Woman's Hour - Russell Brand allegations & a 'staggered age of consent' with Baroness Helena Kennedy & Gudrun Young KC, Dr Susan Gilby

Episode Date: September 19, 2023

Yesterday on Woman's Hour, one of Russell Brand's alleged victims, 'Alice', called for a conversation around changing the age of consent in the UK, to what she called 'a staggered age of consent'. It would mean individuals between the ages of 16 and 18 could legally have sex with one another, but there would be legislation in place to prevent adults having relations with 16 to 18-year-olds, as there is the potential for a power imbalance in this dynamic. Emma Barnett speaks to Baroness Helena Kennedy and Gudrun Young QC. Lucy Letby was recently convicted of murdering seven infants and attempting to kill six others while working within the Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit between June 2015 and June 2016. We talk to Dr Susan Gilby who joined the hospital trust as medical director and then chief executive a few weeks after Letby was arrested. Two weeks ago, Birmingham City Council issued a 114 notice which means they can’t balance the books to meet their spending commitments this year.  The tipping point appears to have been a £750 million equal pay settlement and it’s feared many more councils could be in a similar position. Emma talks to Heather Jameson, Editor of the Municipal Journal and to Peter Marland from the Local Government Association which represents councils in England about the problems they’re facing.Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Studio Manager: Tim Heffer

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to the programme. Today I'm really feeling like some of us need to pace ourselves as life can really be a long game and a good one too because it's very cheery to see and cheering, I should say, a very happy looking 100-year-old Loretta Boston in the newspapers this morning, I don't know if you've

seen this, under a headline talking about the rise of centenarians, 100-year-olds. And you guessed it, more women are reaching the age of 100 than men. And while the research by the Office for National Statistics has some stark warnings about whether we're prepared for that in this country, Loretta, whom I really hope is a Woman's Hour listener, and she turned 100 last October, says she's very busy. The days go by very fast because she's got her music, her family and her friends. And tasks take a bit longer than they used to. Amen to having a busy life then for longer. Perhaps you've got a reflection on whether

you'd like to get to 100 or not. And perhaps you are 100 and you're listening. I would always love to hear from you. You can get in touch. The number is 03700 100 444 on social media at BBC Women's Hour or text me if you want 84844. Just be aware of data charges, all terms on our website. We'll be talking a bit more about that research later. Elsewhere on today's programme, we'll talk about the continued fallout of women belatedly winning equal pay cases and local councils needing to cough up and fast. But can they? And as consultants and junior doctors in England stage their first joint strike in the history of the NHS. I'll be joined by the former chief executive of the hospital where the serial killer nurse Lucy Letby worked.

And there are some more details about potential other cases there. Also, I should say, after yesterday's programme, my first back in nine months, many, many nice comments there. Thank you very much and lots of you being in touch. I'm very grateful. I'll try and get back to as many of you as possible. We've also had a deluge of comments and very powerful messages about my interview with a woman we are calling Alice, who made a sexual assault allegation against the comedian and actor Russell Brand,

which he denies, along with all of the other claims raised by the Sunday Times investigation over the weekend. He denies all of these claims. But in yesterday's Woman's Hour, Alice, as we're calling her, her words were voiced by an actor, she's calling for the law to be reviewed around the age of consent. If you heard this or caught up later, you'll remember she was 16 when she began a relationship with Russell Brand, who was 30 at the time. And that was a detail a lot of you picked up on. Today, I would like your view on,

as we discuss the law around consent in this country, can you give meaningful consent as a 16-year-old with a much older partner? Should we go as far as to changing the law? Do let me know, those same numbers, 84844, if you would like to text, at BBC Women's Hour for social media, or email us through the website. Do get in touch, already some of you have, and you would like to text, at BBC Women's Hour for social media or email us through the website. Do get in touch. Already some of you have and I will come to some of those messages. But yesterday, with that interview, one of Russell Brand's alleged victims, Alice, she's called for a conversation around the changing of the age of consent in the UK to what she's called a staggered age of consent. And by this, she meant that individuals between the ages of 16 and 18 could legally have sex with one another,

but there would be legislation in place to prevent adults having relations with 18 to 16-year-olds as there's a potential for a power imbalance and the abuse of that power in this dynamic. In the UK, as long as a person is 16 or older, there is no minimum age gap for relationships unless the older person is a teacher or in a position of authority where different rules can apply. I'm sure there are other details and I'm going to be very well equipped with some legal, brilliant legal minds in a moment to talk about this in detail. But let's just remind ourselves of the woman that we're calling Alice, what she had to say in our interview

yesterday, which you can hear in full on BBC calling Alice, what she had to say in our interview yesterday, which you can hear in full on BBC Sounds, but what she had to say about her mother not having a legal framework to intervene in her relationship with Brand. My mum didn't, there was nothing that she could do to protect me from being in that relationship because she had, you know, breakdowns about it. And people say, well, just call the police.

And then what? I was legally allowed to be there. I think we should at least start to think about changing it because perhaps we can suggest the idea of staggered ages of consent. You know, there's a reasonable argument individuals between the ages of 16 and 18 can have relations with people within that same age bracket so that we don't have adults exploiting a 16, 17 year old's capacity for sexual determination. That was Alice. How practical is such a law? Could it work? Let's talk to Gudrun Young-Casey, a barrister specialising in criminal defence.

And I've just been joined in the studio by Baroness Helena Kennedy-Casey, a barrister and a Labour member of the House of Lords. Gudrun, I'll start with you. Good morning. Do you think it would work, a staggered age of consent in the UK legal system? Good morning, Emma. No, it is the short answer. As you've already identified, we do have a staggered age of consent when there is a structural or institutional power relationship. So, for example, and the law already caters for this, if someone is in a care home or an educational institution and they are aged between 16 and 18 and someone has a sexual relationship with them, although they are technically over the age of consent, that is already criminalised. And in my view, the law has gone as far as it should in terms of criminalising relationships between adults and people over the age of 16.

And the real question is, if we were to expand it further, where does it stop? And let me make it clear. I listened to the interview with Alice, as you're calling her. She spoke powerfully and very eloquently about her experiences. And I don't think anyone listening could have failed to have been moved by it. What I understood her to be saying was that although she accepted that she was technically over the age of consent at the time, that in reality, as a 16 year old, she wasn't emotionally mature enough in a position to think through the consequences of her actions and to

appreciate the consequences and to act in her own best interests so she was calling for a conversation to try and see how we could sort of protect people who are over the age of consent from themselves and that's a really really interesting important conversation to have but to do so in my view we need to look to much larger issues in society in terms of structural power relationships between people gendered power relations disparities of power between men and women in terms of influence economic power status and age all sorts of conversations that can be had about that. But the law is not the instrument to do it from your point of view. The law is not the arena.

Let me come back to you in a moment. But Helena Kennedy, Baroness Helena Kennedy, I'm sure I'm ready to get in on this. Do you think the law can be used? Well, I think the law can be used, but where it's best used immediately would be for the sentencing council to make it very clear that judges should be taking into account whether

allegations of rape, as Alice is making an allegation that she was forced into sexual relations by her aggressor. And so in those circumstances, it seems to me that there should be an aggravation in that it's seen by judges as being an aggravating factor that there's a disparity in age. Someone's between the ages of 16 and 18. You're a man who's 30 and perhaps so much older.

And therefore, the likelihood of power imbalance and coercion is very real. And in sentencing, I think that that should be taken into account. So that's a sentencing? That's a sentencing proposal. And I suspect that Gudrun would probably agree with that, that that's a thing you can move on fairly quickly. Changing the law is much harder, as we know. Because we are just, and I will let you make this point,

but we are getting messages as you're talking, saying, I completely agree with changing the age of consent to 18. That's one of the proposals. Can that happen? Should that happen? I think that becomes very difficult because there's no doubt that if you were to do research across the country that 16 year olds have sex, but often and most often with other people who are 16 or 17. And I think that to prevent that and to become an interventionist state that doesn't let that happen, denying the fact that people are sexually active quite early, particularly now. So I think that's a problem. That would create a serious problem.

The issue here is about age disparity. Someone taking advantage of their greater experience and maturity. And that is an issue for the courts but I think that before you could change the law there would be a lot of passage of time and the thing to do more immediately is to change the sentencing powers of courts and let men know

let men know that if anything goes wrong it's going to be taken into account and that it's inappropriate behaviour on behalf of a grown man. And you think you could do that with the tweet to sentencing and how judges put that forward good room what did you want to say like if i can just come back back on that so so far as that that's concerned of course alice made also um allegations of non-consensual sexual acts within the within the relationship which would be a criminal, if true, and of course, Russell Brand denies it, if true, would be criminal regardless of her age. And so far as criminal sentences are concerned for sexual offences, it is already statutory aggravating

features if there's a big disparity in age between victims and defendants. That's something that the courts do take into account. Do you think people know that, Gudrun? People don't know it. Do you think they're aware of that? Because it's an interesting, sort of picking up on your point about the sociological side of things and how we shift as a society. Is that best, is it known as much as it could be? It may not be.

And certainly I agree with Helena that the message should go out by society to men to educate them and to make them aware that having sexual relationships with much younger women, if offences are committed in the course of that, that that's something that can be taken into account and men there are all sorts of things as I've already said that I think that about education and empowering women and educating men as well and challenging and looking at why it is that we live in a society which fetishises youth or men relationship let me let me bring our listeners into this because as I mentioned and I want Helena to come back on this. We received a message yesterday which said, as a new mother of a daughter, your item, I think this was referring to me being a new mother of a daughter actually, about Russell Brand must have taken on a new dimension.

For me, the listener, I thought that what Alice said was really interesting and sad, and I really sympathise with her adult re-evaluation of her experience but I also see a weakness in her position regarding Russell Brand. He says the relationship was consensual and clearly at the time it was. I'll just make the clarification there is an allegation of an incident which she's saying was not. She made every effort to evade her mother's reluctance to support this unequal partnership. Why? It must have had something for her, which then, looking back, she regrets. So why am I writing to you? I was 17 years younger than my husband, now deceased. I had known him since I was 12. At that time, he flirted with me all the time, but there was no inappropriate physical behaviour, but it meant that when I married him some years later, I had been effectively groomed. The point I'm making is that the law

cannot legislate against an age gap between partners. The age of consent is 16, but the law cannot then say you can only consent to certain relationships, but the law cannot be equivocal. I have no time for Russell Brand. I feel for his alleged victims, but he'll get away with his alleged behaviour if there are more stories like Alice's. Helena Kennedy, what do you make of that? Well, I mean, I think that largely she's right. Men have, since bygone ages, have gone in pursuit of much younger women. And in many societies, still, marriage with very young women is commonplace. And so teenage women have a great attraction for men. So the difficulty I

see here is that I think juries, you've got to remember that a young woman would have to go into court and be used as a witness as to the nature of the relationship. And a young woman like 17 might say, but I wanted to be with him. I liked him. I didn't, my mother was wrong. We had a very equal relationship. You don't know what she would say and whether she would recognise that she was being coerced. So juries, I think, would in the end find it very hard to convict in the way that they do now. I mean, it's a fairly automatic thing.

But coercive control has obviously come into law as well. Absolutely. And there's a greater understanding of what that means, but it's still posing challenges to courtrooms as to what really amounts to coercive control and what people accept. And often people who are being coerced don't themselves recognise it. A few more messages. I completely agree with the changing the age of consent. Reads this one. I was 16. My teacher was 32. I know it's different, but I didn't know any better. I thought it was love. And my parents didn't have the knowledge to protect me. We've actually covered how the law would cover that

particular relationship. I'm a 60-year-old woman. At 30, I had a relationship with a 17-year-old that lasted for many years. It was extremely positive for both of us. We're still friends today. The idea that this could be seen as criminal by a change of the age of consent fills me with horror. Age is not the issue. In terms of just another element of this, which I'm aware our listeners were getting in touch with us yesterday about, Gudrun, just to you and then back to Helena, the idea of what's going on here again, this bigger area of women not necessarily going to the police, but going to the media, a grey area that has opened up. Some call it, if you want, in tabloid parlance, trial by media. What do you make of that? Because I asked somebody yesterday and we had a screenwriter on, Daisy Goodwin, who had accused somebody in the Conservative Party, a former candidate for the London mayor who's denied Daniel Korski all of her allegations.

Very different to what's been alleged of Russell Brand. But I asked her, why didn't she go to the police and why didn't she make a complaint? And actually, she tried to make a complaint to Downing Street and she didn't think it met the threshold for the police. So she wrote an article in The Times newspaper. There's a grey area. And as a KC, as a lawyer, what do you make of that? Well, I'm not a media lawyer. Let me make that clear. But I also listened with interest to that to Daisy Goodwin talking on the programme yesterday. There is a real problem, as she identified, with trial by media. And one of the difficulties with the Me Too movement,

encouraging women to speak out and all the rest of it which we which obviously has many many positive and powerful parts to it is that it's possible then to accuse people of very serious sexual offences in a tweet with huge damage, reputational damage, people losing their jobs and matters of that kind so we have to be really careful about this. I think in this situation there was a very very thorough and detailed investigation by newspapers who checked and verified things before matters were published. And I think there's got to be a distinction to be drawn between that. But there are clearly real dangers of just being able to make accusations in the media. Having said that, I think it would go too far to say that nothing could ever be published about anyone unless there had been criminal charges and convictions brought. So there's a balance to be struck. Emma, can I just, if I may, just return to this issue in terms of consent, because I think it's really important to be clear about this.

The law requires clarity so that people know when they're breaking it and can be held to be clear about this. The law requires clarity so that people know when they're breaking it and can be held to be criminally accountable. The age of consent is by necessity a somewhat arbitrary one. There are some people under the age of 16 who are mature enough to be entering into relationships and to know what they're doing. There are many people over the age of 16, over the age of 18, who aren't, for a whole host of emotional and psychological reasons, capable of thinking through the consequences of their actions and acting in their own interests. And it's simply not the job of the law to deal with all of society's ills in terms of structured power relationships, etc. And we also have to bear in mind that sometimes people can have

relationships with people who are in a position of power over them or who are much older than that are perfectly healthy and normal. So how is the law to legislate for this? It's simply unworkable in my view. You've left that final thought in our listeners' minds. Thank you very much, Gudrun Young. I can see you're dressed for court. So I will let you carry on, Casey, a barrister specialising in criminal defence. Baroness Helena Kennedy, final word to you if you wanted to pick up on either of those points. Of course, I mean, I agree with Gudrun. I mean, law is imperfect,

but there has to be certainty around it. But what I do want to say is that women are going to social media, going to journalists, making their complaints in different ways and not taking them to the police because of the loss of confidence in the criminal justice system. And so it's a way of throwing a brick through the windows of the criminal justice system. It's a form of rebellion against that because they're saying you failed us. And so we've got to listen to that.

And I think that here you're hearing from women who are saying, you know, we made complaints. We did go to different people we weren't listened to. And so the criminal justice system has to be examining itself much more carefully. Do you want to live to 100? While I ask you, you're a Labour member of the House of Lords. Do you know any of, we're talking about this research today, that more and more of us and a greater number of women are living to 100. I just wondered, you may know a few 100-year-olds in the House of Lords. I don't know.

There are certainly quite a number of people in their 90s. Look at Joan Bakewell, for example. I would only want to live into that great age if I had all my marbles. I think it's pretty miserable if you haven't got that capacity. I think that's probably a sense of it shared. Sorry for the curveball, but I thought it was an interesting one to get your take on. I'm not saying you're anywhere near it. Getting there, let me tell you. I'm sure you'll still be on this programme when you reach, I hope, very healthily that age. Baroness Helena Kennedy, thank you very much. Casey and Barrister, as well as a member of the House of Lords. There you go. Many messages coming in on this. It's something that a lot of you have got a view on.

But on the point of being 100, my auntie Joey will be 100 on Friday. She is a lovely woman whose history encompasses events such as her boarding school, being evacuated to Wales during the war. And we have a photograph of her sitting her school certificate in the garden in 1940. And then there's a bit more detail about that. But she never married. So her three nieces, me and my two sisters, became her children. And she's very precious to us. And this Saturday, she'll be wearing her favourite outfit for her party, says Jenny. Well, many happy returns to her.

And we'll get a bit back towards that subject a bit later on in the programme. Now, some of the biggest political stories at the moment are not happening in Westminster. They're happening near you, up and down the country, because the financial difficulties faced by local councils are starting to hurt those who pay the bills. It's been described as a perfect storm of fragility. Two weeks ago, Birmingham City Council issued a 114 notice, you may remember this, which effectively means it's bankrupt, after announcing a £760 million equal pay liability.

It's expected the government will announce emergency bailout terms later today. This was one woman's reaction at the time in Birmingham, I believe. Oh my God, I've never heard of such a thing in my life. How can the council be bankrupt? Well, on Thursday, Anita Rani spoke to Ria Wolfson, who heads the GMB Trade Union's Equal Pay Department, about another equal pay claim it's bringing, this time on behalf of approximately 1,000 women working in the care sector, because they're now employed by an outsourced company, a council subsidiary, which has affected their wages and pension rights. it depends because there's lots of different jobs in there so we're looking at between one and three pounds an hour difference um but the total m wages we're looking at are potentially losing between three and five thousand pounds a year in the difference so it's a really big discrepancy but it's not just pay it's pension and pension is so important so for the sunderland care workers

the predominantly women they are getting an employer contribution of 3%. Their male counterparts directly employed by the council are getting an employer contribution of 13%. That is a huge difference and that adds up over the years. So actually we see that the net result of pay discrimination, pension discrimination, is that older women are the most economically disadvantaged group in society. And no wonder they're facing this throughout their career. How important is gender in this? It is everything.

The pay discrimination practices that we're seeing are very, very clearly gendered. We're seeing, yes, the chronic undervaluation of work predominantly done by women. So we have care, teaching assistants, catering, cleaning, work that I think lots of us would articulate as really understanding the value of, but it isn't reflected in their pay packet. It just isn't. Are the claims by Birmingham and now Sunderland just the tip of the iceberg? I mean, Glasgow before that. some form of discriminatory practice everywhere we look. And so if there are any employers listening, I would really encourage them not to think of Birmingham as an exception, but as an example of what practices they should be looking out for, because we are finding them everywhere.

And some people say that these equal pay claims are going to tip many councils who are already facing difficulties. I mean, is this the right time? It is really important that we have a conversation with government about central government funding because the financial situation is completely unsustainable. But we can accept our public services being run on the back of stolen wages from women workers. It's not credible and there's never a wrong time to fight for equal pay.

Maria Wolfson there. Well, I'm now joined in the studio by Heather Jameson, the editor of Municipal Journal, who's been responding and reporting on this sector for two decades. Good morning. Hello. In Birmingham, we heard that woman's reaction and now there's concerns about Sunderland

and what else is going on around the country. Can you give us a picture of what's happening with local councils and their bank balances? Okay, well, it's important to start. The starting point for this is really that actually we've had more than a decade of underfunding for local government. So the finances are on a knife edge in a lot of places. And in addition to the underfunding, councils are facing massive rising pressures on social care, on services for people who are being hit by the cost of living, on inflation.

And we're now looking at, you know, the Local Government Association is suggesting about a £3 billion funding gap over the next two years. So, I mean, this is not isolated to Birmingham. Birmingham is very specific in the issues it's had with equal pay but everywhere is we're reaching a stage now where even councils who have done nothing wrong are really starting to struggle. But not going bankrupt? Well we're possibly looking at about a quarter of councils at risk of their finances collapsing. The most extreme levels are saying up to about a quarter, but certainly there are a lot of places where they are,

if not running out of money, then certainly services are starting to crack. And is that underfunding, all of that? I mean, apart from where there's been a major legal case and women haven't been paid which of course at Womza we keep a keen eye on but is that underfunding chronic underfunding as you would describe it by successive governments or is it mismanagement or both? I think it's both I think some of the things that we've seen thus far have been mistakes made. Local government is not one homogenous organisation. It's 400 or so organisations nearly across the UK. So it's not that there's not been mistakes made. There have

been. But we are starting to see even the best run authorities are struggling. And in terms of moving ahead and how potentially if your local council is struggling, I mean, first of all, I probably should ask a political point. That's always good to do, isn't it? Labour and Conservative, is it split equally? So in terms of equal pay, traditionally, Labour authorities have struggled a bit more because they tended to keep their services in-house, whereas Conservative authorities would have outsourced. But now we've seen with the Sunderland issue that that's actually an arm's length company. So I think you might start to see the council workers who were outsourced going through this now.

The management of the books? The management of the books. the council workers who were outsourced going through this now. But in terms of... The management of the books? The management of the books. Is there a political party that's doing better? Not really. It's been, I think... Equally awful? Generally, what's been happening is we've had quite a lot of councils

who have tried to make investments in order to boost their finances. And that's gone up. Equally awful or equally good? I mean, depending on what they've been finances. And that's equally awful or equally good. I mean, depending on what they've been doing. Is that what you would say? I would say both are suffering, both sides. Both sides. OK. Because obviously there are some councils, I remember, you know,

I've covered some of these stories in the past where they've done really well and they've come out in the black that year and, you know, they want to talk about that. But that sounds like it's bucking the trend with this wider climate of what you would say is underfunding. For some, they might take a step back and say, has it failed the experiment, in inverted commas, of allowing local councils to have their own budgets, decentralisation? I don't think the issue is decentralisation per se. I think the issue is decentralisation with a lack of funding and a lack of ability to raise funds themselves. So, for example, councils can't raise council tax above a certain level.

And council tax is only a very small proportion of funding for local authorities anyway. It's not the entirety. There's a belief for a lot of people that that's what pays for all their services. It's definitely not. It's central government. Yeah, it's both. It's both. Okay, thank you for putting us in the picture. Let me bring in, that's Heather Jameson then, let me talk to Peter Marlin, spokesman for the Local Government Association, also leader of the Milton Keynes City Council held by Labour. Good morning. Morning.

Just to say, because we've talked about equal pay throughout this because of the Birmingham case, are you confident that you aren't going to have an equal pay case in your council? Yeah, I spoke to our Treasury manager, our finance officers last week, we are pretty pretty confident of that but as heather just said it depends often how you structure services and a lot of our services where a lot of the equal pay claims have come particularly around waste management we milking council outsourced that back in the 1990s so um from from a risk point of view i think milton keen city council is relatively low but um what i would say is that obviously every council is different and every claim is different and ultimately some of them will be in court and it's a matter it will be a matter for the judge and the evidence but right now you've been able to right now you don't you don't have any of those

cases that you are expecting just so we we can see that at the beginning. No, but like all councils, we have had one in the past. You have. OK. Did you manage to pay the women the bill? Yeah. All right. Well, that's good to establish. Heather, just one more point before I go back to Peter. Women and children using council services and now councils really suffering at times, as you're saying, across the country. Tell me about that. OK, so bare minimum of services will continue.

So the statutory services and things like children's social care, adult social care, homelessness will be protected. But they'll probably see cuts. So if you are a woman who is looking after your elderly parent or a disabled family member, you might get less services. And then you're going to see other services like leisure, kids clubs, youth services, things like that are likely to face quite a lot of cuts. Things like charity funding, and most worrying for me, things like that are likely to face quite a lot of cuts. Things like charity funding and most worrying for me, things like domestic violence support, things like that might end up being the victim of some of the cuts that councils are going to have to make to balance the books. Don't forget, unlike the NHS, councils have to balance their books every year.

Is there a horrible irony that you've got women who have come forward with equal pay claims, potentially then fast-forwarding the bankruptcy status of councils, and then it will be women bearing the brunt, in some instances, of council cuts, Peter Marland? Yeah, absolutely. A lot of statutory services, as bins are universal services, whereas I think Heather just pointed out a lot of non-statutory services such as domestic abuse services are not statutory.

And councils often will cut back to the minimum on those. There are other great examples such as where councils intervene with children with disabilities or adults with disabilities councils with huge budget gaps have had to limit the level of service that we give to those children or those adults to the very highest needs when most councils would want to help people with lower needs because i think it that that preventative aspect saves a lot of money in the long run but when you haven't got that money up front it's very difficult to do. The government is expected to announce emergency measures today to help Birmingham City Council. The authority said it can't afford to settle this claim. It's thought commissioners could be appointed to take over

some of the council's operations. Do you welcome that intervention? I think we will see what Michael Gove has to say about the level of intervention and what that intervention means, because I think the new leader of Birmingham, John Cotton, has seemed to get a grip on this. There are decades, decades of problems in Birmingham. I think Heather will tell you we go round and round around the circle about whether Birmingham's too big, whether Birmingham's too small. Right, but just to bring people back to that woman, you know, sometimes it takes a woman's exclamation

to almost cut through the news agenda and how politely we all talk to each other. I mean, when that woman said on the day it was announced of this notice being filed by Birmingham City Council, what do you mean the council's gone bankrupt? I mean, what do you say to her? You're not just talking to me as, you know, part of Milton Keynes. You're talking to me as a spokesperson for the Local Government Association.

Do you see why people just throw their hands up and not understand why they can't really rely, they feel sometimes, on their local government and their local council? Yeah, I mean, where I would pick you up about whether you're saying whether they're all awful or whether a handful are good there are nearly 400 councils in this country and over the past 10 years after 30 years of massive cuts to local government i think eight have gone bankrupt there's been 10 bankruptcy notices i think croydon issued three so on the whole it's okay councils do whole, councils do a very good job

and have done a brilliant job of actually managing around about 50% loss overall in the past 13 years. Where Birmingham and other councils... Sorry, I know you are the spokesperson, but from what I was just hearing from Heather, it doesn't sound such a rosy... I know you're putting it in context, but it doesn't sound a rosy picture in terms of the funding that's available and what you can do with it absolutely not because

over the past 13 years local government funding has been degraded by such an amount that actually a vast majority of councils I would say are now approaching are on the precipice of really difficult decisions and bankruptcy. But there's also been mismanagement as well. Yeah, at a number of councils over the past few years, I would say that the councils that have issued bankruptcy have had really severe issues. But what we are getting to now, again, as Heather has said, is that even well-run councils are just running out of money.

We are on the precipice of a real financial disaster and coming back to birmingham the problem with birmingham is not just mismanagement that's taken place over decades it's that when something like an equal pay claim comes up in the past they paid out 1.1 billion pounds worth of equal pay claims um if any council now is faced with a huge bill of any sort you know we are we are looking at racking buildings we are looking at we're looking at equal pay claims even down to say planning decisions going against the council uh and legal costs the the state of local government finances is they cannot take those big hits because they are using reserves to balance

budgets and deliver everyday services. Peter, do you think the lesson's been learned? You've got to pay women equally? I would hope so. You would hope so? I would hope so. But do you think it has been? I'm not going to answer that question in terms of everybody in local government, but in terms of Milton Keynes Council I can say I think we did learn the lessons. So I mean sorry hang on I think that's quite I think that's quite striking I'm not trying to hold you to account for everything but you are the spokesman for the LGA the Local Government Association and if I ask you do you think local councils all of them have now learned the lesson especially seeing what's happened to Birmingham that you've got to pay

women equally to men for equal work. You can't say either way. I think they've learned the lesson, absolutely. But the problem with the first pay claim is that it was 20 years ago. We're now in 2003 and another pay claim comes up. I keep coming back to the point, I mean, the issue that you were talking about before. You know, there seems to be this 20-year rule in life, doesn't there, where people say oh it's 20 years ago it's a long time ago 20 years ago was 2003 it's not the dark ages you know we should have been paying women equally that is absolutely true my mum was

the recipient of an equal pay claim about 10 years ago and it is sad that we've come back around to this but the reality is is that these issues are complicated. So, for instance, you were talking to Ria Wolfson from the GMB. The GMB tend to represent sectors in up for pay claims, such as bin men, where bins are obviously a huge issue for every single person in this country. Bin men tend to get higher settlements or tended to get higher settlements than, say, co-workers. But the problem with that is bin men tend to be men and co-workers tend to be women. So you may not see this pay disparity over a longer period of time. It is an important nuance.

I am going to have to leave it there. We have also covered those nuances before, as I'm sure you know, on this programme. Peter Marlin, thank you very much for your time there. Heather Jameson, thank you to you. In July, the Department for Leveling Up Housing and Communities launched the Office for Local Government, known as OFLOG for short, to support the performance of local government.

We did ask someone from OFLOG to come on the programme, but no one was available. Instead, I have a statement for you which says, all independent employers, including local authorities, have a responsibility to ensure they act in line with employment legislation. Unequal pay for equal work in the public sector is unacceptable. The department stands ready to speak to any council that has concerns about its ability to manage its finances. Thank you to both of my guests on that. I'm sure some of you have something to say and I'll take a look at those messages if I can.

But many also coming in about the age of consent as well and our laws. Well, coming to a case of the law which has continued to be in many people's minds, the nurse Lucy Letby, who has remained in headlines despite being put in bars, behind bars, excuse me, for the rest of her life after murdering seven infants and attempting to kill six others while working within the Countess of Chester Hospital's neonatal unit between June 2015 and 2016. She's in the headlines because yesterday Dewey Evans, a paediatrician who gave evidence at her trial, alleged she might have killed three more babies and tried to murder another 15. And last week, Letby's legal team has lodged an application

for permission to appeal against all of her convictions. Last month, she was handed 14 whole life orders, meaning she will never be released from prison. Consultants who raised concerns about the nurse as far back as 2015 have said babies could have been saved if hospital management had listened and acted sooner. Well, let's talk about hospital management and how it works with Dr Susan Gilbey. She joined the Countess of Chester NHS Foundation Trust as a medical director

a few weeks after Lucy Letby was arrested in 2018. And a year later, she rose swiftly to be the chief executive of that trust. I need to also say at this point, she has a case against that hospital trust with an ongoing tribunal. We can't get into the details of that. But just to say that's her former employer. She alleges she was bullied, harassed and intimidated and undermined by the hospital trust chairman. And she alleges she was unfairly dismissed by that foundation trust after making a formal complaint. And to that point, the trust has said there are significant points of dispute

between Dr. Gilby and the trust. The trust denies all allegations she has raised and a number of active internal investigations are in train and the trust will not provide any further comment whilst those investigations are ongoing. That said, Dr. Susan Gilby joins me in the studio now. Good morning. Good morning.

You had a start to your job first, as I say, as medical director within this trust at the Countess of Chester Hospital specifically. And I believe that was linked to discovering certain papers about the neonatal unit. Lucy, let me, as I say, in the headlines again. Tell us about what you discovered. Yes. My first encounter with the Council of Chester Hospital, having been appointed a few months earlier, was at the beginning of August in 2018. Lucy Letby had been arrested by the police a few weeks earlier. Does that mean she wasn't working at the hospital at that time? That's right. But she had been up to that point. So having had the normal introductions that you would expect, there were many things discussed, and this was obviously one of them,

but there was very little said about it prior to my arrival. But having had such a recent action by the police who saw fit to make an arrest and therefore had substantial evidence to put to Lucy Letby, I was very surprised to arrive at the Trust and find a very fixed view about events. And rather than the shock and the horror that one might expect, there was a very firm opinion that no criminal activity had taken place. And the concerns were largely around

the paediatricians who had been raising concerns by now for a number of years. And I will never forget the fact that one of the last things said to me by the outgoing medical director was that I needed to refer those paediatricians to the General Medical Council. I was also asked to take steps to arrange mediation between the paediatricians and the executive team, as relations had totally broken down. So these were people trying to raise the alarm? Correct, yes. And they were the ones, if you like, having to be handled? That's how it appeared to be when I arrived.

That was the biggest concern, rather than a member of our staff has been arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder of a number of babies. She didn't come back to work after that? No, she remained on police bail until the time of charge in late 2020 when she was taken into custody. And what did you discover in terms of papers? Well, I obviously decided that I needed to find out for myself what people had been saying and what the background was, because the dichotomy between the police actions and the trust view was very stark. So initially I spoke at great length to Dr Stephen Breary, who was the clinical lead for neonatology.

And then prior to my meeting with Dr Jaram, I found in the old office of the medical director a cache of papers of a number of documents which once I'd gone through them very carefully led me to believe that the trust had indeed handled this very badly and there were some very very serious concerns here in terms of potential opportunities to have called the police in earlier. Like what did you see? What made you think that? Well, it had been made clear to me that there was no cause for concern because a number of reviews and reports had already been commissioned and no concerns had been found.

However, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health report was clearly a service review and didn't in any shape or form look at the events surrounding the deaths or collapses of babies and need to make it very clear that in neonatal units, even in adult intensive care units, you don't have patients just who are doing well suddenly collapse and die. So the terms of reference of that review did not address those concerns. And then possibly more importantly, the review by an independent neonatologist of individual cases had been presented to the board and was described to me as being a comprehensive review, which hadn't found any concerns. But in fact, when I looked at

that, it was a very perfunctory report, which didn't go into the details of the cases. Why do you think this was happening? Because there is the other side of this, which I know you also have thought about, I'm sure, that Lucy Ledby was a manipulator and was trying to hide very much what she was doing. But why do you think the management of the trust didn't seem to perform their role as you're describing it? There were a number of issues.

First of all, there were some issues with governance and process and accountability. But overall, the issues seemed to be cultural. And it was very clear to me, having presented my view as a fresh pair of eyes to the executive team and particularly to the chief executive and their view not changing that and in discussion with the then chairman Sir Duncan Nicol that we needed to commission an independent report to understand those reasons but that report although I know it is it is complete in terms of the uh the content has not yet been shared. It was a cultural issue between the executive team and the doctors,

but there were other issues in terms of relationships between interprofessional groups. The data wasn't being used and scrutinised in the way that I would expect it to be. But why, this is, I mean, this is a lot of important detail, but why, why? I mean, the cultural issues, what does that mean? Is that people, you know, not wanting to know what's going on? Is that people scared, you know,

in sort of away from data and documents, if I can just for a moment, what do you diagnose is going on there? And I'm also very aware we cannot talk about it, but you yourself now have a live tribunal going on a live case against your former employer. You know, I just have to say that because you're making judgments, of course, on the people that you were working with

and around at the top of this organisation. Well, in actual fact, the people at the top of the organisation at the time of Lucy Letby's crimes and even in the intervening period are not the people who are there now, with one exception. There is one non-executive director still on the board who was there at that time. So your point is what you're saying is delineated? Yes. OK. But what's the answer then, do you think, to that question?

It was about relationships and the unwillingness to listen, lack of curiosity. It seemed to me that particularly in relation to paediatricians, consultants, not necessarily because they were paediatricians, raising concerns that they were just difficult people and there wasn't a culture of listening. There was a culture of seeing to be kind and Lucy Letby really manipulated people into believing that she was being victimised and that they were the bullies and the accusers. With a fresh pair of eyes could you see what then was proven in court? Absolutely. I'd only been there for a matter of days before it became very clear to me that these babies had not died of natural causes and there was very real concern about how the concerns raised by the paediatricians had been addressed and the fact that an arrest or at least an investigation by the police should have and could have commenced much earlier.

I mean, did your blood run cold? It was horrifying, yes. I mean, just to say, you're a medically trained, you're a consultant anaesthetist yourself, you're an intensive care specialist. Yes. You actually had one of your babies at this hospital. I did. My youngest son Cameron was born there in 2006. And you've just taken this job in a senior management role I'm sure with with good intentions of of what you want to do

in that job. I was delighted to be there. Right and you had this personal connection and then within days you're looking across documents which are showing you that some of the most vulnerable babies those born prematurely you think have been killed by the person who should have been looking after them. Yes, and the people who had been raising those concerns have been treated appallingly. I sat, I will never forget, sitting in front of this box file of documents, having spent three hours with Dr. Breary, about to meet with Dr. Jaram, and thinking, what have I done? But here I am, and what I need to do from here on is to make sure that we support the investigation to get answers for those parents.

So the parents were always at the forefront of our minds. You know, you will know that these babies in neonatal intensive care are often the result of multiple pregnancies or difficult pregnancies. Every baby is precious. But these babies were particularly vulnerable. People, sometimes babies have gone there without being premature, but they had reversible causes of illness and all of them were expected to go home. It was, even now, I really cannot get my head around the evil and sadistic crimes of Lucy Letby and we do need to remember that she was the serial killer.

But we need to also learn those lessons and the lessons need to be learned now and there is an opportunity to learn those lessons now by having the results of the independent investigation that I commissioned revealed to the parents above all and not waiting several years for the outcome of a public inquiry, which I very much welcome. The acting chief executive of the Countess of Chester Hospital Trust

that we're talking about, Jane Tomkinson, in a statement has given us this saying the following the trial of the former neonatal nurse Lucy Letby, the trust welcomes the announcement of a public inquiry by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. In addition, the trust will be supporting the ongoing investigation by Cheshire Police. Due to ongoing legal considerations, it would not be appropriate for the trust to make any further comment. A Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust spokesperson has added, In March 2020, the Trust commissioned an independent, in-depth investigation. The investigation is examining the management decisions and actions taken in response to the increase in neonatal mortality between June 2015 and June 2016.

The Trust continues to support the investigation. The report nearing completion will need to undergo due diligence, independent legal processes and has not been shared with the Trust. In addition, the detail of the investigation will no doubt need to form part of the public inquiry and therefore the Trust would welcome the opportunity to discuss this with the Chair of the public inquiry to determine next steps regarding the report. It would therefore not be appropriate for the trust to comment further on the investigation at this time. There's a lot in that statement and there's a lot of couching but what would you say to that having been involved with the commissioning of one part of this? Yes it was myself and Sir Duncan

Nicol who commissioned that report. It was with the full intention of that report being shared with the parents and with the presumed public inquiry as soon as the verdict was known. I saw a very late draft of that report, was taken through it in October 2022. When did you leave? I resigned in December 2022. I haven't worked there since then. But you saw a draft in October 2022?

As part of the routine. So why has it not been released, do you think? Only the trust can answer that. But I think if we keep the parents at the centre of everything that we're doing, rather than the prerogatives of the organisation or of the NHS England, then we need to think really hard about what possible reason could you have not to want to let those parents have the answers to the secondary questions they must have? How could this have happened? Well, that's why I'm trying to get a little bit of now thinking of those parents,

and they may even be listening, some of them, to this, or they may listen a bit later. I mean, do you think... I know you yourself, you only had a contact with one of the parents, I understand, because for legal reasons you were not able, nor was that necessarily required. Do you think the Trust is still failing parents? I don't feel that the trust is failing

parents of children who are currently under their care. No sorry the parents who were affected here and may have been affected because I've just said to you that Lucy Letby's back in the headlines because it's been alleged by a paediatrician who gave evidence at her trial she may have killed three more babies and tried to murder another 15. Yes, Cheshire Police have made it very clear that their investigations continue but the report that we commissioned does not, the Cheshire Police were involved in agreeing the terms of reference in order that there was no interference with the investigations. That includes future investigations. I includes future investigations.

I can't comment on what the trusts are doing now. I'm not involved in it. But were I there right now, I would be eager to make sure that the parents could see the output of that review. See it, and before anyone else presumably, and be able to respond to it and learn from it. What do you think they don't know that they should? I think it's important that we're not all judge and jury here in terms of the management and the executive response

and indeed the board's response. And therefore the fact that this report is independent and has interviewed numbers of people, including the previous executive team with one exception, that they see that objective the output of those of that review which will tell them could this have been known about sooner should it have been known about sooner and could Lucy Letby have been stopped sooner. It's a strike action today the beginning of a double strike the largest in the NHS history, certainly in England.

Do you support it as a former chief executive of a trust? I find it very difficult to support the combined action of consultants and junior doctors where I know that time-critical treatments are going to be impacted. So whilst there will be an emergency service, they're calling it Christmas Day service, which is not entirely accurate, but there will be some treatments, cancer treatments, for example, which may be delayed. I do, however, think that over a number of years that the professionalism and the professional status of medicine and the remuneration terms and conditions have deteriorated. And it is probably well overdue that these issues are addressed because we are struggling with retention and recruitment of really quality people into medical profession.

If you were running a trust now, what would your position be? Would you be out on the picket line? Well, if I was running a trust, I would be there as the CEO and not as a doctor. No, but in your... A medically qualified CEO, though. Would your heart be on the picket line? I would have a great deal of sympathy, particularly for the junior doctors, in terms of their pay, yes, absolutely. So I do support...

Not the consultants? I feel that the consultants' actions at the same time as the junior doctors does put patients at risk. And I have always got the patients at the forefront of my... But that's what we're talking about. I mean, even at the heart of this very difficult conversation about Lucy Letby, it's about health. It's about trust. It's about health. It's about trust. It's about relationships. It's about patience. And, you know, that's actually what a lot of people will be thinking about today. While they value and care about those who run our health service, they'll also be thinking about trust

and also their own family members. And, you know, if they can be seen and looked after, it's very complex things that we have to be able to trust the management of our trusts of our NHS trust how do you feel about that I think trust has been eroded by a number of things um and obviously I'm asked all the time about the Lucy Letby case and the impact that will have on on patients and parents um but we've also had the Donnana ockenden review we've had yes you know it's not it's not just the lucy letby case and and something very extreme there we you know we've also got other cases mid-staffs it was malcolm bay we've heard the martha's story which is absolutely heart-rending um and each time there is a report, there are recommendations, there are regulations imposed, but it's how those recommendations are implemented.

And it's the spirit and the culture in which they're implemented. And it's the attempt to control everything from a very centralised position that I think is gradually eroding the professionalism and thus the trust that the public perhaps have in the NHS. We are a very long way from where we were in 2020 when people were clapping on doorsteps and I think we need to have a good look at ourselves and ask us why. Dr Susan Gilbey, thank you very much indeed. I have to say throughout the conversation you've been getting in touch as you have throughout the whole of the program you always uh help me out with with your views and your experiences uh we were talking about the the greater number just talking about health and wealth of wealth of health if we can a message here because we're also talking about studies looking into uh women living to 100 more

women than men a message about auntie sheila she's coming up to 101 in a couple of weeks still reciting poetry and Shakespeare. I will leave you with that mental image. I'll be back with you tomorrow at 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. Who's in the news for all the wrong reasons?

Step inside the world of crisis management and so-called spin doctors with me, David Yelland. And me, Simon Lewis. In our new podcast from BBC Radio 4, we tell you what's really going on behind the scenes as the week's biggest PR disasters unfold. Simon and I used to be on opposite sides of a story in the media when I was editor of The Sun

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