Woman's Hour - SEND transport, Lucy Worsley, Children of the Cult, T20

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

Mums who give up work or cut their hours because they have a child with special educational needs and disabilities say problems with school transport is one of the reasons. An opinion poll from Opinium commissioned by Woman's Hour for a programme on SEND last month revealed 12% of mothers flagged lack of appropriate funded transport as a problem. Woman's Hour hears from three mums, Ellie Partridge, Ramandeep Kaur and Sabiha Aziz, who are struggling to transport their children with SEND to school, and in some cases are having to pay hundreds of pounds a month. Kylie Pentelow is joined by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman Amerdeep Somal as she exclusively shares the outcome of a complaint against Sandwell Council in the West Midlands for failing to provide transport for a disabled child.Today the Women's T20 cricket World Cup kicks off in the UAE. For some, this will be a tournament of firsts; At 11am, Scotland will be making their T20 debut against Bangladesh. Joining Kylie to look ahead to the event is the cricket commentator Alison Mitchell.In 2021, Netflix premiered the documentary Wild Wild Country which drew global attention to the Rajneesh movement, a group of around 30,000 people at the movement’s height, who followed an Indian spiritual guru called Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. But what really drew the attention of many of the people who had grown up as part of this international community was that the experience of children was barely reflected in the six-part series. Maroesja Perizonius and her mother were part of the Rajneesh movement, joining when Maroosha was six. Maroesja has created a new documentary, Children of the Cult. She joins Kylie to talk about this very deeply personal project along with Sargam, another woman whose family became followers when she was a child. Who were Alice Diamond, the Queen of 40 Thieves, and the Fake Heiress? In a brand new series of Lady Killers, the historian Lucy Worsley switches her attention to swindlers, con women and hustlers. From queens of the underworld, hoaxers and scammers, Lucy and a team of all female detectives travel back in time to revisit the audacious and surprising crimes of women who were trying to make it in a world made for men. Lucy joins Kylie to discuss the stories of some of these women and what their crimes teach us about women’s lives.Presenter: Kylie Pentelow Producer: Rebecca Myatt

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

Hello, this is Kylie Pentelow and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to the programme. Today, the women who are spending hundreds of pounds a month getting their children to school. These mothers of children with special educational needs and disabilities say their local council won't pay for essential transport to schools that have been recommended for their children's needs. We'll be hearing from them. Also, historian Lucy Worsley joins me to talk about women swindlers, scammers and schemers, and why bad women in history seem to be forgotten. Plus, the children

of the Rajneesh movement. In a new documentary, women reveal what life was like living in a controversial commune. Separated from their family, they say they were neglected and sexually abused. And it's the first day of the women's T20 cricket, where Scotland begin their first ever campaign in the World Cup. As always, we'd like to hear your views on any of our topics today. You can text the programme. The number is 84844. On social media, we're at BBC Women's Hour and you can email us through the website or you can send us a WhatsApp message or voice note. Just use the number 03700 100 444. First, we have been inundated with comments from you, our listeners,

about your struggles getting help for children who have special educational needs. And today we're hearing about an issue which at first may sound simple, but women are telling us that transport to get their children to the right school can be a real challenge and is in some cases making their already stressful lives even more difficult. Mums have told us they're having to give up work or cut their hours because they aren't getting support for travel for their children. An opinion poll from Opinium, commissioned by Women's Hour for our special programme OnSend last month, revealed 12% of mothers cite the lack of appropriate funded transport as a problem. Well, in a moment, we'll talk to three women who are struggling with exactly this and in some cases having to pay hundreds of pounds a month.

But first, we're going to hear from the local government and social care ombudsman who joins me from our Nottingham studio. And I should point out that we are referring specifically to England here. Now, today, Amadeep Somar, the ombudsman, is publishing a report that's been shared exclusively with this programme, which has forced Sandwell Council in the West Midlands to review its entire school transport policy after it failed to provide transport for a disabled child to get to school. Amadeep Somal, thank you very much for joining me. Thanks, Kylie.

Can you just start by telling us about the family that we're referring to here and also their son and what they were asking for? So the Sandwell case is a classic example of what we see in these transport cases. Their son was disabled and they simply wanted the council to pay and provide the transport in order that he could go to school, come back from school safely. And the law on this is quite straightforward. The council can name the parent's choice and its own choice in the plan. But if the parent's choice is so significantly more expensive, such it's classed as an inefficient use of resources, the council can then name both schools on condition the parents provide pay for transport

to their choice of school. So what happened in this specific case was the council named only the parents preferred school on the boys plan. On the understanding the parents would then pay for the transport. The parents applied for transport and this was denied by the council because council said well you agreed that you were going to pay for it. So we investigated and what we found was because the council only named the parents choice of school in the boy's plan so whether by formal decision or by omission, this became his nearest suitable school under the law. And so as the boy was eligible, the council should have offered him travel support. And what we found was the council didn't follow the correct procedure when deciding whether school transport should be provided by them.

They were at fault with how they handled the parents' appeal and they failed to keep any records of the appeal hearing itself. We found fault because it failed to give the parents a chance to attend the appeal hearing. So we asked the council to take certain steps and it's agreed to apologise for the distress and uncertainty the dad experienced because a false identified in the report. They put in place school transport for the boy. They made a payment to Mum to reflect the cost she and other family members incurred transporting her son to school from August 23 until the time he accessed school transport arranged by the council. And they also were required to pay dad for the time and trouble he had to go to and agreed to arrange staff training for decision makers and appeal panel members and to review its policy to ensure clear provision and information was provided about

the tests it applies to deciding whether or not to pay for transport, provide travel assistance, and also what action the council would take where it decided the school of parental choice was incompatible with the efficient use of resources applying government guidance in their policy travel to school for children of compulsory school age. And let's just talk about those ages. It's specific ages that the law says about providing transport for children with special educational disabilities. Yes. So the law is very clear about children of statutory school age. It becomes perhaps more confusing, certainly for parents, when a child is below statutory school age or above statutory school age. And what ages specifically are we talking here?

So we're talking 5 to 16 when children are entitled to a free education and go to school. So what we're talking about is that 5 to 16, statutory school age, a child has to be an eligible child. And that's the key phrase, an eligible child and that's the key phrase an eligible child but then of course we have children at post 16 so are going into sixth form and in general SEN children can lose the free transport they've had before they hit 16 once they reach 16 and this can feel like a cliff edge and be a shock to parents and children who have always had it for free up to that point. So they might be offered no transport if the council decides well you're 16 now and you don't need transport. If the council decides it is necessary the parents might then

be required to pay a significant contribution towards it if they use a taxi or a minibus and the council might for example offer a mileage allowance or a concessionary fare on public transport or independent travel training to be able to use public transport and where a child is below school age so below the age of five so we're talking perhaps a four-year-old for the sake of argument, councils still do have discretion to pay for transport at any age. But we are seeing less evidence of councils using their discretion given the significant impact and strain on their budgets, which we've all heard and read about in the media, etc.

Councils are finding the cost of all school transport, but particularly send transport really disproportionate and expensive for their budgets, and they're spending millions on such transport. However, as Ombudsman, I would expect to see a record of how it considered using its discretion and why it decided not to exercise its discretion. And really, I urge councils to consider it with compassion and also apply common sense. This is one case that we're talking here about that Sandwell Council, and we will be speaking to some mums in a moment. But are you getting many cases about transport with families who have children who have special educational needs? Yes, absolutely. So we're seeing more and more of those.

SEND is actually our single biggest area of casework and we uphold virtually every case that comes to us. So it tells you there is a problem. 78% of our casework involves transport across the board of upheld cases. And we deal with cases where, you know, mum usually is saying child has additional needs, attends a special school, unsafe for him to walk to school, it's causing him distress, causing her distress. And parents are saying, in order to get our child to school, we've had to cut our hours, give up work, getting into problems at work because I'm often late relying on family members neighbors people

we hardly know actually just to get our child to and from school so it has a real impact on people's lives and children's lives actually because sometimes parents make the very difficult decision that the child can't go to say school safely and so until the transport issue is sorted out children are often missing out on vital formative stages of their education years often which they will never get back let's just bring you this statement from sandwell council the the specific council we're talking about in that case they say we acknowledge the findings of the ombudsman and apologize to the family for the distress this matter has caused them we confirm that the actions as set out in the ombudsman's report are already underway and we will be in touch with the family to send a formal apology and to make arrangements

for payments transport to and from school is now being provided to the child has been in place since the start of this school year they continue like many authorities we're seeing significant increase in demand for support for children with a send with 51 increase in the number of children with an ehc piece it's 2019 we have already commenced a review of our services so that we can provide the best possible support to children and their parents and carers and we'll incorporate the points raised by the ombudsman's report into this work ombudsman please stay with us a moment. I just want to bring in some mums because mums of children with special educational needs and disabilities not only find themselves dealing with councils like Samwell, as we've just heard, are forced to change their processes by the ombudsman,

but across the country, we're hearing of many other families who are also facing problems getting appropriate transport for their children with SEND to go to school. In these cases, the councils are not breaking the law, but many say they are strapped for cash. The latest government figures for England alone show they spent £1.3 billion on SEND transport for 5 to 16-year-olds. Some councils are declaring themselves bankrupt over send spending some like birmingham city council are entitled to create their own policies for children who are not of compulsory school age and birmingham city council told us reductions to non-compulsory post-16 transport provision as something that has been seen nationally due to financial and

resource pressures they go on to say we appreciate that the revisions recently made to the travel assistance policy are a big change for those families impacted and therefore have increased and are highly successful travel training provision to prepare our students for adulthood and those who are working towards independence well let's bring in uh three mums now who are joining me on the line from Birmingham. Ellie Partridge, Ramandit Kaur and Sabir Aziz. Welcome to all of you to the programme. Morning. Good morning.

Your children are all of different ages, but all have special educational needs and disabilities. Ellie, can I start with you, please? Your son is four. He's just started school. Can you tell us a bit about him? So my son, yeah, like you said, is four years old. He's got autism, global developmental delay, sensory processing disorder, ARFID, which is an eating disorder, and pathological demand avoidance.

You're spending £60 a week on a taxi to get him to school. Yeah, it's actually £60 a day. £60 a day you're spending? Yeah, there and back, and then there and back again in the afternoon. Gosh. Why are you spending that, and what impact is that having? It's obviously having an impact on mine and my husband's job. We can't work the full hours that we need to work. We can't go to the local mainstream school because of his additional needs.

And it's the school named on his EHCP. Which is the plan for his education that needs to meet his needs. So what have you been told about why that isn't being paid? Because he slips through the net because he's four. He's not compulsory school age. However, if he was to be five next week for example he would get it from january but he'd still be in reception and because he's a july baby he's not going to be five until july and which has also had a big impact well birmingham city council told us that the council recognizes that difficult decisions need

to be taken in order to protect statutory services for our most vulnerable children and young people in their families. And it says an extensive consultation was carried out to make parents aware of the changes, which were communicated through schools and other stakeholders. What do you make of that? Were you consulted? We were not consulted at all. We had no idea of this consultation until yesterday, actually.

We were quite shocked. And you're going to appeal tomorrow. So what will be your argument here, Ellie? Is that he's obviously got all these additional needs that need to be met and this school is the best school for him, that all his needs are being met and he's happy. And that, to me me is so important um and i'm hoping that they offer the transport because there's other children within the postcode

that are getting transport and their space on those buses but they're just not not giving us that option unfortunately ramandi your son's kind of at the other end isn't he he's 17 and aims to go to college can you just tell us a bit about him? Yes so I'm a parent to three teenagers and my middle son is 17 he was born with the diagnosis of Down syndrome and he obviously has associated learning disabilities he has always gone to a specialist school, so primary and secondary, and he's now gone on to the second year of his sixth form in the specialist setting. He was offered a bus pass, I believe. Some people might say that sounds like a good solution.

Why wouldn't that work? My son's cognitive abilities mean that he actually is unaware of dangers. He needs an adult with him at all times. He can't cross the road safely. He actually can't read a bus timetable. He has very poor communication, so he wouldn't be able to ask for help. And actually, when we challenged the council and explained to them that a bus pass simply would not work, I asked my GP to write a letter and he wrote in the letter that it would endanger my son's life. And that was really chilling to read that. He was offered a personal transport budget. Why doesn't that work for him?

Well, the transport budget is an offer of 45 pence per mile. My son's school is 10 miles in one direction. So you'd be looking at a 40 mile journey in the day. And actually the cost for the taxi at the moment is £46 per day. I'm managing to split the cost between another family who are in the same situation as myself. So it doesn't come anywhere near covering the cost at all. So what do you want to happen? What do you want to change? Well, the route that my son was on previously still exists. There is still a taxi or a minibus going past my house every day. And I would like

the council to reinstate my son's seat on there. I think they have this expectation and an assumption that as a mother of a disabled young person, that I will drop everything just to get him to school and I've not had to do that for my other two children who aren't disabled so it feels really unfair to me that the expectation is that I will do it for my disabled child. The council's told us it's maintained a level of support that enables families to make their own arrangements and it's been providing additional support to our most vulnerable students and families. Let's go on to Sabia. Sabia you've recently had a bit of a win haven't you a bit of success on your son's transport for school it's been reinstated what support does he need to get to school? Yes so my son is 18 years old. He is severely learning disabled and has severe nonverbal autism and epilepsy. He needs full time support for everything. And actually, he is two to one in the community. His needs are very complex and very severe. And this is clearly evidenced in all the medical reports

and all the specialists and professionals that are involved with him. And this is all evidence that was sent to the council when we made the application for him for his transport. And you were also offered a personal transport budget. Why doesn't that work for your son? So my son's been at his current setting for almost 10 years now. There was absolutely no change in any of the circumstances regarding his condition or where we live or the placement or anything. The only change that came

in was the new policy and his age. So a personal transport budget wouldn't work for him because it's quite a paltry amount that they're paying. And actually, it's evidence that he needs two people with him in the community. And that cost doesn't cover that. But also, there isn't two people available that could do that. There's myself and his father. We have other dependent children and his father works full time and I don't see why we should be making sacrifices and, you know, sort of freeing up our time to take him to school, both of us

and my husband potentially giving up his job just so that we can take him to school and bring him back. Well, the council have said that we've given families as much notice as possible and have made support available from the team in recognition of the current financial climate the council has not increased the contribution that families on the lowest income make towards their child support. Meanwhile the local government association said the challenges of home to school

transport for children with SEND highlight the broader crisis within the SEND system and they urge the government to commit to long-term SEND reforms which must include funding to address rising transport costs for SEND children. Well the Department for Education says it's committed to improving inclusivity and expertise within mainstream schools which in time will mean fewer children needing to travel a long distance to a school that can meet their needs. Ellie Ram Ramandeep and Sabir, thank you so much. We're still on the line and listening to those comments is the local government and social care ombudsman, Amadeep Somal. Thanks very much for staying with us. Just listening to their stories, what does that tell you?

Well, firstly, I just want to thank the mums for sharing their family's experience with us all. It's what I hear. It's what I read about all the time. Parents have already been through real challenges to get their child a plan and a suitable school placement and then after all of that they then have to tackle transport issues as they can't find they can get their child to school and that's just another hurdle and we know it's a real problem with increasing numbers of complaints about transport for children to school so there is a big gap between council's ability to provide for the needs of children and their expectations of their parents and it's clear that transport budgets for send for some councils are really running into millions.

The bottom line is, as ombudsman, that councils must apply the law and they must apply their policies correctly. And where there is discretion to apply it reasonably. And as I say, common sense and compassion is really important in that process. Hearing these real life stories and the impact of, you know, raising family, having other children, dealing with children with SEND and those specific difficulties and simply getting their child to school, which they are legally entitled to, is overwhelming. And parents are often draining on their support network, constantly asking friends and family to help. And it's not a long-term solution. This has been a crisis in the making since the 2014 legislation. And there needs to be serious government reform looking at the legislation. Because when plans first came into being,

there was a huge surge on demand and demand outstripped resources. And I am in discussion with government departments, with the new government, about SEND. And I'm really pleased to see that the government have announced that SEND will be a priority. And one of the asks which I have is around extending my jurisdiction so we can look into all SEND issues, including once children are in school, that we can look at how SEND is actually delivered in accordance with the plan or not the plan where a child still has needs to make sure it's done as it should be. Clay Soar has been really clear on this subject for more than 10 years and actually guidance is very clear so there really is no excuse for councils to keep getting some of these decisions wrong. So the system does need reform, it's a priority and I'm going to work closely to make sure our powers are extended to make the system better for everyone,

greater transparency and greater accountability. OK, Ombudsman Amadeep Somer, thank you very much for your time. And of course, we would like your views on this. You can text Women's Hour on 84844. Now, in just over half an hour's time the women's t20 cricket world cup kicks off in the uae for some this will be a tournament of firsts in fact at 11 o'clock not in too much time scotland will be making their t20 debut against bangladesh and joining me now to give me the latest is cricket commentator Alison Mitchell.

Alison thanks very much for your time. So this is a huge achievement isn't it for Scotland to have qualified what what does it mean for them and the country's cricket scene? It's enormous for Scotland to be there the first time that they have managed it they had to come through a qualifying tournament to do that they had to beat Ireland in a semi-final which was that was the moment they knew that they'd made it to this tournament that was meant to be held in Bangladesh. It's had to be moved to the UAE because of unrest in the country. But they made it to the final of that qualifying tournament. They knew then that they were going to be here for the very first time up with all the other major nations in the world. And excitingly, it also means there's going to be

an England versus Scotland fixture, which hasn't happened in women's cricket since 2001 they are in the same group together and Scotland will be huge underdogs of course but it's it's absolutely enormous for the country for the team yes it's it's the T20 World Cup so how does that different from other cricket tournaments so the T20 is the the 20 over aa-side format. There's the 50-over World Cup, which people may remember England winning memorably in the final at Lourdes in 2017. That was played over 50 overs. The T20 format is shorter, sharper. This whole tournament will be wrapped up in around two and a half weeks. So there are two groups of five nations each.

And it's very, very simple. You play each other in your group and the top two from each group go through to the semifinals. There you have your finals and your winners. But also prize money for this tournament has skyrocketed. And the ICC has made a commitment to equal prize money for men and women. So, Australia, when they won, and this last iteration of the World Cup was just played in 2023.

You know, COVID sort of meant there was a bit of a, you know, shift in the regularity of it. But when they won, the prize money since then has increased by 134%. So the winning team will take home £1.8 million between them, which is the same as India's men got when they won the Men's T20 World Cup just back in June. So that's a huge leap forward for the women's game, again, just legitimising, you know, how much this is now a career choice for sportswomen. Yeah, absolutely.

And Australia won last year, didn't they? Are they still the ones to beat? Afraid so. Australia have won six out of the eight T20 World Cups that have taken place. They've won the last three in a row. They're going for four. But just with the depth of the game now, the rise of tournaments like the 100, like the Women's Premier League in India means that so many more players are them. So, I mean, the top teams are going to be England, Australia, India, South Africa vying for those semi-final spots.

But I also think, you know, there is the prospect for the odd upset here and there. And the T20 format just lends itself to that because all it might take is one player to have their day and to have a sort of performance where they can take the game away from the opposition and dethrone even the very best. So you mentioned England. How are they looking going into the tournament? Yeah, I mean, every year you look at an England team and think that absolutely they're up there with a chance to win it. They need everything to work on their day.

But they have got fabulous batting prowess in the likes of Nat Siverbrunt, who's one of the best in the world. A spin is going to be really important for all the teams in this World Cup because of the venues being played in Dubai and Sharjah. And England have the best spinner in the world in Sophie Eccleston, number one. She has been there for a long, long time. But also Sarah Glenn and Charlie Dean. And so within that trio, they can really put teams under pressure. But they also will need their batting at the top of the order to really fire and put teams under pressure in that sense but England are going to be challenging and they will it'll be a it'll be a failure of a world cup for them if they don't make a semi-final that will be their their absolute minimum achievements but getting to the final and

then once you're there well anything can happen on the day and finally, we know there's been a huge growth in sports for women like football, but has T20 seen, women's T20 seen the same kind of impact yet? T20 has been the driving force really for men's and women's cricket globally. So in the last World Cup with the men's teams like Uganda, you know, playing T20 cricket, Oman and the women's game in Malaysia are playing cricket. You're seeing even the likes of, you know, Bangladesh and Scotland are here. Bangladesh have been in T20 World Cups before. But as the game's moving forward, this tournament is expanding. This is only 10 teams this year, but it is expanding going forward. And that's just reflecting

how T20 is a more accessible, manageable form of the game. Countries all over the world, France have a women's team. It's the growth format and it's been used as that vehicle. In England, of course, there's the 100 format as well, which is specifically really driving the women's game in a game-changing way, both for exposure, crowds, prize money, level of cricketers that are playing. So all in all, the women's game is in a really healthy and exciting place at the moment with only further developments set to come. Cricket commentator Alison Mitchell, thank you so much. And you can hear all the coverage over on Five Live Extra. I'm Sarah Treleaven. And for over a year, I've been working on one of the most

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

What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now. Now in 2021, Netflix premiered the documentary Wild Wild Country and drew global attention to the Rajneesh movement, a group of around 30,000 people at the movement's height who followed an Indian

spiritual guru called Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh. But what really drew the attention of many of the people who'd grown up as part of this international community was that the experience of children was barely reflected in the six-part series. Marusha Perezonius' new documentary, Children of the Cult, is a deeply personal project. She and her mother were part of the Rajneesh movement, joining when Marusha was six. And the woman whose allegations kick-started this also joins me in the studio. Sargam's family became followers when she was also six. Both women are here in the studio. I should say that some of what we will talk about does involve abuse and maybe distressing. Thank you to both of you for coming in and talking to me today. Marisha, I want to start with you. Why do you think your mother

wanted to be part of the Rajneesh movement? I think it was the 80s, no, it was the 70s. And she, you know, being of the generation, having grown up in the 50s, was looking for something more, felt that maybe society was empty or a place where you could not speak about your feelings or communicate with people in a very open way and when she read a book of Bhagwan

as Osho was then called she was taken not taken aback she was impressed with what he said and decided to go to India and found something there that she hadn't

expected, but that changed our lives very much. And Sargam, to you, how did your family join? My family was already, they were Christians originally, and then they started to want to explore different spirituality. They joined Subodh initially, and then my father went to India and effectively fell in love with Osho Bhagwan, and then sent for all of us to go out there. And to both of you, what do you remember? You're only six. Do you remember any initial feelings and impressions when you joined the group? I loved it at first because there was a huge sense of freedom. There were a lot of children from all over the world who welcomed me instantly. And so I had like a new family of friends. And initially, I really, really loved being there.

And what about you, Marusha? We were only there for summer holiday and I was very impressed love being there. And what about you, Marisha? We were only there for summer holiday and I was very impressed with India itself, of course. And, yeah, I did feel we were in a special kind of place. And I noticed my mom being happy, you know, about being in this new group. And I actually requested her can I please have a bracelet not not a bracelet a mala with a beaded necklace and a new name and it was all very exciting and after a while she said yeah okay if you really want that then we can do that

and we did and I came back with a new name. In your film, The Children of the Cult, it states that family units and monogamy were rejected. Can you tell me a little bit about that? In the culture of the group was that, and this came with the teaching of Bhagwan, that relationships shouldn't be about being dependent on each other there was free love you could have relationships with anybody

and Bhagwan really spoke out against the family and how small it is and that children grow up much richer if they if they live in a commune with lots of people around them. You have both reported having experienced sexual abuse as children from much older men. Can you, if you're able to Sargam, can you tell me a little about what about what happened? Without getting into it, the specifics of it, because it was a culture of free love, and actually, actually a very warm environment. It was very easy for paedophiles of the people inclined that way way to hide amongst all the love and light, basically. And just like any other predator, they target people. And I was targeted when I was seven,

and then pretty much all the way through until I was 15, when the FBI came in, in Oregon. So it was 10 years, pretty pretty much of constant child abuse. Marisha, you experienced similar? At the age of 13, I lived in a commune where it was just very normal for adult men to ask me to sleep with them and give compliments say things about um let's share our energy or you have such a beautiful energy and a lot of fathers were absent so i think a lot of girls um felt lonely didn't see their mothers a lot because yeah you were separated from your mother. And we were really very vulnerable teens and preteens and children, and people took advantage of that.

And one thing that you just mentioned, Zagam, that comes across a lot in the documentary, is that to you this felt normal because you didn't know anything different. Yes. Well, I just want to explain it is actually the culture of Osho. Osho said specifically time and time again, the commune will take care of the children. The nuclear family has no place. And therefore we were actively separated, like put in separate accommodations. So the parents couldn't actually take care of us, do you see? And then from there, it's the normal grooming process

that any paedophile does with any child. Yeah, it was a very easy environment because of the culture of separating children from their parents. Just to say we did contact Osho International regarding allegations of sexual abuse, but we did not receive a response. Marisha, one word that comes up a lot is neglect.

Why weren't the authorities looking into the way that the children were living in these communes? Yes, that's a very good question. It's exactly the reason why this film had to be made. It's strange that nobody looked into it.

One person did in America and came by and looked at the children for about an hour and then concluded that these were very intelligent, happy children. And they were guided by one of the followers. And by you? No, I was actually one of the five, and we were kind of trained or taught what to say to the Child Protection Agency on the ranch. So we took a staged photo, talked about education that we weren't having.

We were actually, yeah, basically kind of groomed to say what to say to the Child Protection Agency. And you have to also realize that many sannyasins, those are the followers, will basically not, you know, call people out in that commune. So it took a non-Sonyacin to actually get the child protection people in. So how did you end up leaving then? Well, I left when the FBI came in when I was 15. And OSHA said to open up the ranch to them. And it was based on immigration fraud. And when they, yeah, we were just scattered far and wide my my mother was given 50 for each of us to leave and that was that was that really and what about you marisha when did you leave

we lived in the amsterdam commune at the time that everything broke down um that in a bug one's right hand uh sheila she left um Bhagwan himself was arrested. The communes collapsed. And at that moment we just you know from living with 200 people we suddenly had to find an apartment for two people. And it was a big big change. Yeah. What was it like.

Because if that's all you've known I imagine coming into for want of a better word normal society you, it must have been a real shock. Yeah, I didn't live there that long, not years like others, but it was still, there was also a big disillusionment with the adults who sold their houses and moved with their kids into the communes, and then it all ended. So that took a long time to adjust. And Sargam, did you have any education when you left? No, this was a big thing for me. I wasn't educated at all. I taught myself to read and write.

By the time I left at 15, I felt like I knew nothing of the outside world. I was petrified. I didn't know how to function. And all I need, I had to pretend that to the outside world that they wouldn't see this in me. How much I didn't know. I didn't even know times tables, nothing. And so when you're trying to kind of cover that up when you're going into the world, to make sure that people don't see that in you and think you're a freak um and as a teenager

as a teenager it's really it's very scary very overwhelming and i still haven't caught up i don't you know i haven't taught myself history put it that way or biology but it's all those basic things that you learn in a normal school as a child no we didn't have any of it it's yeah i really appreciate you talking about it because i know it's very very painful to talk about and marisha you decided to make a film about it i mean you were you were literally reliving some of the things that you that you went through weren't you and talking about them you and you even um confronted one of the people you said was a perpetrator it must have been a very difficult process and hard to even make that decision to make the film how did that come about when there was a time on social media a few years ago um the people started sharing their experiences.

And we all saw that apart from those experiences being shared, nothing was actually happening. And a decision was made. And I just felt somebody has to do this. Nobody else is going to do it. And after a long pitching process, luckily, ITV gave us a chance to do this which I'm really very grateful about and we could start shooting and it's been really very intense time but it's great to address like how do these things actually happen like we had all this jargon, for example, in the cult, like, you know, just surrender to the guru and say yes and let go and that there were no supposed to be no boundaries. And all that, you know, we could talk about in the film and show how it's possible that so many children were abused. There was one moment in the documentary where you're actually conducting the interview,

and it just becomes overwhelming to you. And it just seemed like it must have been quite hard to ask those questions when you've experienced it, but you're also being the journalist. Yes, that's sort of, you have two roles at the same time. And of course, I directed it together with Alice McShane, which is, you know, it's really good that you have a soundboard.

I don't know if that's the word. And you can talk about things. And yeah, it's been quite a ride. As a mother myself I did find it quite hard to watch you both have children how did you feel looking back at that now both being mothers about the decision that your mother's made? This is a big question for me because I've gone through it with my mother a lot about this. How did this happen? How did you not take me out? When did you realize? Did you not that they were brainwashed, but they also believed that they were giving us a better life, different from the general life.

And then, you know, the heartbreak comes when you hear from your child that they were extensively abused. And then there's a lot of denial and, yeah, hurt. It takes a lot of going through, really. What about for you, Marisha? I was actually amazed. Like, as a mom, I can't imagine moving with her to a commune and giving up your home and, yeah, actually got more angry about it from the moment that I had a baby myself. What would you like to happen as a result of the film?

One of the reasons I wanted to participate in Maroosia's film is because the Sanyasin community shut down and silenced it. Initially, they said that we would do this in-house. You don't need the police. You don't need lawyers. And then they silenced us. about a potential case against Osho International Foundation to take accountability for the teachings that Osho teaches that allowed this abuse to happen. And hopefully they'll take this case on

and we'll be able to help the other 100 kids that are out there. And not everybody's destitute, but there are a lot of people who are. Marisha, what would you like to happen? It's going to be quite a big thing for you isn't it when the film is released yes definitely and I'm just you know there's one thing still missing in this whole story

and that's the accountability you know these are people who always told us you're so lucky to grow up this way that's what we heard a lot when we were kids. But we really weren't that lucky. And I think it's time they face up to that. Just to reiterate again, we did contact Osho International

and regarding allegations of sexual abuse, we have not received a response. Thank you so much to both of you for talking to me today. I really appreciate it. And Children of the Cult is in cinemas now. It will be broadcast on ITV at 10.15 on the 13th of October. And just to say, if you have been affected by anything that you've heard, you can visit the BBC Action Line website for resources and support. Now, we've been asking for your comments referring to the levels of transport support that is given to parents who have children with special educational needs.

We have had some comments coming in. Let's just read you this one here. They say the SEND transport crisis is hampered by the fact many of us have to send our children tens of miles away for provision. I'm in Coventry and my child has been offered places at SEND schools in Warwickshire, Leicestershire and Birmingham.

Unless you have a car, no other children, or as in my case, an elderly dad who also requires full-time support, we don't have the physical or emotional capacity to do transport. Thank you very much for getting in touch. Now, moving on, we seem to know all about men who committed crime in history. Their stories often glamorised in TV shows, but we don't seem to hear

so much about women criminals. Well, someone who is changing that is the historian Lucy Worsley. Now, you may know her from her series Ladykillers, but now she has swapped murder for mischief in a new audio series, Lady Swindlers. From queens of the underworld, hoaxers, scammers and even a fake princess, Lucy and a team of all-female detectives travel back in time to revisit the audacious and rather surprising crimes of women who are trying to make it in a world made for men.

Before we speak to Lucy, let's hear a clip. I am the notorious Tilly Devine. They are show-offs. Everybody was acquainted with my whole history. She does sound fabulous though, doesn't she? Huge outfits, massive dogs, lots of cars. I have more diamonds than the Queen of England. She likes the attention.

She likes being seen. She likes wearing beautiful clothes. This is someone who's really embracing life. And their lives sound like crime capers. The accident on a Welsh cliff. Search for missing lady. Well, Lucy's here. So, Lucy, what gave you the idea then to go from Lady Killers

to Lady Swindlers? Well, we've had three whole series with our Lady Killers. You haven't run out, precisely. We haven't run out, but we've done 24 murderesses. And I can tell you some of that gets quite dark. There are people, you know, killing their children and stuff that's really, really serious. So we thought we would quite like to do something

that's a bit more fun. And some of our swindlers do things like steal people's trousers. There's an element of joy and playfulness to it. But the whole concept is, I'm sorry to say, that for historians, crime pays. Because when a crime happens, right, a lot of stuff gets recorded that wouldn't necessarily ever get written down.

And I'm talking about what they were wearing and what the room was like, but also big questions like what were their family relationships? What did they believe to be true about the world? So crime can be a great porthole into the lives of women whose lives wouldn't necessarily be recorded. Can you tell me about Alice Diamond? Because she's pretty formidable.

She was called the queen of 40 thieves. Tell me about her. I secretly rather love her. I do not condone shoplifting. Let me get that right out of the way, front and centre. But she was the queen of this all-girl shoplifting gang called the Forty Thieves. And they were based in South London, just where I live, actually. And her crime became possible because of this big development at the turn of the 20th century, which was the department store.

You know, Selfridges, Whiteley's, these kind of places. And they're often spoken about as, you know, places of female empowerment, women could go out spend their money on consumer goods, you could go to the loo, you know, when you were out on Oxford Street without having to go into a pub, you know, this is all good. But it opened up a new world of criminal opportunity for women like Alice and her gang who were growing up in extreme poverty in the south of London. And Alice, at 14, she was working as a domestic servant. And some of the new opportunities that we think of as becoming available to women in the early 20th century, like shop work or being a typist, that sort of thing. They weren't open to people right down at her level of society. And what's cool about the gang is that they would all go

in together. And they had their code of practice, their charter, if you like. So none of the prophets went to men. All of the prophets were shared equally. If any of them went to prison, the kids were looked after by other gang members. And some of their particular tips that I love were the grafters bloomers that they wore. Now, these are a pair of massive pants, basically, with huge pockets. And the skill of a shoplifter, I am told, is to wrap things up. They were stealing luxury goods, furs, clothes, that sort of thing, to wrap them up really small and hide them in this pocket in your pants and then off you go.

And the other thing they would do to get the goods to the fences was put them in the pram. Genius. And it sounds like it was kind of an event for them, an outing, because they also dressed up, didn't they? Yes. Now, my little middle class uptight heart says, come on, ladies, invest your money, buy a house, become respectable. But they didn't. They took all of their cash and they blew it. They went back to the same shops and spent it

on the luxury items that they had been stealing. That was their motivation. So Alice was, you know, top female gangster. She stayed living in the same part of town for the whole of her life. She never married. It sounds like this was this was her world. Why is it? Why do you think the conversation that we have and document not documentaries, but more dramas about crime in history is all about men? It seems. There's very few about women. Why do you think that is? Well, centuries of patriarchy, as is the answer to many, many of life's questions. But that was a motivating factor in us wanting to do this whole world, the lady killers and now the lady swindlers,

because we were a bit fed up that the woman in a true crime documentary or a drama series was very often either dead on the slab or running naked through the woods with the killer after her. We wanted to look at some women who were, you know, in control of their own destinies, at least until they got caught. And I have to say that some of them you can kind of admire them. And I admit that I'm glamorizing Alice in a way that's possibly not entirely appropriate. But some of the other criminals, you really see that they were driven to it by the circumstances in which they found themselves. So you can feel some compassion from somebody who killed her husband because he had

been violent towards her. Somebody who committed a crime because her children were hungry and she was desperate. There's very interesting cases throughout this whole series. Tell us about the fake heiress. The fake heiress. Well, we've just had a fake heiress of our own, haven't we? Anna, what's her name? The Russian lady in New York. Well, she was preceded by Violet Charlesworth, who disappeared on the coast road of North Wales in 1909 in a car crash.

She had this fabulous car. She was really into driving. And it was very suspicious that her body was never found after the crash because this was just before her 25th birthday. And she had told everybody that she could pay all of these debts because she was about before her 25th birthday. And she had told everybody that she could pay all of these debts because she was about to come into her fortune. So she went on the run. There was a woman hunt for her. And Violet was rather obsessed with Scotland because she thought Scotland was a posh place. And she liked dressing up in tartan and that sort of thing. And she adopted a new name of Margaret MacLeod. But the reporters got to her.

And then when she was identified, this is this is what blows my mind about her. She was so shameless. She owned it. She went to the newspapers and she sold her story. Yes, I am the fake heiress. These are all of the things that I did. These are my exploits. She wrote a song, she sold postcards, and she even got a part playing herself in a silent film. Unbelievable. And you and your guests in one episode, Women Who Dare, you talk about what if they were around today, what the what the Lady Swindler's lives would look like. What kind of conclusions did you come to? We have conflicting feelings about this because in a lot of them, you can see that they've got talent. We've got, for example, Tilly Devine, who runs this huge gangland empire in Sydney, Australia. She's running all of the

brothels. We've got Fanny Davies, the female highway woman. And you think if they were live today, we really hope that they would be in the case of Alice Diamond running the department store in the case of Tilly Devine running some, you know, respectable, legitimate, huge organisation. But and this is the thing about the series, we always think would it be so very different for women today? And the answer is not always yes. We like to think that we're better than the Victorians and the Edwardians and that we've sorted things out for women. But all too often we think, hang on. No, we haven't.

There are still obstacles to women and who want to succeed in life. Do you have a favourite swindler? A favourite swindler? Well, I'm very attracted to Madam Rachel because of her, just her audacity. She was a beauty therapist who worked in Bond Street, had a very fancy shop. And she would offer you an enamel, which was a kind of horrible sounding chemical peel. But let me tell you what she would do. She would ask the clients, how old are you? And if I were Madam Rachel, you'd say, well, Lucy, you look quite good.

I guess you're about 50. And then I would reveal I am not in fact 50. I would lie. Right. I am 50. But I'd say, no, actually, I'm 80. I'm 80. Don't I look fabulous?

And then she would give you this product that would make you beautiful forever. That was the strapline. I feel like I see plenty of adverts for that on different places. Yes, exactly. It's still happening. These insecurities that women have that she was preying upon, they're still alive and well and with us today. Still very familiar. Have you enjoyed making it? Oh, what do you think? Yes, of course I have. I love my life of crime. Can you just tell us a little bit about where people can listen? OK, it's being on Radio 4 at the moment, week by week.

And if you want to hear it all now, go to BBC Sounds, where the whole series is available for you. Plus the 24 lady killers, the murderesses too. It sounds very intriguing indeed. Lucy, thank you so much. I'm sure if that hasn't piqued people's interest I don't know what will so thank you very much for your time here on Women's Hour. Thank you for having me. That is just about all from me today I'll be back though tomorrow with Women's Hour from 10 o'clock we'll be hearing the latest updates on the situation in Lebanon and how women and girls in particular there are being impacted.

Plus, hear from a Woman's Hour listener on why more of us should start to get involved in fell running. We'll hear more of that tomorrow. You can always get in touch with us. Don't forget, you can message us on 84844 and we're also on social media. Thank you very much for listening. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. It's election time in the United States,

but this is social media's world and the election is just living in it. Accurate information about elections, unfortunately, is not as entertaining as false information. Join me, Marianna Spring, as I uncover how life online is shaping American people and American politics. None of us know what's going on, but we do all know that something isn't right. Deep fakes, polarizing algorithms, hate and conspiracy theories. To me, there's no other logical explanation. That entire thing was staged. Why Do You Hate Me, USA? From BBC Radio 4.

Listen now on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy.

And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.