave you the nudge to finally do something you've been putting off? Was it finding the missing piece of the puzzle,

a conversation you had, maybe an interview you've heard? What was the sign that gave you the impetus to get on with the thing? And what was that thing? Did you finally take the holiday, change the job, make up with a friend, ditch the friend, move house, country, finish writing your book or the PhD, whatever it is, getting touch. What was the catalyst for change in your life? And get in touch in the usual way. The text number is 84844

you can whatsapp the program on 03 700 100 444 and if you'd like to email us please go to the website. But first Labour MP for Bolsovr Natalie Fleet won her seat for the first time at last year's general election. Her path into politics has been far from typical. From a very young age teachers told her she was destined for university, something almost unheard of in her Nottinghamshire mining town. But her future took a different turn when at 15 she became pregnant by an older man. At the time she thought they were in a relationship, but as she grew older Natalie says she realised she'd been a victim of

grooming and statutory rape, which is defined as unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. I spoke to her a little earlier this morning and she began by telling me why she wanted to share her story now. I didn't want to. One, I didn't want the story to be mine. I don't want it to be anybody's. And two, I don't want to share it. Feel like I've got a responsibility to. There are women up and down the country that are being raped in all different kinds of way.

And rape is an issue that transcends class and age and profession. The common denominator with rape is you have to be, or you're more likely to be, as long as you're a woman, it's part of your story. But it's a story we're not telling. And this is horrendous to say, it's a ridiculous thing to say, but it's still true.

I am so lucky in the way that I was raped because I have a birth certificate that tells my age, and I have a birth certificate that tells my age and I have a birth certificate that tells my daughter's age and I have a DNA test that links her to a man that was far older than me and people have still said you will not be believed, I don't want you to tell your story and then you're not be believed and I'm like I've got biological evidence. Women don't come forward in this country and beyond because they don't think they're going to be believed. I am in an incredibly privileged position that I've got a platform and I've got a story that is still refuted. I mean, I'd looked at some

of the online comments before I came in and I really shouldn't have done. It is refuted and people have got very strong opinions about the fact that it was still all my fault, but in the law it wasn't. And the thing about this country is that nobody is talking out. This is an endemic that's happening up and down the country and if I can do something to shine some light on it then that's my responsibility. And you've done it by speaking out about your own experience. So for our listeners, I think we should go back to the beginning and you should... How old were you when you met the man who would become the biological father of your daughter? I was 15. I didn't realize that anything was wrong at all.

If I'm honest, I didn't realize that anything was wrong until I came into parliament and we started having conversations around it and assigning language to it, like grooming, that didn't even exist at that time. Which in itself is unbelievable and we will talk about why it took that long for you to be able to process what happened. But what did you think was happening at the time? You were 15 years old. Yeah and I thought I was in a really loving relationship. I thought that that was the case. I didn't realize that there was an older man that was telling me everything I needed to know over a period so that he could have

unprotected sex with me and then pass all the burden to me, you know, you must have a termination, you must not tell anybody, this child is mine, if you do, I will never pay a penny, I know how to avoid CSA payments. And the reason he felt so strongly is because we talk about grooming gangs. He Wasn't part of a gang. He was part of a wider culture in Towns like mine. I wasn't the first to get pregnant in my year And I wasn't the last and the amount of people that have said to me since oh my god that happened to me And that was really dodgy now not everything happened it resulted in a pregnancy or a pregnancy that resulted in a birth. Yeah, you were together for three months

Yeah, and in your mind as a 50 young 15 year old you were in a relationship. I didn't realize it was happening in secret I didn't realize he was denying it was happening to other people when asked about it. I didn't realize any of those things I just thought that this was a I was just really starstruck by this older man that was giving me all the attention that I just absolutely was saying all the right things. And when you became pregnant, he said, don't keep it, I'll deny it's mine. Yeah. And worse, he said, I'll say that it's someone else's. Yeah. And when the DNA test came back and it was like 99.9% the case that it was his,

he says, yeah, but there's still 0.01% chance that it isn't. How did other people react? As you would expect, totally as you would expect. So we're talking the year 2000. I know that seems like two years ago, it's actually 25 years ago. And people, you know, they called me a slag, a slapper, this was all my fault. They were the people that didn't care about me. They were just like, you have ruined your life and you have ruined your unborn child's life. But worst was the disappointment of the people that did care about me that still told me exactly the same thing they said Natalie you had

such a bright future you were such a bright girl how could you do this what have you done to yourself you are going to be you're gonna have a life on benefits you're gonna go you're gonna fail you and your daughter before she's even born and I'm so I'm so sad for you And I I obviously believed him but worked really hard to try and make sure that wasn't the case and you have the support of Your grandfather. Mm-hmm and all my family, but it was always I was what was his reaction though And you know because your mom took you around to see yeah your grandparents who were very important in your life Yeah, what was his reaction? I will never forget the the noise that came out of his Body it was like a noise that I'd never heard before all I can say is it was a whale

This was a man that I'd worked down the pit that done everything he could to look after and support his family That I'd been really proudly, you know, part of the working class community and family meant everything. And now he saw the granddaughter that he'd worked so hard to bring up. It's life-ending. It's like I got terminal cancer. You know, It was really difficult. So you were made to feel all this immense shame, judgment, people saying whatever they like. How about the father? So the father said, he was very much just of the mind,

he'd done nothing wrong. And as I say, this is a thing that was happening far and wide across our communities. So many people have gotten in And as I say, this is a thing that was happening far and wide across our communities. So many people have gotten in touch since to say, thank you for shining a light on this, because there's a, there's a rightly a focus on gangs right now where it's coordinated and absolutely horrendous and the most heinous crimes are being committed. But what I hope that we don't lose in this debate is that this was widespread across so many of our communities.

When did you come to understand that what happened to you was grooming and statutory rape? So you get a 15 year old girl off the council estate and I had really good people like I'll always be indebted to Gloria De Piero MP. She was my MP and she just kept saying, I will not rest until you are in Parliament. I thought she was absolutely crazy. That's ridiculous. People like me do not end up in Parliament. And she kept saying it and she kept saying it over years.

And she gave me every bit of support I needed to be here. And every time I doubted myself, she reminded me, or she gave me every bit of support I needed to be here and every time I doubted myself she reminded me, well she told me, I never actually believed her, but she told me that I should be here. So I'm like, right, a caregiving in the end. I will do everything I can to get there because I've got a huge amount of responsibility. I've got to pay forward to other women what she did for me and if it does mean that I can have a platform I thought I was going to come in and talk about child poverty and special educational needs and education and The benefit of sure start and the difference that the last Labour government made to me as a young teenage mom

I had no idea that I was going to come in and talk about this Anyway, she says you know, it's got to happen. So I'm like, right, I've got to do it. And I have been through every aspect of my story and thought, I'm going to get found out at some point because I should not be here. So I thought, what could they say? What could the headlines be?

What have I done wrong? What will people, what will people use against me? And so I went to my daughter and I said, and my son who's just a bit younger than her, because you know, I wanted to have everything in the world and that included a brother that she could play with. So I'm very happy that they're together today listening to this. And I went to her and I said, you know what happened? You know how I was always disappointed that your biological father never wanted anything to do with you and at times it made you feel like you were abandoned

or rejected and you've got support around that. In my mind I'm thinking how it would be perceived in the media and I'm starting to think that actually this might have been a bit dodgy and she was like, mom, no way I could see that years ago. What planet are you on? She knew. She didn't think, just do you know how old you were and how old he was? She just can't believe how much you're struggling telling me this story and I told my son who's 21 and he's like, yeah, and I told my son who's 16 and he's like, mom, why does it take you so long to catch on? And what I love about that is that they're growing up in a different world. So we've still got, we've still got a discussion to be had nationally about rape and people have got to be

believed when they do speak about it. We've got to bring back the court, down the court backlog. We've got to make sure that women are supported by the police. We've got to make sure that the perpetrators end up in jail. So there's so much more to do around rape and getting women justice. But where we have come a long way is that we've had a national conversation about if you are a child then it's not okay for a man to come and target you to have sex with. And we're living in a post-me too generation now where your daughter is switched on enough to be able to look you in the eyes and say, yeah, of course, mum, that's what it was.

The most profound thing she has said to me is she said, this is when I was first an MP and I didn't like talking about it then. I've never liked speaking out about it, but there's, you know, there's not a queue of this is happening to us there's just not a cue rightly so I understand why people to talk about it so she said to me mom she's every single time you use the word rape I bristle she's got to keep saying it and I just thought if she can be that brave then then I can be too and the other thing, is that she was thinking about starting her own family and I've now got a four month old granddaughter. Congratulations.

Thank you. I congratulate myself every day. I've had a FaceTime with this morning and that is the best thing that could ever happen. So being a mum at 15 is horrendous. Being a non-art at 40, that is winning all the jackpots put together. And she was talking to me and she says you've had a really difficult time and now I am able to have a consensual relationship and a child that I love in a really stable happy relationship with a good career and what you've done is shown me the benefit of being a young parent. I don't want to be too old. She's 24, she was 23 when she had her and she just makes me so proud. So it isn't all bad.

And your story is really pertinent right now. I mean, just this week, the Home Secretary of Vette Cooper said she would toughen various laws to prevent rapists getting lesser charges by claiming that 13 to 15 year olds had consented to sex in response to as you know Baroness Casey's report so what was your reaction to that? I was just so happy I just I mean that they I shouldn't have looked at social media before I came in this morning but I did and the amount of people that said you weren't the right age you weren't young enough it's not you know if this is still your fault this This government's recognising

that if you're under 16, this is absolutely not okay. But the other thing I've been really happy about this week is the fact that Yvette Cooper stood up in the chamber and said, you've been let down for too long, the state has ignored you. And you are keen to amend the Victims and Courts Bill to remove parental rights from a father conceived by rape. At the moment, that's not the case. Tell us more about that. So loads of people are saying, I don't think that can be right. If you rape somebody and there's a child conceived, you then can't have access to the child. And I'm like, no,

that is right. But that's not common sense. I'm like, yeah, but we haven't had anybody that's been shouting about it in parliament that it's happened to and this is why representative democracy really matters so I I'm gonna put an amendment in I'm working with the government to get the right word in So that we can have an amendment to the bill. I was on the bill committee all day yesterday So that where there is a conception as a result of rape But where there is a conception as a result of rape, the perpetrator has parental responsibility removed so that he cannot then use that child's existence as a way to harass the mother for the rest of her life. We've got 10 births every day as a result of rape in this country.

We're not talking about it. When I. You know, at the time I spoke to my daughter, I googled what had happened to me and how to tell her and how to talk to her about it because I was really struggling. I didn't know what to do. And I was met with academic articles about rape being used as a war crime in countries that are very far away. There was no, there was nothing online. There was no existence. There's no, there's no acknowledgement that it's happening here. I spoke to somebody in the Department of Health yesterday, I spoke to the Prime Minister a couple of weeks ago, how do we get something on the NHS website that acknowledges that children are, you know, you could have been raped and there could be a pregnancy and if

there is, these are your options, this is what you can do about it. If we can start acknowledging as part of the state that this happens and this is not your fault, then that's really powerful. Yes, shame must change sides, but how can it when we're not talking about it? What I'm so amazed about is women just keep coming to me and keep telling me without any introduction, they'll just pass me in the street

and they'll just say, this is my story. And I'm like, this is amazing story and I'm like this is amazing and I'm so glad that you've told me it's not amazing that it's your story but that they're opening out of you that you've told me and how do you I mean you've put yourself in this very public platform but you also have said during our chat that you know Westminster is this alien world for you and also you're reading the comments online and what people still have an opinion on your story and want to share that with you. So how do you protect yourself in that

space when you've got everything coming at you from all sides as a female MP who's been very vocal about something? There is nothing online that compares to that coming from your community people that you care about kids at school your teachers social media wasn't around in the year 2000, instead it was people shouting at me in the street. You know, these are strangers. It doesn't matter, you have to be tough. And I have fought for 24 years to prove them wrong.

It doesn't matter, you know, it just doesn't matter. But what I really want to do is speak out and I'm really grateful to the women that do keep coming to me. And what I'm asking of them is if when you're brave enough, if you're ready when you're ready and if you never are that's okay but tell somebody else too, tell a friend, tell your husband, maybe tell somebody that you trust, maybe tell a family member, because ultimately in this country every single one of us has either been raped or knows somebody who's been raped, but we've got a culture where he did it and she hid it. We've got to start talking about it to change that.

I am now part of a government that is committed to doing everything we can, but in terms of getting societal change, we've got to start having those conversations and we've all got responsibility for that. So if somebody does tell you, you haven't got to fix it, you haven't got to get her to report it, you haven't got to share the story. And then if you're the one that's being shared with, listen to her and believe her, that's all she needs. Natalie Fleet MP who joined me earlier this morning and if you've been affected by any of the issues raised you can find

information on the BBC Action Line website for help and support. 84844 is that text number. Now Loretta Ngobo was an author, a political exile and an activist during South Africa's apartheid. Her political activism led to her fleeing the country and raising her children in the UK, along with her husband AB, an anti-apartheid political leader and a founder of the PAC, Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania, a South African political party. Well filmmaker Katiwe Ngobu, one of Loretta's daughters, has now produced a documentary and she didn't die. The doc, named based on one of Loretta's most well

known novels and They Never Died, tells the story of Loretta's life and Katiwe's own life too. And she joins me now in the studio. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. Why did you want to make this film about your mum? I think I needed to do it. There's a whole range of reasons one makes things, but I wanted to honour her, honour her life, honour her contribution to South Africa, honour her life force. She had quite a life force and really enjoyed living and enjoyed doing a lot of things. So I wanted to honour all of those things. And you've done it. I watched it and she's an extraordinary individual and we're going

to hear all about her. But I started the programme with a story, paraphrasing a story of how this film never could have possibly not been made, apart from that chance incident of a plumber turning up. Will you tell us what happened? You know I'd kind of stopped making the film because it was so hard and I was going to my mother's house in where my mother lives and it's like a nine-hour drive so I was I did a meditation and I was praying so that nothing happened to me on the journey. And I finished and suddenly I heard this water gushing and the plumbing had just, the water had burst. I had to get a plumber in because I was leaving in two hours. The plumber came and as he left the roof, he kicked this box down and it was tapes I'd been looking for

for two, three years, which I wanted, but I couldn't find them. And it wasn't the original tapes, it was the VHS tapes. And when I found them, I knew I had to carry on making the film. What was on the tapes? It was a film which I'd made 20 years ago with my mother and it was these conversations that we had at the time. So it was really important footage that kind of makes it, is an important part of the film because it joins us, me as a filmmaker, her as my mother,

but both of us as storytellers. So it was really important footage for me. Tell us about your mum. Who was Loretta? What was she like as a mum? She was amazing. She was, as I say, she had a life force and she was a teacher, she was a mother, she was a politician, she was a writer, she was a political activist, she did lapidary which is stone crafting, she made jewellery, she just did everything. If it came to her she would do it. So she had this huge life force. What brought her from South Africa to the UK? My father was involved in politics in South Africa and he was part of the formation of an organization called the PAC. In 1960

there was an event called Sharpeville where 69 people were shot by the apartheid government and my father's party was the instigating force of burning passes and that led to Sharpeville. And he was imprisoned for three years by the South Africa. And then my mother was a courier between the prison and the leadership in the prison and the rest of the people. So she would take messages from prison

to the rest of the people outside. And she kind of got, they found out that she was doing it and she had 24 hours, well less than 24 hours to leave the country and she left and she actually left my, I wasn't born yet, she left my sisters with my grandmother and my grandmother had to eventually bring them over to Swaziland where she ended up in exile. And eventually moved to the UK. Yeah moved to Zambia, the UK. Here you are telling her story but in the documentary you also learn about this concept

of the women in your mother's family being the ones who kept those oral traditions alive. Something that you grew up knowing about, were those stories passed to you? Yes, my mother, my great great grandmother was an oral poet and then my mother's mother was a, she used to tell stories all the time. So the storytelling ability was really strong and so my mother would tell us stories of them and who they were. So storytelling was a part of who she was. And she was a great storyteller. She, you know, she's evocative and able to really take you to a moment in time

in the way she tells a story. Which is something within herself that was a natural gift, but also if there's a tradition of it that's passed on, that's quite wonderful. And you mentioned that one of your grandmothers was a poet. Tell us what praise poetry is, because you mentioned praise poetry. Yes, praise poetry is something that happens in... So you have a surname and you're given praises that tell us about who you are. So every child or everybody has praises about who they are, but mostly it's your family name. But my grandmother, my great-great-grandmother would write this oral poetry about her children and give them this poetry. And it was, it's very provocative. I can't say it because I grew up here and

it's very Zulu. But your mother brought you up very much in the Zulu tradition. Yes. Very proud. Very proud. I mean, I know, I mean, I, my sisters speak Zulu better than I do, but we grew up being very Zulu in a very Zulu household and that was really important to her that we understood the culture and where we came from and who we were Even though we were not at home and and she was clearly very brilliant

She was the first woman in her area who went to university Yeah, where did that come from that love of learning and wanting to strive to do something extra? Well, it's kind of so what happened was my great-grandmother went to the school called Inanda Seminary and then she sent her children, her daughter, my grandmother to the school and then my mother and her sister also went to the school. So this tradition and also went to the school. So this tradition and my mother was very, very precociously clever. And so she was at Fortair, there were only 38 women who were at the university at the time in the early 1950s and she was one of them. And those women were from all over the continent and she was really a very rural, her mother was, my grandfather had died so brought her up on very little and she managed to do that and yeah, conquer the world.

Incredible. And then what was it like growing up in London with two parents who are living in political exile with the backdrop of South Africa and apartheid? Yeah, every meal is really an excavation of the past and who you are and what's happened. So we would always be discussing people at home and I suppose my mother was very kind of romanticized it. You know, she'd say that, oh, if you go home, you'll definitely get a boyfriend and they take you by the river and that's where they, you know, you date by the river. Doesn't really happen like that. It was just like kind of a romanticized notion of what life was like.

I love that she's this empowered, brilliant woman, educated, living, we bring you an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an

an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an an archive footage featured in the documentary discussing what exile felt like for her. I could claim nothing. I owned nothing. I knew nobody. I had no rights. I was at the mercy of other people who were themselves at the mercy of other forces. It is a loss of almost everything that you are.

And suddenly the whole aim, the whole quest is diminished. You could write books about anxiety. Anxiety is loss of self. What's it like hearing that? Yeah, it's always very emotional because she was very poignant and she'd say things in a really memorable way. So it's always emotional for me. Great orator.

Yes. Tell me about when she started writing and being published. What was that like for you? What age were you when that happened? I was, it was 1981. She got first got published, but she was always writing. We knew we grew up with her waking up in the morning about four o'clock and she'd write from four to six and then she'd start to go get ready for school and get us all off to our various schools. And so we always grew up with her writing because it was her therapy. It was what she had to do.

It wasn't something that she had a choice about as far as she was concerned. So she would write as far as she was concerned. So she would write like feverishly in the mornings and then, so it was so important for her to write. So that's how I knew her growing up. And when she published, it wasn't really a surprise that she'd got a book published because we'd seen her do it. We'd seen her do it. Not a surprise, but still remarkable. It was- For a black woman in Britain being published back then. Yes, and she was one of the first black South African women to publish in English.

There are only like three others before her, so she was very, very early. like three others before her, so she was very, very early. And here she was the first black woman who did an anthology about black women writers. So one of the things that she did was to bring women who did something together and celebrate them. And so the book which she did, which was called, I forgot.

I'll come to you, I'll come to you, don't worry. But she wrote this amazing book and all of these women were celebrated and that's what she loved to do, to celebrate other people who did what she did. How fortuitous that you filmed her. Yeah, yeah. You know, that you've been doing this over the years. Yeah.

And that you were able to tell this story and make this extraordinary documentary. Yeah. I mean, you know, I want to finish what finishing it. I thought I must do this because I I didn't do it with my grandparents and I wish I had which had filmed them and for someone who works in broadcasting as well. But after watching yours, I must do it with my mum. I must get her to tell me her story. I think we all have to. I mean, if you think about 1066 and the Doomsday book, it was a recording of a moment in time at that time. And I think that we have the tools to make

it much more complex and all record who we are and where we come from because that's so important for our children, our grandchildren, that we know who we are and recording our mothers telling stories about themselves and their history and their past is all part of that. So I'm privileged to have done it but I encourage everybody to do it. And the book is called Let It Be Told, essays by black women writers in Britain. Yes, Let It Be Told. It's a beautiful documentary, there's lovely reenactments, you take us back in time to when your parents first met.

There's so much we could talk about. I feel like you've not just honored her, but you've honored sort of all South African women really. Well I think sometimes, you know, as a woman you become, we're lost in the milieu of things. Men tend to be celebrated more and women are lost and we forget them and I didn't want people to forget my mum. And I know you in November of this year it'll be ten years since you lost Loretta. How do you reflect on her and her work and her life now ten years on? I mean I'm it's taken me that long to make this film so I've been I've been with her all this ten years so it's been it's been a long journey for me and her. And I think she's relieved wherever she is

that actually you did it, Keti. She would be celebrating me. You did it, my baby, you did it. So it would be, she'd be very, very proud. Thank you so much for coming in to speak to us, Katie Way-Nobo, thank you. The first screening of your documentary, And She Didn't Die, is on tonight

at the Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival. Best of luck. Thank you so much. And thank you for sharing your mom's stories. Truly was a remarkable woman, thank you. Thank you, thank you for inviting me here. And lots of you getting in touch with your own stories of the catalyst that made you change your life. Jan says, I changed my life when my husband died. His absence was bigger than

his presence so I closed my business, packed at my family-sized house in Whitstable and bought a small cottage in Somerset. It's been hard work but so fulfilling. I'm settled and very happy. It taught me that memories are in your head, not in your things. And another one here saying, one of my best friends dying suddenly 10 years ago at the age of 48 was a massive reality check for me. It made me realise that I needed to get out of the unhappy marriage I was in. It took me a further two years to find the strength to do it and it was an incredibly difficult time. Life is not perfect for me now but it was the right thing to do and looking back I have no regrets. 84844.

In Fiji music isn't something we do, it's who we are. Music brings everyone together. Music is connection. My favorite Fijian code, it's called Marautico. Marautico means to stay happy. Whatever you go through in life, be positive, stay happy. Experience the real Fiji. Visit Fiji.com.fj to find out more. I'm Andini and I'm looking back on the life of a Hollywood icon whose legacy lives on through more than just her film roles.

She was someone who was interested in invention all her life. She wasn't that interested in the film that she was supposed to be starring in. She was much more interested in the latest invention that she was working on. Who developed an idea so revolutionary that it's still being used today. Frequency hopping. It was used for secure military communications. It's in GPS, it's in Wi-Fi, it's in Bluetooth.

From the BBC World Service, Untold Legends, Hedy Lamarr. Available now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. wherever you get your BBC podcasts. I'm delighted to tell you that very soon Listener Week will be back again with us. This is when we hand the reins of the programme over to you. You choose the topics and we'll dedicate the first week of August to exploring them. Last year you gave us so many new and fascinating topics for discussion. We heard about your life stories too such as Chypheune Daniels who told us about her adventures traveling around the

country in her motorhome after selling her flats and most of her possessions. So get in touch. We want to hear more of your unique stories, whatever they are. Just tell us about them and you never know. You could be on Woman's Hour sharing your tale. Get in touch in the usual way. It's 848 and you never know. You could be on Woman's Hour sharing your tale. Get in touch in the usual way. It's 84844 on the text. You can email the program by going to our website and follow us on social media and slip into our DMs if you like.

It's at BBC Woman's Hour. Now in recent weeks, a number of botulism poisoning cases have emerged in the Northeast. This is a dangerous and potentially fatal reaction to the botulinum toxin used in anti-wrinkle injections. To tell us more is Northeast based BBC reporter, Philippa Goymer. Philippa, you've been investigating the story.

These are people who've, so tell us more. People who've had anti-wrinkle injections using botulinum neurotoxin. Tell us how many cases have there been? So, so far there have been 28 cases of botulism caused by anti-wrinkle injections. Now, we commonly refer to this type of injection as Botox, but Botox is a brand name. Botox is one of seven licensed products for this type of procedure in the UK. At the moment, the people who have got the botulism from this type of injection, it's not yet known if it's come from one of the licensed products

or if it's an unlicensed version of this type of injection or if it's to do with the method that was used when the injection was administered. But yeah, the current total of people is 28. So just to put that into a bit of context, in the hospital where the majority of these people were treated in County Durham, Durham University Hospital, they typically see zero cases of botulism in a year. NHS England, for their latest data that they've got, which is for the year 2023 to 2024, they saw in that year six cases across the whole of England. So it's just in the last few weeks that 28 people are presented. So it's a big number in that context.

And what kinds of reactions have people been having? So the reactions have ranged. The people that I've spoken to have predominantly had symptoms like a drooping eye, difficulty swallowing, so they can't cough, they can't eat. The woman I spoke to, Nicola, who we're going to hear from shortly, she's not able to smile, she's got weakness down one side of her arm, and she's got a young child and that meant for her that she hasn't been able to pick him up or care for him. But I do know that some people have been seriously ill with this. It is a life threatening condition. Well you mentioned that you spoke to Nicola, who is one of the people who's had a bad reaction.

Let's have a listen. I had it before from the same practitioner and then within two or three days I started to feel unwell. Gradually it got worse so I've been backwards and forwards to the doctors, the hospitals trying to find out what was going wrong. And then eventually you went to A&E last week at Durham. Yes. Tell me what happened then. So I went to A&E on Wednesday night and presented and said I'd had Botox previously and been having symptoms

and they got the doctor to see me sort of pretty much within five minutes and we started some tests there and then. And you weren't the only one in that night were you? No there was five of us there at the same time. What symptoms have you experienced? Druping eye, can't smile, swallowing problems, so I can't really eat food, I have to have a drink to get the food down, exhaustion, I just wanted to sleep all day. They kept saying they can't believe that it had happened, it's such a normal thing for people to have.

The injections? Yeah, it's such a regular thing that people have these days, you wouldn't expect this to happen. Where did you get done? I had three areas so forehead and here and frown line. On that occasion that you got that done you'd actually won a competition? Yes. But you'd previously paid for it? Yes from her yeah. Can I ask how much it was? A hundred. A hundred for the three areas. Looking back now and after your experience what would you do differently? Ask questions, ask what it is that's going in. I would never want to have it again. It's really put me off forever.

Yeah, it's terrified me. Now Botox that Nicola mentioned there, Philippa, is actually a brand for the most common treatment. Do we know yet if it was Botox that caused the issue? It's very unlikely that it was Botox. There are investigations ongoing and the brand Botox are collaborating with the UK Health and Security Agency, but it is very, very unlikely. It's more likely, particularly because of how much Nicola paid, that it was an unlicensed version of the toxin. But it wasn't the same practitioner that was responsible for all 28 of these people who've become ill. There are some commonality between the patients, but there are different practitioners involved here. So either they've

had the same supplier or, well, people have been very unlucky. How can it be treated? So in the majority of the cases of the 28 people that have been involved, they have had to have an antitoxin and that is an antitoxin that is made from horse's blood. So Nicola described to me how the hospital staff, the doctors and the nurses had to make sure that in her cohort of people who she was in with because she was one of five people that attended A&E in one night with botulism. They had to make sure that none of them had any allergies to horses. So it's an antitoxin and the hospital, because botulism is so rare, that they actually ran out of their stocks of the antitoxin and had to bring it in from other places.

Might there be more cases? It is possible that there might be more cases. Yeah, one of the issues that people have been talking about this week is regulation. So who is doing the injections and where have they got the toxin from? And how does anyone know if they're getting the genuine stuff or a safe treatment in the first place?

Well, anybody can do Botox in the UK at the moment. We are the only country in the world that anybody can do Botox. You know, anybody can administer it. They are all supposed to get a licensed medicine, one of the seven brands I mentioned before, but it's possible, well, it's entirely likely actually that they are getting it from other places. If you Google it, you can get it on websites quite easily and even get it posted

to your home. We spoke to the Department of Health and Social Care about this and they said that people's lives are being put at risk from people doing cosmetic procedures like this and that they were absolutely looking into how they could bring in regulations around this. Do you think cost is an issue? Because you mentioned, well Nicola said that she'd spent a hundred pounds which doesn't sound like very much for three injections. So do you think that cheaper injections are having an impact? Yeah I do think that cost can be an issue. I mean the range of cost that you see for this type of procedure can range from

a hundred pounds when you see an online advert up to sort of three hundred pounds plus for the same treatment. But I don't think people like Nicola are thinking that they're getting anything different to pay more money for it. I think they think they're getting a legitimate product. I don't think they're choosing the cheaper option and thinking I'll take the risk because I want to save a few quid. I think they think it's all the same stuff. So what happens next? What can be done about it? So the MHRA, that's the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency, they are investigating. We told them about these cases in the North East and they confirmed they're

investigating allegations surrounding the illegal sale and supply of Botox type products in the northeast. Dr Alison Cave, who is their chief safety officer, said that public safety is their top priority and our criminal enforcement unit works hard to identify those involved in the illegal trade in medicines. But at the moment, like I said earlier, it's not yet known if it was definitely an unlicensed version of this type of injection or if it was a licensed version and it's to do with the administration of it. Philippa, thank you for joining me to talk us through that this morning. Our BBC reporter,

Philippa Gohima there. 84844, that text number. I'm going to read another couple of your messages out about a moment in your life that was a catalyst for change. Last year I drove a Canadian friend on a three week trip around Ireland, an item from her bucket list. We visited the Irish Linen Museum in Lisbon suddenly and knew precisely what to do with two pieces of linen,

handmade in 1919, a traycloth and an afternoon tea cloth. They've been passed down to me through my father. I've no children of my own to cherish them. I had good photos taken, ready to hang on my dining room wall. I will return to Lisbon next year to donate the pieces." There you go. And another one here saying, a random ad for adult acting classes came up on my social

media feed. Having just retired, I decided to give it a go. So now in November 2023, I took my first class. Now I'm a full time actor. I have a fabulous agent and I'm currently taking advanced classes at RADA. I wish I could have told my 18 year old self that dreams never die because I am now living my dream, albeit 40 plus years later. It's never too late. 84844 is that text number, keep your

stories coming in. Now after years of being controlled and humiliated by him, in 2011 Sally Challan was jailed for 22 years for the murder of her husband Richard. The sentence was initially reduced to 18 years but in June 2019 she walked out of the Old Bailey, a free woman. The introduction of coercive control as a crime, meaning her sentence was reduced to manslaughter. Her son David Challon, who campaigned relentlessly for her release, has just published a memoir, The Unthinkable, documenting his experience as a child survivor of domestic abuse and how the family came to terms with their histories and new lives over the years that followed. David, welcome to Woman's Hour.

Thank you for having me on. You said you didn't choose to write this memoir. You had to. Why? I think as you were talking earlier, this necessity and I'm going to be swallowed whole by my own story. If you don't tell your stories they go down in silence. And very much my whole life and my family's life lived in a silence of not having a language to give words to what was escalating on our home, which was namely coercive control. So there was a necessity that I found at the end of the story that precipitated a need to get out of my head and onto the

page and that had a meaning to not just so many women and children but also the adult children or children that are going to adults who walk around the world today need to reaffirm and have the ability to claim their survivorship which has been a really progressive thing that I found at the end of my journey. When and why did you start campaigning for your mum's release? When my mum was sentenced to 22 years in prison, it's an unfathomable amount of time and so we made a pact almost together to survive and I remember writing her a letter saying I would keep swimming if she would and this stretch of time was just trying to exist and I never shared too much of myself with her and she lived vicariously through

me which is an enormous toll to, you know, progressing life. You were 23 when she was sentenced. Yeah, 23, young adult, my whole life ahead and I had to achieve for her to make a sense of her wanting to go on. So when the moment came, when there's language course control, it was the moment I held together and knew it was for a reason. And so there was no other way than to speak out and share what I saw and what I witnessed. Can we talk about what happened on that day? Yes, on that day I was waiting tables and I managed to go up to wait to the changing

room and then crooning around the corner after I was trying to discover what I'd done wrong that day was my cousin Noel and behind her was a policeman in uniform and toe and it was like one of those pains you expect to the kid you're about to hit something and it's gonna hurt and she just wanted to get whatever was in her mouth out and she said your dad's dead and so I was shuttled and trying to understand what had happened in a police call to my cousin's home and I had a beachy head crackle through and I didn't understand them piecing it together.

She was on the precipice of jumping off a cliff and a famous suicide spot and sitting there marooned hours on my cousin's sofa, not knowing how I'd be left parentless. So this out ofof-hands surrealism to the events that are unfolding and then this congealing of the reality that she had killed my father. And then subsequently you read the detail of what had gone on between, in your parents' marriage. Do you have any idea?

Do you know what, going back into this book was excavating a child that I didn't want to touch, quite frankly, because there was a childhood that had its place and its happiness and colouring in that background made me scared that what I knew now as an adult would poison it and what I knew and had witnessed in that home growing up was an escalation of control and servitude and the life that my mother lived. And I found out more of that story. I had always seen him gaslighting her, didn't have the language for it, questioning her sanity. He tried to coerce me to make me feel that my mother was going mad. She was just asleep and had a glass of wines.

This is when she was really trying to find out her reality because he had been cheating. You see, my mother was painted as a jealous, vengeful woman, which as much as many women who killed her abused partners are, but she was a woman trying to find her reality from which to leave. 40 years. She met him at the age of 15. He was 21 and that was grooming. And you lived a very middle class life, right? Yeah. From the face of it, you're this sort of perfect, perfect in a very common family. Yeah, the front of my book has a 3D model of my house and it's the pristine frontages

of those homes that we always look past. The prim and proper family shuttled to him from between schools, and they look all well put together. And that was the fallacy of my childhood where I grew up. And I saw not what I saw on EastEnders or Coronation Street, the broken bruises of the bones. It was someone just having a sheen, but falling inwardly from like a cliff, their inward self falling away. And without those words, it left us all vulnerable, all impacted and affected. And so speaking out and giving voice to it, especially in the journey in this book and sitting with that child in that atmosphere and excavating my mother's own life is a combination of so many family stories that I think speaks to so many people and needs to be told.

When your mum went to prison, did you ever question your support for her? Yes, I do. I questioned, I questioned immediately because my father had been killed and I went to identify him and I wanted to take on whatever brutality that I could. I didn't want to flip a switch when my parents left alive. And I think it's really important that I've put this in this book and people don't realise that I just stuck around for my mum. I didn't. It was the reality that she took later on the weapon to the sea and the crime. That was the most difficult thing. How does someone do that? How does someone leave a relationship then go back to a relationship? The old ideas of, well, she had it coming to her because she didn't leave and then

the idea of why did she return? She must have been coming to her. He was coercing her even with post-separational abuse, giving her post-nupcial agreement. He saw her weakness surviving alone at home. I felt that atmosphere, I felt her ebbing away. And I believe loss of control doesn't exist to a fleeting moment. I don't believe it lasts a day. I really felt it lasted for a multitude of weeks. And we need a deeper understanding of coerced control and domestic abuse that I hope this book adds to. Yeah. What was it like the day she came out?

Do you know what it's like a movie? It's honestly, we drove into the prison, no one drives into prison and they let us through the gates and the guard said this never happens and we weren't expected to pick her up that day but it was just let on the sly on bail, she was going to come out, and we drove through the courtyard, and then there was a big fence running from the outer gate to the main building, and then this small figure came out. It was like one of those American kind of prison scenes where her bag of belongings are her life, and walking down it, and we're all just falling into bits, even the guards around us, and there were small windows there. And apparently, when my mum went back, because she did go back to it for a WI event at the prison, they were all rooting for

her and screaming, and so happy, because there's the camaraderie and understanding of so many women who enter the prison system who are affected and impacted by domestic abuse, and who were just left churned up and left more destitute when they left and many of them go back to their abusers. So what my mum's month story was told was so important but I'll never ever forget that moment. This book is about your mum, her story, you advocating for her release, the talk of coercive control, you've mentioned grooming, we started the programme talking about the same topic, but it's also your story and you say in the book that after your mum's murder conviction was quashed the

outpouring of sadness for your mum you just talked about it just then but also people acknowledging what you went through what was that like? My story has been laden with women I'm a women's iron I appreciate I'm a man I appreciate the space and I appreciate as a man I also get a space that not many women have and it was their space that gave me empathy and understanding. A women's national, women's aid national conference, I got up, no one knew from Adam, I shared my story, gripped the paper, looked up after I finished and their faces had changed because they understood the normalcy of this violence and I sat back and they said that this wasn't just my mother's story,

it's so many other women, and I have on my journey had them, many women share that with me, that they be on the same precipice. But that adult child survivors need to be seen and heard for the abuse that they've experienced. The Domestic Abuse Act tells us if you're a child in the home that witness and hears it, you are a victim and we need to claim that survivorship. You know, this violence thrives in silence. Stoicism is amazing, brilliant, but we need to speak out and share these stories because it seeps in these homes and that atmosphere is in this book and I think if we sit with these children, they're all little alarm bells. I had a pit in my stomach at the age of five that something was wrong about my dad. Everything else I normalised and I think excavating these children and sitting with them and giving them a voice

and helping them see for the harms they go on into later life. I got into gambling addiction to try and control my own trauma. We talk about dealing with depression. I talk about depression and children are far more susceptible. I was actually a victim to domestic abuse myself in an intimate partner relationship I was course controlled. That revict monetization, the PTSD, it's so many and I went to self-help groups and so many adults in these groups who no one ever asked what the home life was like and we need to see them, we need to put our arms around them especially with the

work of men and boys. There's so many things I want to talk to you about. I want to, I think you won't, you don't accept that your father was a monster though. You don't like that word. No, I think we've talked about, Giselle Palacote has definitely given us the words and the terminology to say shame must change sides and the normalisation of violence is so routine in this world and they look and present as charismatic men as my father did and they walk amongst us and stop denying that reality. We all have the words toxic red flag. Now let's really get the words coercive control. It's domestic abuse. What are we going to do with that? We're going to support one another, create awareness and say it's

all our issue. What do you believe drove him to treat your mum like that? I'll never know that. Death is the end of all conversations. And I would love at the end of this book, there was a place where I would want to be in a prison where I'd be visiting him. And I always ask if he knew and that strategy. And I don't think he would ever give me that answer.

I think it was all a game. I think it was just the enjoyment and satisfaction he saw, even when I confront him as an adult, just ebb away. And how are you now, David? Great. I mean, this conversation is heavy, but it's out of my head. This thing isn't a book now.

I'm really happy. It means so much to many people. It is a hard read, but many people have said it's immensely gripping and it's written novelistically so that it has a commodification for other people to pick it up. Not being a tomb of misery. There's so much happiness at the end of the story, so much progressive things that we can say and I'm really excited to see what other people make of it. David Chalyn, thank you so much for coming in to speak to me. Your memoir is called The Unthinkable and if you've been affected by any of the issues raised you can find information on the BBC Action Line website for support. And we have a Home Office you can find information on the BBC Action Line website for support.

And we have a Home Office spokesperson's statement saying, the scale of violence and abuse suffered by women and girls in this country is nothing less than a national emergency. That's why we have pledged to half violence against women and girls in the next decade. Do join me tomorrow for Weekend Woman's Hour. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. join us again next time. Hello, I'm Manishka Matandodati, the presenter of Diddy on Trial from BBC Sounds. Sean Diddy Combs is facing a fight for his freedom as his hugely anticipated trial starts for sex trafficking, racketeering with conspiracy and transportation for prostitution.

He denies all the charges. I'll be bringing you every twist and turn from the courtroom with the BBC's correspondents and our expert guests, so make sure you listen, subscribe now on every twist and turn from the courtroom with the BBC's correspondents and our expert guests. So make sure you listen, subscribe now on BBC Sounds and turn your push notifications on so you never miss a thing. In Fiji, music isn't something we do, it's who we are. Music brings everyone together. Music isn't something we do, it's who we are. Music brings everyone together.

Music is connection. My favorite Fijian code is called Marautiko. Marautiko means to stay happy. Whatever you go through in life, be positive, stay happy. Experience the real Fiji. Visit fiji.com.fj to find out more. I'm Andini and I'm looking back on the life of a Hollywood icon whose legacy lives on through more than just her film roles. She was someone who was interested in invention all her life.

She wasn't that interested in the film that she was supposed to be starring in. She was much more interested in the latest invention that she was working on. Who developed an idea so revolutionary that it's still being used today. Frequency hopping. It was used for secure military communications. It's in GPS, it's in Wi-Fi, it's in Bluetooth. From the BBC World Service, Untold Legends, Hedy Lamarr.

Available now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.