Woman's Hour - Peres Jepchirchir, Rhianon Bragg and stalking, Nitazenes, Tortured poets

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

The Kenyan distance runner Peres Jepchirchir won yesterday’s elite women's London Marathon, breaking the women’s only record with her time of 2:16:16. She beat the previous record set in 2017 of 2:17:01. This was the fastest time in a race without male pace makers. More than 50,000 people ran and some gave themselves an even bigger challenge than just running the course. Laura Bird from St Ives in Cambridgeshire ran with a fridge strapped to her back - aiming to earn a place in the Guinness Book of Records. Peres and Laura both join Krupa Padhy.Rhianon Bragg spoke to Woman’s Hour back in February about her concerns for her safety regarding the imminent release of her ex-boyfriend from prison, despite the fact that a Parole Board ruled a few months earlier that such a move would not be safe. In February 2020, Gareth Wynn Jones was given an extended determinate sentence of 4.5 years in prison, with an extended licence period of five years for the crimes of stalking, false imprisonment, making threats to kill and possession of a firearm. Now two months since his release and coinciding with National Stalking Awareness Week, we hear from Rhianon and also Emily Lingley Clark of the Suzy Lamplugh Trust.Taylor Swift’s latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, has just been released. We thought it was a great excuse to look at the female poets, past and present, who could be considered ‘tortured’… Or is it more of a male trope? Classicist and author of Devine Might, Natalie Haynes, and Irish Indian poet Nikita Gill discuss.A BBC investigation has traced how a deadly form of synthetic drugs have been getting into the UK from China - and exposed the role of major social media platforms. Nitazenes, which are illegal in the UK, have been linked to more than 100 deaths in England and Wales since June 2023. We hear from Claire Rocha, whose son died after taking drugs unknowingly laced with Nitazene, and Caroline Copeland, a senior lecturer in toxicology and pharmacology at King’s College London.Presenter: Krupa Padhy Producer: Kirsty Starkey Studio Manager: Emma Harth

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is Krupa Bhatti and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello, welcome to the programme at the start of the week. And there are a number of events from the weekend that we want to talk about. Starting with the London Marathon, maybe you or someone you know took part. We saw Perez Chepchoche break the women's only marathon world record. And what a treat we have. The morning after her victory, Perez is joining us in just a few minutes.

But we know that the London Marathon is as much for first-timers and amateurs as it is for the pros. So we are going to introduce you to Laura Bird from Cambridgeshire, who ran the marathon. Wait for it with a 25 kilogram fridge on her back. Why on earth did she do it? How did she do it? Laura will join me soon. Also on Saturday night, a Spice Girls reunion. Posh, scary, baby, ginger and sporty spice.

They all came together to celebrate Victoria's 50th birthday in London. David Beckham's Instagram video said it all. The Spice Girls breaking out in an impromptu rendition of their hit song Stop. David was then seen carrying Victoria out of the party on his back in the early hours. Victoria then responded in the comments writing, Best night ever. Happy birthday to me. I love you all so much. Hashtag spice up your life. Which leads us to ask you to share your memories of your most raucous reunion. Work, children and other commitments can make it harder as we get older

to get together with your dearest family and friends. So tell us about your epic tales of when you have managed to finally reunite. And this is how you can do so. You can text the programme. The number is 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. Over on social media, you will find us on the handles at BBC Women's Hour.

That's Instagram and ex, formerly known as Twitter. And of course, you can email us, do that through our website, or you can send us a WhatsApp audio message or normal notes using the number 03700100444. And a reminder, all of our terms and conditions can be found over on our website. Also over the weekend, Taylor Swift's new album, The Tortured Poets Department, broke the record for Spotify's most streamed in a single day with 300 million streams. In her own words, the album reflects events, opinions and sentiments from a

fleeting and fatalistic moment in time, one that was both sensational and sorrowful in equal measure. So are poets tortured? We brought together our own team of literary thinkers, Natalie Haynes and Nikita Gill, who herself associates as a tortured poet. And nitizines, the synthetic drugs that are more deadly than heroin and several hundred times more potent. We learned more about the impact that they are having here in the UK. But we'll start with the marathon. The Kenyan distance runner Perez Jepshoshir won yesterday's elite women's London marathon, breaking the women's only record for her time of two hours, 16 minutes and 16 seconds. And she beat the previous record set in 2017 of two hours, 17 minutes and one second. Every second matters. This was the fastest time in a race without male pacemakers Perez is the marathon olympic champion and now the women's only marathon world record holder and

she joins me now congratulations Perez on your win thank you so much so good to have you with us I have to say you look remarkably refreshed this morning are you feeling? I'm feeling good. I'm still happy. I'm still celebrating my win, my record. Yeah, despite the pain of the legs, but I'm still happy. Well, you look very well. Albeit a bit cold, you're wrapped up in your coat. And yesterday we saw you running around at full speed.

Talk about yesterday. It was a chilly start, first of all. How did you find it? Yesterday was very cold weather. The difficulty is the wind. So, so windy yesterday. Yeah. Yeah.

And how did you find running the race? The race, it was fine. I enjoy and I like it. Of course. Yeah. uh the race it was fine i enjoy and i like it of course yeah we saw you um with a group of other incredibly strong female runners running with them in a group and then you broke away in those final moments talk us through your thinking in those moments for, when I was in 40 kilometers, I knew this one, I'm gonna win. So I decided to relax myself and prepare for myself in 600 meters or 400, whichever way I was saying that I was telling my mind that I'm gonna win. Yeah. You are no stranger to winning

various titles, winning various marathons what was it about this one that made you think i'm going to win um when i was in a 41 kilometers i saw it uh this is a record and i think this was a record holder of gender so i told myself no I rather I rather go with this yeah and as someone who was won so many marathons Perez how do you how do you train for the London marathon in particular when you've when you've run so many marathons is it just yet another one or is there specific training that you choose to undertake no I train as a usual I didn't change anything. I didn't change my program. It was just that I train hard and hard because I knew the feeling is strong. So I was having that tension, a lot of tension when I was in Kenya. So I train hard knowing that the competition is high.

You mentioned Kenya there, and I'd love to know more about your background. Did you always want to be a long distance runner? Yeah, I started when I was in school but a little bit but after school I came and I joined road races. I didn't run tracks, track and field when I was in school but when I came out of the school I just joined road race and joined marathon. I don't have history of track and field. But Kenya in particular is famed for having incredible athletes, incredible female athletes. How did you find standing out from the crowd? I think for us it's like it's genes we have a genes of running and then I can say that it's we trust ourselves and like that I trust yourself yeah you trust in your ability

um family back home friends back home how have they reacted? Oh they are so excited they were so happy for me for what I've done yeah I save I can say that I save also the record to back to Kenya yeah. You set the record back to Kenya how did they celebrate and how did you celebrate? Ah for me it was a tears of joy And even my family at home, they were so happy. And we were not expecting to run a record. I was not, especially me, I was not expecting to run a record. I knew it, we're going to go and break it, but I was not expecting to be me. Yeah. You're very, very humble considering your incredible talent. You won a gold medal in Tokyo 2020, the Olympics then. How are you feeling about Paris this summer?

I feel grateful and I feel honoured now I've secured my ticket to Paris. And I'm so happy. I know there it's not going to be easy, but I pray God for the good health and strength to defend my title. I know it's not easy, but I'm going to go and try my best. We will be watching you closely and do come back on to tell us how it all goes. An absolute pleasure having you on Women's Hour, Perez, and congratulations again. I think you deserve an incredible restful Monday, in fact week.

Someone else who might deserve an incredible restful Monday is our next week. Someone else who might deserve an incredible restful Monday is our next guest, Laura Bird from St Ives in Cambridgeshire, because we know that more than 50,000 people ran the 43rd London Marathon this weekend and some gave themselves an even bigger challenge than just running the course. Laura was one of those people because she chose to run with a fridge strapped to her back. Laura, welcome to Woman's Hour. Hello, good morning. Thank you very much. Good morning. First of all, what did you make of Perez just then? This is like a dream come true, being in the same hour as an Olympic champion. Unbelievable. It's like a dream come true. Absolutely incredible.

Well, you've worked incredibly hard as well, which is why you here are on the program first of all or i've got to ask you the question which i'm sure so many people are asking you why a fridge well i did a little bit of research i'm no stranger to an endurance challenge i've done a few in my time and i did a bit of research into uh this uh particular world record and noted that it was only ever a man who had set the record for carrying a domestic appliance for a marathon distance and i thought that's not quite right i think that we need to do this for the girls so no female had ever run a marathon with a domestic appliance before so i thought why can't i be the first one was there any reason why you chose a fridge in comparison? I don't know, a microwave, something lighter, a kettle?

I don't know. I should have just tried a toaster, shouldn't I? That would have been easier. Guinness World Records stipulated that it had to be 25 kilos. And it's very difficult to source a domestic appliance that's sort of exactly 25 kilos. And I found that a fridge was probably the easiest domestic appliance to get the correct weight. The easiest domestic appliance to get the correct weight. So 25 kilograms, but there was more, wasn't there? Yes. So I had a military grade harness that I used to carry the fridge, which was three kilograms. So in total,

I was carrying 28 kilograms yesterday. And how did you do? Well, it was an incredible day and the support and the crowd was just wonderful. Unfortunately, Guinness World Records stipulate that the official record had to be under six hours and I didn't quite make six hours. I got round in just under seven and a half. However, no official record, but still, to my knowledge, the first woman in the world to ever carry a fridge for a marathon distance. There you have it. So much to be proud of. This isn't the first marathon that you've run Laura? No I've done a few yesterday was my 22nd marathon. All with ridges I have to ask all with ridges? No no no certainly not all with ridges I did a charity challenge in 2020 where I ran 10 marathons in 10 days a couple of those marathons were from Ironman triathlons as well.

So yeah, the 22nd was probably the most special though. No strangers to marathons. How do you train when you've got to carry over 25 kilograms on your back? I mean, were you going around town with that fridge strapped to your back? I have a vision here. I certainly was. Yeah, it's been seven months of five to six training sessions a week, both in the gym with the fridge on my back. The looks and the questions that I've got from not only human beings, but horses and dogs. Give us a sense. Give us a sense of what people have been saying. Well, you know what? Considering this is Women's Hour, even yesterday, people would run up from behind and say, well done, fella, or great work. And then look

at me and go oh gosh I'm so sorry uh I still think there's a human nature thing where they don't believe a woman can do that so lots of people mistaken me for a man uh I had to buy dog biscuits just because dogs were quite scared of the big yellow fridge on my back uh people asked me what's in my box people asked me my fridge asking if i can have a piece of quiche from my fridge uh yeah i could write a book with all the sayings and things people have said and would you recommend this to other women considering giving this a go yeah 100 because of of yesterday the money we raised for charity the the time the medal what matters most to me was inspiring not just other women, inspiring anyone to go and chase their dreams, go and be brave, go and put one foot in front of the other.

No matter how difficult things get, put one foot in front of the other and don't be afraid to go and chase whatever dream that you've got. So if one person was inspired yesterday from doing what I did, then job done. Yeah. And I have to say um you're not the only person he was running around with a fridge on their back were you yeah so Daniel Fairbrother we've actually become quite good friends throughout this process um Mr and Mrs Fridge I think we should be um yeah he he got around yesterday as well with with a fridge on his back and did an incredible job so fair play to him and and every other runner out there as well it was just the most unbelievable day yeah are you going to do this again are we going to have you on next year on women's hour again with a different

appliance on your back i think considering how i'm feeling physically today today might not be the best day to ask that question never say never but uh it's a huge, huge sacrifice and commitment to train for something like this. And I loved every second of yesterday, despite how I was feeling. So watch this space. Absolute pleasure having you on, Laura Bird from Cambridgeshire. And before that, the Kenyan distance runner Perez Jepshir, both brilliant women who did an incredible job running the London Marathon. The government has announced it is making it easier for police to apply for stalking protection orders with the aim of addressing perpetrator behaviour sooner. These orders are made by police rather than prosecutors and those who breach the order could end up with five years in prison. Now this report comes today, this comes rather as a report today from the

Susie Lamplugh Trust finds several police forces applying for fewer than 10 in a year, highlighting a conviction rate of just 1.7% of all cases reported to the police. The charity is calling for increased accountability in the criminal justice system. More from their interim CEO, Emma Lingley-Clark, in a moment. But first, in February, Rhiannon Bragg spoke to us about her fears for her safety regarding her ex-boyfriend's imminent release from prison. Despite a parole board hearing deeming it unsafe, he was released. She had previously been stalked and threatened by him after ending the relationship. He was arrested three times, but no further action was taken.

Later, he held her hostage at gunpoint for eight hours. In February 2020, Gareth Wynne-Jones was given an extended determinate sentence of four and a half years in prison with an extended licence period of five years for stalking, false imprisonment, threats to kill and possession of a firearm to which he pleaded guilty. Now two months after his release and marking National Stalking Awareness Week, Rhiannon joins us again. Thanks for being with us, Rhiannon. Thank you for having me. Previously, you shared your concerns for your safety living in rural North Wales and there

are strict licensing conditions in place and you can't discuss with us all of these details. But how have you been since we last spoke to you? Well, obviously it's a challenging time. What we try and do is we try to lead life as normally as possible. You know, speaking as a mother of children, living on a small holding, we're just coming to the end of lambing. And a lot of that's the fact that if we're not able to do that, then it would be absolutely devastating.

And part of being stalked, part of one of the very normal reactions is that you actually make your world much, much smaller. And that in itself is a hugely devastating thing to happen to anybody. So as you said, we're totally reliant on the authorities through the robust license conditions that have been put in place to safely manage the offender throughout this next part of the sentence. But it's, yeah, we try our best, but it's not easy. I think it's fair to say, I know at times, I hope I appear fairly normal,

but actually there's quite a thin facade. And I've had a number of sharp reminders about how raw the trauma that was caused really is. Those sharp reminders. Can you talk us through them? So part of what I what I've been left with essentially is PTSD and there'll be triggers. I won't specify what sort of triggers but you can feel absolutely fine you're carrying on life in whatever way you normally can and then it could be something it'll be a bolt from the blue and it takes you right back and it's an incredible reminder about how really vulnerable you can feel in these situations and one of the things that I have always

maintained, although I do appreciate I've been told legally it's not the case, is that the worst of the offences that I experienced for me was the stalking. And that a behaviour where someone else can behave in a way towards another person that actually leads them to feel that they would consider taking their own life as a way out. And part of that, again, it was to do with the response that I had from the authorities when I approached them, because by that time I had engaged with police, matters had gone to the CPS and things hadn't moved further forward. So this is why I think it's really important to be having these conversations and to look at the report that the Susie Lampley Trust have published,

which paints a horrific picture, but also to welcome the changes on how stalking protection orders will be implemented. Although there's, in my opinion, an awful lot that needs to change alongside that to make it effective. You mentioned your children in your opening answer how are they um they can be perfectly normal children a lot of the time getting homework done isn't always easy they've all been significantly affected by what we've experienced um they They all show and have shown behaviours that are, and there's a range of behaviours, classically controlling. There is support in place for them. It's been an incredibly damaging and difficult time,

which I hope we now move forward from. And one of the things I'm often asked about, and you hear this a lot with domestic abuse for stalking people, what actually happened? What actually happened? And for me, with the children, I think the easiest way to perhaps describe it to an audience is to think that if you forget about any specifics and just imagine that as their mother,

as the single parent who's looking after them, I'm essentially removed from that picture, from that role, and that they were then a rudderless ship for so long at such a formative time of life. So I'm incredibly proud of how they are and how they carry on with their lives. And I hope it'll be, yeah, that moving forward, that they'll be able to continue to build in a positive way from what's been an incredibly difficult time. Thank you for sharing that with us, Rhiannon. Listening to Rhiannon is Emma Lingley-Clark, interim chief executive of the Susie Lampley Trust, which runs the National Stalking Helpline and has supported over 75,000 victims to date. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Emma, what do you make of what Rhiannon has just said? We completely agree with everything that Rhiannon says in terms

of her experiences as a victim and the way that the system is responding to it currently is not sufficient and it is a full system response that's needed. We often, you know, our frame of information focused on particularly the police and the CPS. But our theme for Stalking Awareness Week this week is actually about how every agency has a responsibility to deal with stalking. I think Rhiannon herself has talked about the various people that were involved in her case and how she felt supported or unsupported by different people. So we need to keep a focus on the fact that this is a whole system that needs to make stalking a priority. Well, let's talk in a bit more depth about that freedom of information request that you put in. That was a request to police forces. What did you find? So unfortunately, we were disappointed with everything that we found in some ways, because it really showed that there is a lack of accountability across the system in terms of us being actually able to identify what happens to victims as they go through the system.

So we asked about forces that might have a dedicated stalking specialist officer, so someone whose job is to deal with stalking. And actually only seven police forces had one of those within their force. And actually 12 didn't have one at all. And we didn't actually even ask the question in terms of what a specialist officer would, you know, how much training would they have? And one of the things that we know from our experience

is that often stalking specialist officers don't have any more training than another officer. It might come as part of their job, but it's not from that day one. But we also found, I think, as you've talked about in terms of the SPOs, the stalking protection orders, the numbers are still shockingly low. They were introduced, you know, to try and provide immediate protection for victims, recognising that the danger that victims of stalking are in, and yet that's not working. And I think we're also seeing, unfortunately,

some decreases in the number of reports of stalking in some police forces, which for us is just not acceptable. Rhiannon, you've told us how you felt that you were let down by the way that the North Wales police dealt with your case, and since then you've been working with them and others to make things better for victims. Do you think the issue of stalking is being taken seriously enough by police now,

at least by police and others? I think it's a real patchwork in how it's handled. And yes, I work closely with North Wales police. And just as an example, at the time, the stalking wasn't recognised. I was a stalking specialist officer. Although I know recently, more recently, since Chief Constable Amanda Blayton has come on board, there is now a specialist stalking officer in North Wales. And it just shows that change, it is possible and it is achievable.

And I absolutely, as Emma said, to have a specialist stalking officer in each force would be an absolute minimum in order to manage this. But they need to be alongside this mandatory training for all involved in all authorities with stalking, stalking cases, stalking victims. Because if professionals involved don't know what to look for, if they're not aware of the range of stalking behaviours, if they're not aware of all the tools that could be used to manage these behaviours and for intervention, and if they're not aware of, if there isn't intervention, where this behaviour can lead, then things like the Stalking Protection Order will never be used in the numbers that they should be. On this, the National Police Chief's Council lead for stalking and harassment, Deputy Chief Constable Paul Mills, has said, Over the last number of years, we have improved training, rolled out the use of stalking protection orders and launched a new assessment tool to assist officers to identify and better act upon the signs of stalking.

In addition, we have introduced embedding dedicated officers and forces to better support and safeguard victims. However, we know that there is more to do to improve criminal justice system outcomes of victims in these cases. Emma, can you outline to us just how prevalent stalking is? That's really important for us to better understand the degree on which this is happening. So it's estimated that there's about 1.6 million victims of stalking every year. It's about one in five women and one in 10 men in their lifetime will be a victim. So it's hugely prevalent in society. But then when we compare that to the number of reports, if you think 1.6 million cases of stalking, there's only 116,000 police reports. So there's

a huge discrepancy in terms of the number of people that are actually reporting there's a lot of talk about the role of stalking advocates can you just explain what their role would be um yeah so stalking advocates are basically there to support the victim um with what with kind of whatever they need in a sense it's one of the things they really do is provide um emotional support but they're also a key part is to safety plan so to help advise the victim on things that they might be able to do to work around some of the stalkers you know behaviors risk management so identifying the level of risk but then one of the other key things they do is actually will advocate on behalf of the victim to agencies so they will go to the police and they will, in a sense, demand the service that the victim is entitled to on behalf of that victim or working with the victim themselves.

Yeah. In terms of the role, therefore, of stalking advocates, I wonder, Rhiannon, whether you feel like this would have been useful in your case. Sure. I mean, if I'm honest, I learned about stalking the hard way and it was a horrific nearly fatal experience. I was fortunate enough I suppose to be able to self-advocate in some way throughout the system which I realize is something that the majority of victims would not be able to do for all sorts of different reasons. I strongly believe that independent stalking advocates, which are sustainably funded, should be mandatory within this process to guide victims through what is a really complicated time. And remember, these are victims who are traumatized, and it is unreasonable to expect a traumatized

victim to know what to do to achieve the best outcome for themselves. You know, we often hear that it's expensive, that we can't afford these things. But I strongly suspect that if there had been an independent stalking advocate to support me in my situation with what was happening, then actually the cost that would have been saved, or to put it the other way, the cost that was spent on my situation

would have actually funded a few advocates for a few years. On that law of Ferris, Minister for Victims and Safeguarding has said stalking is a complex form of abuse and it can have a devastating impact on the lives of victims and their families. Sadly, it can end in the most tragic circumstances. We must continue to treat stalking with the utmost gravity, having doubled the maximum sentence and introduced a new civil order to protect victims. We know that there is more to be done. Lowering the standard of proof that must be met to grant these orders will make a big difference to how easily victims can access protection

and that she will continue to work closely with the police to improve how they can support victims of this disturbing crime. Which leads me to an important question to you, Emma. Can you explain the numbers of stalking victims there are in comparison to the number of convictions? So when obviously in terms of 1.6 million cases and then we have 116,000 reports, that was up to March 2023. And then we're looking at about 1,955 of those reported that were actually convicted. So it is that 1.7%. It's shockingly low. It is. It's really, really low. And that there are, you know, there are a number of reasons for that. But ultimately, is because the system is just not recognising stalking for what it is, and also for the harm that it causes not just you know in the worst cases where it results in homicide but actually the psychological harm that Rhiannon obviously

talks about and often that is not recognised as significant harm so it's almost downplayed. Important to highlight some forces are working well on this. Yep so we've worked with a number of forces, Cheshire, London, Hampshire and Cambridgeshire around the development of multi-agency stalking intervention programmes, which is where we bring together a team of police, probation, psychologists and advocates to work to actually start from that very first moment that the report comes in to really identify risk and put in place risk management options, but also starting to make sure that the perpetrator is going to go in the right you know the right direction get the right outcome in court

but making sure the victim stays at the centre of it because I think often what happens in the criminal justice process is the minute the victim reports they're almost seen as a sort of a sideline to it it's everything else kicks in and actually the victim is the person who needs to remain at the centre and particularly with stalking they are the one who's potentially been managing that stalker for probably a lot a long time before they've even reported so actually the information they have about the behaviours that might be happening is crucial to anything that goes on. And what more do you think needs to be done? So we would like there to be a multi-entry stalking intervention programmes in every single police force area.

That would be our ideal solution. We'd also like to see every force rolling out mandatory training. And we've also put out a request for £243 million of ring fence funding for stalking advocates. That would allow us to provide really comprehensive support to as many victims as we can. It still wouldn't allow us to support every one of those 1.6, but it would help us to get to those that need it.

Tell us more about super complaints. Yes, so we launched a super complaint against, basically asking the police to look at the systemic issues within the way that stalking is dealt with. So it highlighted a number of issues such as lack of training, but also things like stalking being what we call mischarged. So it will go through as it be identified as stalking. But then in terms of the investigation, it might then be downgraded to harassment and when that happens what you're doing is taking away the fact that that perpetrator is fixated and obsessed with the individual and also the sentences aren't as long and all of those things so it really can have a massive impact then on the way that the victim's

safety really. Rhiannon I also want to talk to you about your work collaborating with police forces on a separate issue concerning gun licenses specifically you've been working with Gwent Police to develop a questionnaire administered by firearms officers to the partners of gun license applicants how might this prevent potential abuse? Well, what it does, it's changed the part of the gun licensing process from being a checklist into a much more investigative process. So it recognizes that domestic abuse is a significant risk and that something needs to be done about it. And it now brings into a questioning of other householders, it may be partners, a long set of questions which will help draw out whether or not there may be domestic abuse present. And one of the reasons for my input was that, yes,

shooting is very much part of rural life. Our perpetrator was a licensed firearms holder. But actually, although it had been five years and got pretty awful, I wasn't aware that I was in an abusive relationship until I went to the police and was told that. So it was very much climbing at a mindset where, how can this information be drawn out in that sort of situation? And the bottom line is that nobody who is in any way abusive

should have the privilege of holding a licensed firearms. And we've been able to trial this now for 12 months in a few forces across the UK. And the trials have shown to be really positive all round. And it's been incredibly encouraging and really cathartic coming from where I've come from and what I've experienced to be able to be part of it. To share what you've gone through and based on that and reflecting on your own experiences and what happened afterwards, what would you say to someone who thinks that they are at risk or are

being stalked? It's very much a case of reaching out in whatever way you're able to and you will remain safe in doing so and to keep a record of the behaviour. One of the massive issues with stalking I feel is how the behaviours, the stalking behaviours are minimalised. People can be very dismissive about it, well it's not actually that bad, they're only doing this or they're only doing that. It's one of the issues why i strongly feel that mandatory training for all authorities involved uh because if that then moves on to when it's reported uh the the behaviors are minimized it's it's it's quite frankly deadly um so to reach out to get in contact whether it's through the national stalking helpline whether it's to the police directly whether it's to the National Stalking Helpline, whether it's to the police directly, whether it's to the GP, but to contact somebody and the process then of keeping the victim safe

and managing the behaviour of the perpetrator can begin. Rhiannon Breck and Emma Lingley-Clark, thank you both for joining us here on Woman. 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 The Con, Caitlin's Baby.

It's a long story, settle in. Available now. I have been asking you to send in your thoughts and experiences, memories of epic reunions. This is following Victoria Beckham's or Posh Spice's birthday party, a 50th birthday in which the Spice Girls reunited. Stella in Leeds says, me and my three best friends Sally, Carol and Nicola have beaten

the Spice Girls to it. In full Spice Girls costumes, we performed Stop at the 50 Fest, a concert to celebrate my husband Paul and his friend Howard and Stephen's 50th birthdays back in 2008. We we were rubbish but it was brilliant fun our daughter grace age 10 was baby spice and this is from karen in hong kong who says a very special group of friends are reuniting in a few weeks in bali we met in the early 2000s in singapore we became each other's sisters

as our group of kids became each other's cousins. We call ourselves the Red Wine Club as we would meet every Friday by the pool with bottles of red wine. After 20 years, we are coming from all over for a reunion. What is truly wonderful is that the tiny kids running among the pool 20 years ago are now grown-ups meeting with each other in Europe. Another generation makes new memories. Well, Karen, I hope it goes really, really well.

Thanks for being in touch. On to something a little different. You have probably heard the news by now. Taylor Swift has released a new album, and Spotify has said it broke the record for the platform's most streamed in a single day. This is her 11th album, and it's titled The Tortured Poets Department. So-called, as Taylor Swift herself explained on social media,

because she is, I quote, of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it. And then all that is left behind is the tortured poetry. Well, she is known for her vulnerable lyrics and critics and fans alike have been dissecting every word for clues about her personal life over the weekend. But they'll do a bit of that as well, because we thought the album was a great excuse to look at the female poets past and present who could be considered tortured. Joining me to discuss are the classicist

and author of Divine Might, Natalie Haynes, and the Irish-Indian poet, Nikita Gill. Welcome to you both. Thanks for having us. Thank you so much for having us. Hi. Hi, Natalie. Let me start with you. You call yourself a tortured poets archivist. How far back does this trope of tortured poets go? Well, at the very, you know, least I would say Sappho. Certainly if we're looking at poetry in classical antiquity, the Mediterranean, Sappho is, we have only three of her poems from nine books of lyric poetry that she wrote. The rest is all fragmentary, but she manages to pack a lot of torture into the fragments that we have. And so one of my very, very favourite Sappho poems, this is fragment 31 for anyone who's reading along at home, is where she begins,

the man who sits opposite you seems to me to be like a god. And it's a poem so brilliant that Catullus, no slouch in the tortured poetry department himself, translated it into Latin or adapted it to the Latin in the first century BCE. And this is, I think, the first time we see love being turned into a medical condition. So Sappho looks at this man who's sitting opposite this beautiful woman and her heart is racing. She feels hot and cold. She goes, well, in Greek, she goes green. We would say pale, I think, because we see color differently from the ancient Greeks. She's not nauseated is what I'm saying. And so she has like a physical response to desire. And this idea of medicalizing desire is something which will obviously go on to become a huge theme in love poetry and indeed in love songs for, well, you know, we're just past two and a half millennia and counting.

So well done Sappho, thanks very much. It clearly runs deep. I wonder whether you can give me a breakdown, Natalie, of the criteria almost to qualify for being a tortured poet. Well here's my probably ideal example of how it works. You have to want someone and they have to not want you back or want you less than you want them. Or they did want you, but now they don't want you. And this is Sappho's particular bete noire. So she summons Aphrodite at one point with a prayer. And Aphrodite turns up because Sappho writes a very good quality prayer, obviously. And Aphrodite, the goddess of love, a very good quality prayer, obviously. And Aphrodite,

the goddess of love, the person who can make everything okay, says, you know, I've come to you, Sappho, who is it you want back now? Oh, here we go. This is exactly the kind of person she is. So you need to be the person who feels love, the lover rather than the beloved, essentially. And you need to feel uncertain about the object of your affections. And ideally, of course, you need to be able to express that in glorious, spectacular, eon-lasting poetry. It sounds a mighty challenge with something that sounds quite grim. Nikita, this feels like a good time to bring you in. How do you feel about the title of tortured poet as a poet yourself?

I actually think it's a bit redundant to call a poet a tortured poet, right? Like I was joking with a friend of mine, like, isn't that all we do? Like our whole job is to bear witness to the world and grieve for it. And obviously, as Natalie said, unrequited love is a favorite for poets. We love a bit of unrequited love. So it's like, I think most poets, I would say, have like at least three existential crises a day. So yeah, we are very good at that aspect. I was joking with a friend of mine and saying like, isn't the collective noun for a gathering of poets a torture of poets surely at this point but yeah um we're very like I think historically that this is what we do is just bear witness and and grieve and and rejoice in the world and so I do need to ask you are you a tortured poet oh like I would I I don't think I think if I were a metaphor and they said like you know I I don't

experience an existential crisis um I would be like oh I would I would be like that's a bit sus but yeah I I would definitely classify myself as somebody who grieves a lot especially for the world um in the state that it's now um and witness to it. So I would classify myself as. And we were having this conversation in the morning amongst the team as a tortured poet. Do you write about other people's behaviour or do you also reflect on your own? Oh, I think all of poetry, so much of it at least,

is about introspection. The only thing that you know is how you are reacting to something. And that reaction is what we're constantly writing down, the insular language of a poem or, you know, the poetics and the meter and the rhyme, all of that comes in after. But like the real core and the rawness of the poem is how we're feeling on the inside about something on the outside, really. Natalie, I wonder whether male and female tortured poets differ in your opinion. No, not hugely. I mean, this has been a historical problem for classics, of course, because we have almost everything that survives just from the ancient world, which is almost the smallest percentage of what was actually created in the ancient world. But almost all of it was written by men. And generally, when we have the work of female poets from classical antiquity, it's because men

in the past thought they were good. So Sappho was in antiquity was considered to be the 10th muse. So brilliant a poet. She's practically not human at all. But you also get these sort of moments of people trying to attribute women's poetry to men. So Sulpicchia, who is the first century BCE Roman poet, so she's writing in Latin. We only have six little poems by her. They're between two and eight lines long, I think. And they're just great, but they have a sort of emotional immediacy to them that you simply don't, you find in Catullus, but he's so angry.

The rage isn't there for her. Her poems are much more like it's her birthday, but she doesn't want it to be. She's like, oh, my awful birthday is here and I don't want it. And the answer is why? Because she has to go out of town on a lovely trip with her uncle, which means she can't see her boyfriend. And that seems to me there's something to do with her lack of agency in this poem that you wouldn't find it in a man's poem because he would have the

right to say, no, I don't want to go to the country. Whereas she has male guardians. She can't. She's a teenage girl. She will never be free of male guardianship unless she has, you know, three children and then gets freed, you know, officially by Augusta. Anyway, it doesn't matter. And so she's going to always have this existence where her behaviour is dictated by men. So where isn't it going to be? Well, maybe on the page she can say what she actually wants to say to the boyfriend she loves. Which is really what Taylor, we think, has been trying to do in her album. So much so.

Well, let's talk about that because her lyrics, they're often assumed to be about her real life relationships. Everyone's trying to figure out who she's exactly talking about. Is Nikita, tortured poetry always based on real life experiences? I think I've always said that poets are the emotive historians of mankind. Our job is the history of the human heart, which is be at least a kernel of reality of truth of of something in there that makes somebody read it and go oh oh yes i know this in some way in my own life yeah taylor also signs off the album saying all is fair in love and poetry from the head of the tortured poets department i wonder if this is something that you, you know, have to call yourself as it might be seen as an insult if someone else says it. is fair in love and poetry but we also have a great responsibility for how we write about the

people that we have once loved and how we write about the people that we we are in relationships with now um and it's one of the biggest things that i feel responsible for when i write my work because words are powerful things and they can do a lot of damage or they can do a lot of good and you as the as the writer have the power to do either or. Especially with someone who has Taylor Swift's platform, I would say that responsibility magnifies X amount of times, doesn't it? I feel like that's the perfect note

on which to end our conversation. Some food for thought there. Thank you so much, poet Nikita Gill and the classicist Natalie Haynes joining me there to talk about Taylor Swift's new album. Maybe you've heard it. Tell us what you thought of it. The Tortured Poets Department doing so well on Spotify. You might have heard of fentanyl, the man-made opioid that is causing huge addiction and health issues in America. But have you heard of nitazines? Well, nitazines are a group of

similar drugs manufactured mainly in China that can be five times as potent as fentanyl, and their prevalence in the UK is growing. The UK National Crime Agency reported 101 deaths in the UK alone between June 2023 and February this year. And tonight, a special investigation from the BBC looks at netizens in a new documentary, The New Drug Threat. Joining me now are two people who were involved in that investigation and documentary. They are Claire Rocha, who lost her son Dylan

when he took heroin that he didn't realise had been cut with netizens. And Dr Caroline Copeland, a senior lecturer in pharmacology and toxicology at King's College London. Thank you both for joining us here on Women's Hour. Claire, I will start with you. Tell us a bit about your son. What was he like? Okay, so Dylan, he was a character. He was musical. He was clever, he was intelligent, he was caring, he was daring, he was charismatic.

Overall, he loved his music, he was a musician and that was his love of life, really. A central part of his life. What happened to him? So, he was

obviously a very social person he loved his friends he was out all the time um he did have his dark days um when he would be very down um and he i think he was trying to we'd obviously tried to intervene with counseling um and various things but i think he was ultimately trying to self-medicate by the use of drugs. We had been to the doctors, the GP had given him antidepressants but I don't think it was working fast enough for him despite me telling him how long it was going to take. So he was looking elsewhere for other alternative reliefs really and found his way up the chain eventually, sadly, to heroin. When we found out that was the case, we'd got him into rehab

and he was doing really well for a good year or so, I'd say. And as far as we all know, it was going well. And then it turns out he had taken some more heroin. And this contained a dose of an amount of nitrosines that he would never have known were there. It's a silent drug. And that's ultimately what led to his death. Of course, we are so sorry to hear about Dylan. And we are grateful that you are trying to raise awareness of nitrosines. I wonder whether you had ever heard of nitrosines ahead of this point? No never never and everyone I've questioned really have never heard of them either which is I think the really scary thing

it's a really potent lethal drug and no one's ever heard of it and it's becoming much more prevalent out on the streets the first I'd heard of it was when it was in Dylan's toxicology report. And even then I didn't really realise the significance of it. Even at the inquest when it was talked about, it wasn't until the guys in the BBC were doing the documentary when I suddenly, the penny dropped. Oh, actually, this is a big thing, and this is actually what killed him. This is a big thing, and that's why we are talking about it.

Dr Caroline Copeland, tell us more about what nitroxenes actually are. So nitroxenes are a type of synthetic opioid. So they're made in a lab unlike naturally occurring opioids, which can be grown in the opium poppy. Now, these are a set of synthetic opioids that are newly emerging on the illicit drug market. But they're actually really old drugs. The first few of them were developed in the late 50s, early 60s. And they were trialled for use clinically. But it was decided then that they were so potent that they were too strong for clinical use and so their use in healthcare was discontinued, well didn't even start. Why are we seeing the number of people accessing or using nitazines

growing in the UK? So I don't think that people that are using them actually realise that they're using them as in the sad case of Dylan. People are buying drugs that they think are something else and it's been adulterated with nitazine. Why are we seeing them? They're synthetic, so they're easy to make, they're quite cheap to make. And because they're so potent, you only need a small amount to be smuggled and trafficked that then can be diluted at destination. And that's what makes them more appealing, I think, to drug gangs than the naturally occurring heroin, which requires land and good weather and farming equipment, harvesting and so on and so forth.

So I think we're sadly seeing a move in general towards a lot of synthetic drugs in the UK. We've spoken about just how potent it actually are or the nitroxenes actually are. Are you able to explain what that actually means physically? Obviously in Dylan's case it resulted in death but what are the impacts on the body on the mind of taking nitroxenes? So just like any opioid they will produce a level of analgesia. But in larger quantities for other opioids, you then go into slowing breathing and then stopping breathing. Now with the nitroxenes, they're so strong that you sort of would almost bypass any of the clinical effects, which is why they weren't continued for use there, straight into respiratory depression and stopping heart rate as well.

So I think the weakest of them are a similar potency to fentanyl. And we already know fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. And then the stronger ones are 5, 10 times more potent than fentanyl. And that should really explain just how strong these are when we're talking them being multiply stronger than fentanyl. Yeah, it's a worrying situation and we appreciate you highlighting the health impacts there. Let's talk about awareness. Claire, obviously no mother

wants to go through what you have gone through you and your family have gone through what would you say to a parent who might be concerned that their child or loved one might be at risk of taking possibly accidentally taking nitrosines i would say um definitely education on on exactly the extent of this problem at the moment um um if they're aware they're taking drugs make make sure they know that nitroxenes are a thing and they're out there and they can be in anything it's not just the hard hard hard drugs like heroin it's found it can be found cutting all sorts of things like cocaine and other such like things that people see as more like a maybe a drug or something, I don't know.

But not, you know, sort of hardcore heroin. That sounds like a big, big, big drug user. But I mean, it can be in anything. And it's really important that they know that it can be in there. They're not going to know it's in there. They will not be able to tell it's in there. Caroline, it can be in anything, what Claire has just said. How can you tell if a drug has been caught with nitrosine? From a user perspective, that's very difficult because they're so strong. You only need the amount of a grain of sand to be included in a tablet or a bag of drugs.

So you're never going to be able to see it. In terms of testing, there are some nitazine test strips that you can dip in a bit like a COVID test or a pregnancy test to see if nitazine is there. But a problem with some of those strips is that all because nitazine may or may not be there or picked up, that doesn't mean that that drug is safe and that there might be other synthetics that are in there. So they could potentially give a false impression of safety if it's not picked up a nitazine. There is a postal drug checking service in the UK called Wedinos based out in Wales, where people can submit a sample of their drug along with the first half of their postcode.

And you can say what it was that you intended to buy and they'll test it and then actually post online what it was that was purchased but that will take some time and we need more in-person drug checking facilities. One recently opened in Bristol which is a really good step forward and we need more of those places as well because they aren't just there to for people to test their drugs but that's an opportunity for intervention to provide them with naloxone which is the rescue medicine for an opioid overdose, provide them with advice on accessing mental health services and drug services which these people might not have previously engaged with.

So they're really valuable facilities. Let me bring you a Home Office statement on this. It says tech companies must do more to swiftly remove this type of content and provide users from being exposed to it by tech companies. They're talking about various platforms that the BBC documentary highlights that have been said to be advertising nitizines. We've been told by these tech companies that there has been an intensive operational effort to track down nitizines and that quantities reaching the UK remain low. A tightening of

the law means that anyone involved in production or supply could face life in prison. Claire, what do you want to see the government do on this front? I want to see a lot more done, really. Bearing in mind everyone I've spoke to so far knows nothing about nitizines and they're becoming a massive problem. A lot more awareness, education around it. I want people to know exactly what the dangers are, how how prevalent it is out there and and possibly look at you know things like the testing centers um obviously ideally the people wouldn't be taking the drugs in the first place but if you are going to take it then be as safe as you are dylan thought he had taken therapeutic amounts of heroin so that that should have been safe, inverted commas, but it wasn't.

It had something else. Thank you so much, Claire Rocha and Dr. Caroline Copeland. We appreciate your time here on Woman's Hour and that documentary, The New Drug Threat,

is available now on iPlayer or it will be on BBC One in the South at 8.30 this evening. And I should say that there is plenty more information and support about drugs and addiction on the BBC Action Line website. Thank you to all of your messages that you've been sending in on all of the conversations that we are having. Those do, of course, continue over on our social media pages. And of course, you can get in touch by email as well. Tomorrow, we are going to,

and I should say a very important point that rightly highlighted to me by the team that nitizines are illegal here in the UK. And the documentary highlights more details about this. Tomorrow, I'll be speaking to a mother whose son has a condition called ARFID, which stands for avoidant restrictive food intake disorder. And it's when certain people avoid certain foods and limits how much they eat. We are going to talk more about this. So do stay with us and do join us tomorrow for plenty more.

Thanks for listening. There's plenty more from Woman's Hour over at BBC Sounds. To the uninitiated, I would describe my family by saying we are very passionate people i'm cardiff born cardiff bread and when i die i'll be cardiff dead we're musical there's a lot of big personalities all of our family perform in some way whether entertainment or just emotionally performing we are hilarious to be fair. Extraordinary. I really do enjoy life. I don't worry about dying tomorrow because tomorrow's never going to come.

That's how I would describe my family. I'm Charlotte Church, and I'm inviting you to listen in on a series of intimate and special conversations about belonging, working class identity, and the unbreakable bonds of family. So come and kick back with the Cardiffians, babes. Listen on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year,

I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this?

What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.