Woman's Hour - Susie Dent, Emma Fuller, Charlie Jeer, Stephen Wright, Under Pressure series with Hawra and Mustafa on stillbirth

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

Countdown Star and lexicographer Susie Dent on our favourite festive words, how chocolate, Marzipan, Chipolata, Tinsel and Glögg got their names and some of the festive greetings in different languages.As the jury deliberate over their verdict in the Ghislaine Maxwell trial we talk to the journalist Stephen Wright. Maxwell is the former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein and is charged with eight counts of sex trafficking and other crimes.Following the infamous #May2020 Boris Johnson photograph, we hear from one woman - Emma - who lost her daughter Ruby that same day, and couldn’t say goodbye in person. Nineteen-year-old doorman Charlie Jeer has gone viral on TikTok for talking about the sexual harassment he has experienced whilst working in clubs. Charlie recalled that one night he was groped up to 10 times. He's gained millions of views on his videos and says he wanted to start a conversation about working in the industry.And in the final part of our series “Under Pressure” we look at the issue of baby loss and how an American study from 2010 found that couples who had experienced stillbirth were 40% greater risk of their relationship ending. 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. How are you? That is the main question I have for you today, my last live Woman's Hour of the year. I want to take this opportunity to ask you and give you the opportunity to use one word to describe you and give you the opportunity to use one word to describe how you feel right now. Three days to go until Christmas. What is it? What

comes to mind? Or maybe you want to take a moment to think of it. I'm asking because not only do we have the wordsmith and countdown lexicographer Susie Dent on the programme who can tell us perhaps where those words come from and why you might be feeling that or what the exact word could be if you can't quite find it yourself. But also, there are a lot of emotions being expressed at the moment with so much uncertainty being caused by the latest COVID variant and also the government's response or as some see it, the lack thereof or if you like, the indecision, the uncertainty, the not knowing how things are going to play out again. So one word to describe yourself right now and why. Text me here at Women's Hour 84844. That's the number you need. Text will be charged at your standard message rate on social media. We're at BBC Women's

Hour or email me that word and your reason if you can through our website. We put this out on social media earlier. And for those who've already got in touch, thank you. We've had an enormous response. Coffeed being one of them. Exhausted from Becky. She says the energy it's taken to keep all of the plates spinning this year and last has been mentally challenging to say the least. Christmassy, says Hélène, because mince pies are still delicious.

Carols are still soothing. And the books you've been given are still wonderful presents. We've got one here just simply saying tired. Vicky says hopeful. Emma's got in touch to say apprehensive. Every plan we've made for the Christmas period feels uncertain. And another one, exasperated. Another one, oblivious.

Quite a few of you saying flat, numb, that you sort of can't feel very much at the moment. And Laura says blah, with lots of A's in the middle. And she says, which I appreciate isn't a proper word, but very much sums up my general outlook on life today. What is yours? Let me know. Also on today's programme, a new poll shows women are turning away from the Conservative Party. One reason given that female voters are most incensed by the perceived hypocrisy of number 10

with regards to Covid rules and reports of Christmas parties at Downing Streets and in other government departments. We shall explore the scale of that issue facing the Prime Minister and his party. One man who works as a bouncer while studying at university has gone viral after making a video about women groping him outside of the club where he works. He'll be joining me.

And as the verdict of Ghislaine Maxwell's trial is being deliberated by jurors in New York, we'll hear the latest from one reporter who's followed the case the whole way through. But first, Christmas or the festive period can be a time that does elicit a lot of feelings at the best of times. Maybe some of them you don't know how to express. Of course, the feeling of finding joy in other people's happiness

or the desire to squeeze something because it's so irresistibly cute. But luckily, you will find the word to describe all these situations because Countdown lexicographer Susie Dent is here. Susie, good morning. Morning, Emma. How are you today? What's your word? Well, my word of the day on Twitter was breed bait. And I just think there are a lot of breed baits around at the moment. These are people who are just ready to pick a fight. They're

looking for an argument. So it's from centuries ago. I mean, more often than not, I will choose something from the corners of the dictionary and just think, oh, why did that ever disappear? And for your listener who thought blah is not in the dictionary, I bet it is actually, because a lot of words like that really, really are. There's a great word for feeling a bit just sort of flat as well, which is what a lot of them were expressing. And that's frobbly mobbly, which is neither one thing or the other. You're just a bit, and again, centuries ago. Somebody wrote that in and I didn't know if it was true, if it was real. It's true.

It's an old dialect word. Yes, it's just feeling neither well nor unwell, just a bit indifferent to everything. I shouldn't sound so joyous at that, of course, but the joy of finding it out is a word and that we can use it. It's brilliant. Yes. And a lot of people do feel cheered by understanding our language better and some of the words that have gone out. I've got to just say one more that's come up because I know you're going to stay with us throughout the programme and hopefully we'll come back to you at the end. Scunnered.

Scunnered. Yeah, that's Scottish. So scunnered is kind of slightly disgusted. So it's a bit more than fed up. I think it's just that you're just, you know, I can't take any more of this. So it's sad that so many of us are feeling this way, but there is joy and there's quite a lot of laughter in some of our Christmas words too. So Merry Christmas comes from where? Yeah. Merry Christmas goes back to about the 19th,

no, 16th century, I should say. So it's been with us for a while. And the first record that we have of it in the Oxford English Dictionary actually is really nice and thus our lord send you a merry Christmas and a comfortable one to your heart desire and then lots of people picked it up including much later Jane Austen, Jonathan Swift and then Charles Dickens of course they wished each other merry Christmas in their can of grog which is great. That's where I'd like to be right now, but we're on air.

In terms of the words that you may think are lovely, some of them have other meanings or things you can tell us that perhaps aren't quite as lovely as we think. What about the word mistletoe? Mistletoe is always a bit of a surprise, yes. So one lovely thing that you can do under the mistletoe is actually firky toodle, which is a lovely Victorian slang for a bit of canoodling. But mistletoe itself is as unromantic as you could get really because the

missile bit goes back to a German word for poo or dung and that's because the mistletoe is propagated in the droppings of birds so essentially mistletoe is poo on a twig sorry about that do you want to meet me under the poo under the twig? It's not the same, is it? Not quite. I might forget that one. But I do want to know a good word that I believe you've got for us to describe disappointing presence

because my face doesn't often lie. So maybe I just need a better word. Yes, I love this word. Again, this is in the OED, but no one ever uses it really. It's a wonder clout. And a wonder clout is something that looks great on the outside

and then turns out to be very disappointing. clout okay there we go i like the fact that when one of our wonderful announcers was uh was saying you were coming on the program on woman's hour one of the words he went for was chipolata yeah i just i think um one of the lovely things that i've done this year or tried to do this year is to learn spanish because it's not just english that can bring delights but you know other languages can as well and I've been learning with a language learning app the Rosetta Stone app and it's just it just takes me to sunny places but also if you look at all of our Christmas words they are actually many of them from other countries and chipolatas are really all about onions that comes from the Italian chipolata meaning flavoured with

onion and then there's another lovely term. I often tweet about this. It just makes me smile. The Victorian word for sausages or a nickname for sausages were bags of mystery because you never quite know what's in them. I actually have heard that before, but I'd forgotten it. A bag of mystery, please, on the side of my turkey. Exactly.

And also just because you were talking there about words which have roots in other languages. Tinsel. Yeah, tinsel is gorgeous. So tinsel is all about sparkling, as you would expect. And it comes from the French, the old French étincelle to sparkle, which also gave us scintillating because the Latin scintilla is a spark. And in medieval times, tinsel was this fabric woven with thread or spangles through our clothes. So yeah, I just think that's a lovely one, really pretty. That is a lovely one. We're going on to talk about some of the issues facing the Conservative Party, particularly the Prime Minister. And a word that came up in a recent poll, which showed women are

turning away from the Conservative Party, is hypocrisy. And I wanted to ask what we know about that word. Well, that's from Greek, and it's all about people playing a part. So it was about an actor performing, so deceiving in some way. And actually a lot of our normal everyday words go back to that idea of acting. So even person is from the Latin persona being a mask, which is quite deep really when you think about it. But yeah, hypocrisy was all about playing a part that actually, you know, you don't really feel in your soul. We'll explore that on a political front. I'm not going to draw you into the politics of the day, Susie. We like to keep you neutral,

but giving us the meanings of what we're actually saying. I'm going to come back to you, if I may, and reflect on some of our messages from our listeners, our wonderful listeners this morning. Susie Dent, thank you very much. Hold that thought for now. I have to say a message just come in, which is lovely saying,

I'm feeling energised, Emma. Up before dawn to meet a friend and watch the sunrise together on the winter solstice. Very motivated as well. Excited, I'm going to Heathrow later today to collect my daughter and 15-month-old grandson whom I've never met due to COVID.

They're returning from South Africa. Happy Christmas to you all at Radio 4. No name on that, but the sentiment definitely returned. Well, according to this new YouGov poll for The Times, the Conservative Party is now hemorrhaging support from female voters. At the last general election, 43% of women voted Conservative and 34% backed Labour. Now, those figures have been reversed with 42% female voters supporting Labour and 30% backing the Conservatives. Another recent survey by Opinionum gave Labour a 16-point lead

among women. What is behind this swing? One female Conservative MP quoted anonymously by the Times says it's female voters who are most incensed by the perceived hypocrisy in number 10. She said, quote, women have carried the burden of caring during the pandemic, whether that's for elderly parents or children. Then they see a picture from Downing Street of cheese and wine in the garden. And she says, when you're looking at a massive batch of seats with majorities of less than 2000, Boris Johnson's got a real problem if he doesn't start connecting with women. Well, let's discuss that potential problem. The Times journalist Rachel Sylvester is here. Good morning. Morning.

How big an issue is this? I think it's really significant for the Conservatives because women are really important swing voters. They're more likely to be undecided in the run up to an election. And there was a gender gap often in history, in 97, the reason Tony Blair won that landslide majority is because he closed the gender gap and eliminated what is often a conservative majority among women. Then when Gordon Brown lost that, when women voters went back to the Tories, Gordon Brown lost. So it's a really important group who are typically undecided. They're less tribal about their politics. Around 15% of women voters are currently undecided about how to vote. And they are at the moment really losing faith in Boris Johnson and the Conservatives. I think it's a

really significant shift. And it's been quite sudden and dramatic. Has it? Because I was going to say, you know, recent events are being linked here. That's certainly your analysis in the paper this morning around the idea that, as I mentioned there, that anonymous quote, you know, women keeping things going largely during the pandemic and then reports of parties and alleged rule breaking by number 10. And what's so fascinating, listening to the words coming in from your listeners, you know, tired, exhausted, you know, scunnered, fed up. And I think there's this sense that perhaps Boris Johnson is the wonder clout, the disappointing gift that a lot of people, they thought he was fun, different, interesting, entertaining. And actually, he hasn't delivered. And women feel really wrung out after the pandemic. And to see those photographs of predominantly men in Downing Street drinking cheese and wine,

I think the only woman in that photograph was the prime minister's wife. A lot of, you know, male aides having a nice time while women have really been struggling during the pandemic. I think that has definitely been a contributory factor. But of course, you could argue that, and of course, Downing Street said they were working. Dominic Raab, the Deputy Prime Minister's defence was they were in suits. You know, people have responded to that as they do.

But I'm here to, I suppose, say what the government has said. There is an inquiry looking in, I'm not sure. And the police have also referred themselves, I believe, this morning about not investigating that. But putting those aside, we'll keep with that, of course. But it's just to understand, do you think women are more bothered by this? Because, of course, lots of men will also be concerned about what is perceived as hypocrisy. Or is it that it affects women differently?

Well, I don't know. I think it's really interesting. But I think this comes against the backdrop of a sense that the government hasn't been taking women's concerns seriously. So I spoke to one female Tory MP who talks about kind of culture of toxic masculinity in Downing Street. And if you think about it, it took a female Conservative peer, Gabby Burton, to get domestic violence and sexual violence added to the definition of serious violence. And it also took a female Labour MP to get the amendment through Parliament that reduced the cost of repeat prescriptions of HRT for menopausal women. Those things weren't taken up, weren't driven by the government. They were driven by backbenchers. And I think that this kind of comes against a backdrop. The current frustration comes against a backdrop of a sense

that actually the women are being ignored. And even the government's levelling up agenda, it's all about boys' toys, you know, trains, buses, roads, infrastructure. And it's not about schools and public services. And actually, if you're really going to level up the country, it's got to be about education. Is this a win for Labour or are they being picked or is it being picked as just the only other alternative? Does one translate to the other? Yeah, I think it's a really interesting question because a loss of support for the Conservatives doesn't necessarily mean an increase in support for Labour. But at the moment, the women seem to be switching to Labour. And

certainly the difference in the views of the leaders, Boris Johnson, as opposed to Keir Starmer among women, they seem to be moving quite rapidly, losing faith in the Prime Minister personally. And meanwhile, looking again at Keir Starmer and starting to think, oh, perhaps this is somebody more competent and more decent. And there is that contrast, and I think also there's a clear switch, which is very significant politically. And just finally, for Boris Johnson, for the Conservative Party to potentially reverse this trend, is there anything that can be done?

Because, of course, at the same time, Boris Johnson has traded successfully on a reputation of getting people jabbed. Yeah, I think it's actually quite difficult for him to do anything because I think once a perception has stuck about someone's character, it's really quite hard to change it. But I think he could do some practical things, you know, issues of concern to women, perhaps around education

or around women's safety. Yes, that's been a major issue, of course, this year, which we have focused on. Rachel Silvestre, I do have to leave it there, the Times journalist, but reflecting on those latest figures. Thank you very much for joining us and all the best to you and yours over the festive period. I have to say a word that's just come in from somebody who's listening about how they're feeling. My word was disappointed before your programme started, but after five minutes with Susie Dent on the words, it's smiling.

So thank you. Very happy to hear that. But still other words coming in along the lines of flat and also people feeling pretty fragile and sensitive. Well, somebody who does have a clear idea of what they would like from the prime minister is my next guest, Emma Jones, because one of the examples of perceived hypocrisy is that widely shared photo that was being referred to there of the prime minister, his wife, Carrie Johnson, and 17 members of staff drinking wine and eating cheese in the Garden of Number 10, taken on the 15th of May 2020, a time when the country was still in the midst of lockdown one. A spokesperson for the prime minister has said it was a work meeting and it was common during the summer months. Emma Jones is one of the many people who has lost a loved one during the pandemic and wasn't able to hold a proper funeral or see friends and family.

Her 18 year old daughter, Ruby, died the same day that photograph was taken, just hours before. Emma joins me now. Good morning, Emma. Good morning. Thank you for being with me and all of our listeners today. Thank you very much for having us. Of course, I wanted to start by saying how sorry we are for you and your family in what must have been an incredibly difficult

time. And before we sort of get to the context that I mentioned, I thought we could start just by hearing about your daughter and what happened. Yes, thank you. So yes, Ruby was 18 when she died in May last year. She didn't die of COVID. She actually died of blood cancer. She was diagnosed with a form of blood cancer in July 2019 when she was halfway through her sixth form. Up until that point, she'd been a perfectly normal, happy, healthy teenager with grand ambitions. She wanted to go and change the world. She was very politically active. And she started to feel unwell in July and after various GP visits was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and was catapulted into very intense chemotherapy to try and save her life. She had 10 months of treatment altogether, most of it spent in hospital,

it was very very intense treatment and until three weeks before she died, we all hoped that the treatment would save her. But very sadly, in April 2020, the cancer came back. And at that point, we were really out of options. And it was incredibly aggressive. And she died just three weeks later at home on the day of that photo on the 15th of May 2020. And you were unable to come together with people as you would have done in regular times? Yes and I think that was it was absolutely excruciating we were lucky it's extraordinary what you can think of now as lucky we were lucky in that in terms of her being able to be at home so she was with me and her father and her younger sister.

And I know other people had it a lot worse where their loved ones were in hospital and they couldn't see them at all. But we were the only people she could see other than the hospice care staff who came in to help with her care at home. So she couldn't say goodbye in person to any of her friends. She couldn't say goodbye in person to her grandparents or her cousins. The last time they saw her was on Zoom. And then she died. And that's the most heartbreakingly, excruciatingly sad thing that can happen, I think, to any parent. And you have this intense sadness that you really can't begin to describe. And you can't come together with your

loved ones her friends couldn't come together they couldn't give each other a hug we all had to to see each other I think at the time the rule was that you could meet one person from outside your household outside at a distance of two meters and and we did it because that was that was the rule there were no exceptions. It was a really important thing to do. I don't begrudge that. But then when you see that photo, I remember that day so clearly and to see that photo

and 17 people in a garden drinking wine, it's incredibly painful. It feels very insulting. And I think it actually made me shout out loud with with theory when Dominic Raab explained it as people having a drink after a gruelling day. Now, I know there are a lot of other people having gruelling days that day. I don't think all the people working in hospitals, working in Covid wards and a lot of other people like us who lost a loved one that day, it feels incredibly insulting to refer to that as a gruelling day and to be able to explain that behaviour in that way. So it makes me very angry and I know it makes an awful lot of people very, very angry.

What would you like to say to the Prime Minister if he was listening to this? Well, what I'd like to say is I really feel that we deserve leaders who will lead by example. It's almost as if when they set those rules, it didn't occur to them that they had to follow them as well. It's really hard for everybody and we need to feel that we're all in it together. And I feel very strongly now that rather than trying to get out of it on a technicality, which is what they seem to be doing, they need to just own up that they did the wrong thing. They broke the rules. We need a heartfelt apology and a commitment

that they will try harder going forward and some indication that they understand how really hard it has been for everybody. The investigation, I suppose, is happening at the moment, but I know you've wanted to talk out because it had affected you so strongly and make this statement. Is it also linked to, you mentioned, you know, your daughter's strength, her style, the way that she was?

Yes, absolutely. So as I said, Ruby was very politically active. She went on a whole bunch of protest marches and she had a sign for every protest. And if she were alive now, she would be outside number 10 with a protest banner, possibly with Wonder Cloud or something a bit ruder on it, I should imagine. And she asked, when she knew she was going to die, she asked to be remembered by the motto, live kindly, live loudly. She believed that kindness is the most important thing in the world. But she also believed very strongly in standing up for what you believe in and calling out injustice. And that was the idea

behind the live loudly bit. So I'm really I'm doing this for her. And she also asked us to put her savings into research to try and find treatment for kinder and better cancer treatments. So we've set up the Ruby Live Kindly Live Loudly fund with Children's Cancer and Leukemia Group, and we're trying to raise half a million pounds, which is the amount of money that the NHS spent trying to save her life. So she would love that I was doing this. And I feel her spirit is with me today. Emma Jones, thank you so much for talking to me and to all of us today.

Thank you. Emma there with a very powerful message indeed from her family at this time and how she's particularly managing this and why she's speaking out. Many of you, I have to say, getting in touch as to how you are and the word that you would use to describe yourself today it's such a range amanda on email

says as a manager of a care home experiencing our first covid19 positive resident after 21 months of no cases my word today is terrified hazel has emailed in to say proud i've managed to look after my newborn son by myself while my husband is isolating in our spare room with COVID. I didn't think I'd be able to get through it. And we're nearly there. Another one here just to say, Fragile. My husband died in May.

So very sad, but spending time with many family members, which will be lovely, says Joy. All the best to you, Joy. Thank you for messaging in. And rejoicing is another one here with the real meaning of Christmas, which is not dependent on good or bad circumstances. And another one, philosophical. I'm powerless to change the situation and anguishing about it doesn't help. All I can do is deal with each new disappointment as it comes and make the best of

what is possible. Well, I mentioned right at the start of the programme that we would catch up on the situation in New York with regards to the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell for sex trafficking and perjury because a New York City jury is deliberating. The prosecution built much of its case around the testimonies of four women who accused the British socialite of sexual abuse and grooming them for Jeffrey Epstein between 1994 and 2004. Yesterday, the jury asked to review the transcripts from three of these women. Ghislaine Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to all charges. I'm joined now by Stephen Wright, associate editor at the Daily Mail,

who's been following the trial. Stephen, good morning. And in terms of where we're up to, to what extent does this verdict depend on whether the jury believe the women who testified? How significant is it that the jury's now asked to read the testimony of three of the women accusing her? Well, obviously, it's important that they check what they said in court and compare it with the cross-examination by the defence lawyers who gave each of them a hard time, which is what they're paid to do, obviously. Look, it's very important in the justice system

that juries take their duties very seriously. And so I hope, for the sake of this case, that they do that. And all the indications are they are doing that. They asked very quickly to look at those transcripts of what the women had said, or certain women had said in their evidence. When we last spoke, you said in all your years of reporting you hadn't seen a case quite like this.

When is the verdict or when do we expect the verdict to be due and what's the kind of mood around this now? Well, I think when's the jury going to come back? I don't know. Crystal ball time, etc. I've learned over the years, never predict when a jury will come back. I've seen some slam dunk cases where a jury's been out for three or four days and you're all scratching your head thinking, what on earth are they doing?

They've been out since late on Monday. They had a full day yesterday. What's interesting is that the court is not due to sit tomorrow, Thursday or Friday here in the US. So if they don't reach a verdict today or verdicts today,

quite possibly they'll be asked to come back after Christmas. I think it's important for justice that they don't feel under pressure to deliver verdicts before Christmas in any way at all, because that would be a defence appeal point, no doubt, down the line. Because I don't know if Ghislaine Maxwell is found guilty, and that's obviously a matter for the jury. This case is not over by a long shot, I'm sure. And of course, in terms of the questioning of the women, as you say, that's the prosecutions, the way that they are paid to work and how they have to do this. But there has been things like false memory used or tried to be used. There's been, you know, pointing out where

there's been holes in cases or recollections of things. I mean, when you take a step back from this, what's your kind of view on how this has played out? I've been quite surprised that the defence have been so aggressive with some of the accusers, the tactics. The first accuser, Jane, that's not her real life. In real life, she's an actress and she's been accused of playing a role and not remembering her lines. I thought some people might think that was a bit below the line. But, you know, as in fairness to Ghislaine Maxwell's lawyers, they are saying her life is on the line. And yeah, it is on the line. Just think about this, Emma, she's turning

60 on Christmas Day. I cannot imagine a few years ago her contemplating spending Christmas Day in a tough, tough prison in Brooklyn. I imagine there would have been all sorts of VIPs, royalty perhaps, at her planned 60th birthday. At the moment, she's going to be in a tough prison where she's been for 18 months. And in terms of what people are saying around you and the predictions that there are here, I mean, you know, there's some saying if she's found guilty, even just some of the counts, she may never be out again. There are others saying, you know, that they feel like, and I believe you even said this to me as well, that the American justice system is almost on trial here. What is the atmosphere like around this? Well, this is a case that the American legal system, justice system, cannot afford to lose just as much as Ghislaine Maxwell can't.

You know, the way that Jeffery Epstein was allowed to cheat justice with a non-prosecution deal, a scandalous non-prosecution deal in 2008, means the pressure is really on the justice system here, the prosecutors, to get justice as they see it. The flip side of that is the defence lawyers for Ghislaine Maxwell saying she's been made a scapegoat for those very failings. There's quite an interesting line in the defence closing speech on Monday. Ghislaine Maxwell had been portrayed as the devil wears Prada meets Cruella de Vil, a mixture of those two. That's how they portrayed her. Obviously, the flip side of that from

prosecution was that she was at the heart of this alleged sordid business of recruiting girls for Epstein to abuse. The mood, well, juries, when juries are out, there is a lot of excitement. There is a lot of back and forth, I can tell you, there is a lot of tension because we are five hours behind here and we're coming right up to

in terms of our purposes at the Daily Mail, the verdicts could be right on deadline at late tonight, for example, or next week. It's one thing that your listeners may not be aware of. It's just about how difficult, I'm not looking for sympathy here, how difficult it is to get into the court in Manhattan. It's easier, frankly, to catch a plane and go through airport security at Heathrow. You have to hand in your phone, hand in your laptop, you're cut off

from the world. It's extraordinary. And only a handful of reporters are allowed to have their phones. I mean, really a handful, the house press. So it's the security is unbelievable to get in. And, you know, that's going to create operational difficulties. I think maybe first of all, we're here. Well, that's how it is these days. First of all, we're here about verdicts.

It'll probably be on Twitter from a couple of people who are allowed to tweet from the courthouse. So that's how we'll start to hear the news when we hear the news of the verdict

with Ghislaine Maxwell. Stephen Wright, thank you very much for talking to us. Associate Editor at the Daily Mail who's been following that trial the whole way through.

You're still getting in touch with us. Please continue to do so with a word that describes how you feel right now. And Sally's got in touch to say relaxed. All Christmas plans fallen through as we have a positive case in the house, as did the family we were going to be celebrating with, decided to go with the flow and enjoy what we have. It's working so far. Yeah, there can be a relaxation when sort of everything goes out with the flow and enjoy what we have it's working so far yeah there

can be a relaxation when sort of everything goes out of the window and changes uh nervous three more days of lateral flow tests to go and then there will be extreme joy that's what ali is feeling suspended things feeling not like they are able to move on reads another message another one here guilty fear of ruining christmas for others with my lack of enthusiasm, says Helen. Magnificent, reads this one, the power of positive thinking. Maybe squirrelly, says Susan, sort of keyed up and anxious and wondering if I should have chosen hibernation after all. Keep those messages coming in about what word would best describe how you're doing right now. But let's talk to Charlie Jeer, a 19-year-old university student who works in security at nightclubs around his studies. He's gone viral

on TikTok for making a video talking about the sexual harassment and assault he's experienced whilst working in clubs or outside clubs or around clubs, recalling that one night he was groped by women 10 times. His videos now had more than a million views and he joins me now. Good morning Charlie. Morning how are you? Well we're getting a lot of response about how people are coping. I'm good I want to hear from you and actually why you why you decided to post this video. Yeah so it was more it was more a thing about like just venting frustration. I mean I'm sure that everyone gets frustrated at work um but it's sort of like everyday encounter I was feeling was becoming almost normalized um in that

you know it was really acceptable and becoming increasingly common that um that myself and other colleagues would get like sexually assaulted on uh on on the job job. And I thought to myself on that particular night, would I go up to someone in Tesco's and grab their bum? And the answer that I gave myself was no. And so I was kind of confused why the second people get alcohol in their system and enter a club, they think it's right to go up to the people and staff there and do it to them. And you're talking about women? well particularly in that instance it seemed in that instance

yeah so in that incidence well it was women who uh did it to me that night although i have had it in the past um from men as well um so it's definitely not like a limited gender issue and that's something that i tried to get across early on when this story, in inverted commas, was taken out of my hands. It's not just an issue that's limited to women. No, but the one that you were describing there, I just wondered if you could give us, or was in the video, could you give us some more detail? What sort of things were women doing to you that night? Yeah, so it was a majority women event. And it was kind of like I was walking through the crowds because people were standing up on tables and chairs quite commonly because

they thought it was all right, but it wasn't. And, you know, myself and many of my colleagues found that that night they'd sort of reach their arm across you, grab your body. I was having my bum grabbed on multiple occasions, you know, people reaching for my genitals, touching my face. And, you know, the reaching for my genitals, touching my face. And, you know, the first time someone does it, oftentimes I just sort of let it go because I've got other things to deal with at the time. You know, it can be a very stressful and chaotic environment working in nightclubs, as I'm sure you can imagine. But when someone does it, does it again and you tell them not to and then continues to do it for a third time after seeing your frustration it can become slightly undermining um and make you feel slightly violated

and and and do you i mean because that's what's by posting this i suppose are you trying to get those people to get those women to change their behavior or what are you trying to achieve by by putting it out there apart from the fact you were frustrated and you just posted it yeah of course well i mean well for myself i don't feel like a victimised person. You know, I've always said that because I just personally don't feel like a victim. Although people have tried to brandish me with that title of victim, it's not something that I feel. And so for me, you know, when we look at solutions to issues uh targeting individual people so for example if i'd followed it up with courts or police it wouldn't have solved an actual issue

it wouldn't have solved the problem you know when you look to solve problems like individual uh racism attacks individual sexual assault attacks uh you know sexism look you know all of those social issues they can only be solved by mass attitude changes. And luckily, the TikTok algorithm and the way that TikTok set up, it allows you to speak to a massive amount of people, even if you don't have a large following. And so that's why I sort of turned to that platform. But you have had guys get in touch with you saying, I want your job, haven't you? Yeah, of course. The idea that they want to be touched up by women.

Yeah, well, I mean, I think that was something that I kind of expected posting it because it's something that I do get a lot from guys. And, you know, it is like a known part of the job that oftentimes women will try to flirt with or get with guys whilst they're working. And, you know, the same for guys with girls when they're working on the doors and doing security at nightclub venues. Have you ever said to a girl when she's grabbed you or done whatever the particular example was, listen, you can't do that. And if I did that to you, it wouldn't be right, would it? Yeah, I mean... Or are they too inebriated to take on that message potentially i mean i don't know the scenario yeah it's it's really difficult um it's really difficult how you deal with a situation like that because oftentimes people are in this euphoric night uh atmosphere and they really don't listen i mean that's kind of the first thing that you learn when you start working. Drunk people don't listen to you. You have to just talk to them very this, this. And so

when people do touch me and I don't want it, I'll turn to them and say, don't touch me. Do you know what I mean? Because that's kind of the thing that seems to get the message across. You sort of have to speak more speak more directly and so um that's kind of the approach that i go that i go for more so you know because explaining things to drunk people tends to not get you so far i mean i think the video's traveled i think your story's traveled and it's interesting to hear you here on women's hour because often we talk about things the other way around is because we don't often hear uh that this sort of side of it and from men who are in this particular scenario uh and what goes on. Of course, COVID,

nightclubs going out at the moment. It's all a bit of a different picture. Are you still able to work? Is it still open, the club where you go? Well, yeah. Well, I work for agencies, so I get sent all over the place. I don't work for specific venues. Has the pandemic changed things, do you think? Well, I haven't actually done a door shift since they've changed the regulations. So I can't answer that. I can't answer that question for you. It's just it's a funny old time, isn't it? We're asking people how they feel at the moment.

How are you? What's the word that would describe how you're feeling at the moment? Tired. It's 10 a.m. and I'm a uni student dormant. I'll tell you that. Well, we're happy you were awake and that you made it on time to talk to us. I hope you have a Merry Christmas. Thanks so much, Charlie. Thanks. Cheers. All the best there. A voice that perhaps you get not that often. James has a message. It's always been so.

Women are as bad as men or can be, James stresses, when fuelled with alcohol. Well, this is now time to present to you our last in the series, Under Pressure, which we've had several episodes of. You can catch them all on BBC Sounds if you've missed them. And it's about how couples cope when life happens and those stories behind the scenes that we've wanted to bring to you. And many of them have been incredibly powerful and elicited a strong response from you. I want to say at this point that this particular episode is about baby loss. So if that is not for you, please do switch off for around 15 minutes or so. So that's about baby loss. So if that is not for you, please do switch off for around 15 minutes or so. So that's about baby loss coming up. And I just wanted to make sure you knew that. An American

study from 2010 found that couples who had experienced stillbirth were at a 40% greater risk of their relationship ending. Joe Morris went to meet Mustafa, who's 40, and Hora, who's 39. They met at a community event 15 years ago. So let's start with hearing Mustafa's first impression of Hora. Very nice. Very nice. I know. Get the word out of you.

So I'm quite a conservative guy, so I don't always talk about these things. What was the community event? It was a faith-related event, and Mustafa was leading on it. You get to know someone when they're under stress, when you're organising and things are going wrong, so you get to know how people adapt and how to deal with different situations. I think that's very important in a relationship. So what did you learn about horror under pressure?

Very cool about it. I remember her doing something really crazy. So there's a big banner that you need to put up. Get a ladder and really safe, make sure there's... She was up three chairs trying to put a banner and she got it done. It was up. And it didn't drop as well.

I think something clicked. I think our ideas and my interest in community affairs, politics, faith. We're both from Iraq. We got married literally a year later. So we're a bit old school sometimes and so I think I made the formal approach so that I'd be interested. To horror or to a father? There's ways of sending a message through friends, number

one, and then I went through the father just out of respect. And what do you do for your job, Mustafa? So now I run a interfaith charity. I run a charity that kind of represents the different faith communities in London. So I work City Hall and work with the Met Police and other public authorities. In times of crisis you pull together. When you got married what did you think lay ahead for you both? First thing that comes to your mind is having children. We all expect to as soon as we want a child to have a child straight away. It doesn't happen quite like that. It was a big milestone for us to have our first. It was a really lovely

experience. I think it was in the birthing centre, so it was a natural birth. It felt special. It was perfect. It was perfect, yeah. When I saw her, I told Mustafa, can we call her Jannah, which means heaven in Arabic. So beautiful, cute little thing. Yeah. Jenna was about two years old and we thought maybe we could expand our family and have another child. And I was pregnant straight away with my second daughter.

My waters broke. I forgot what happened. In January 2018, Hora's waters broke. We rushed her to hospital the doctors checked the heartbeat everything is okay and the next morning

everything seemed to be fine they were saying everything is good this happens sometimes and everything is okay at that point I was about 32 weeks pregnant and they said they want her to stay longer 36 weeks and they said they want her to stay longer, 36 weeks, and they said they want to keep me in for a few days.

I think on the Wednesday, we met with the doctors, and they said they were very happy with everything. But at night, I started feeling some pain. The first thing I did was to text Mustafa and tell him. So where were you, Mustafa, at this point? I was abroad. I had a work-related meeting in the Vatican. In the Vatican? Yeah. There was nothing for anyone to do, really. He would come during the day, see me, and I thought, you know, if anyone can help me, the doctors and the midwives here, no one else. You go to your meetings and do your things, and I'm fine here.

Initially, I was on the monitor. They forgot to monitor me at 8 o'clock. The midwife monitored me at 12 o'clock. She wasn't getting the reading that she wanted, so she put me on the monitor again. She told me, it's not perfect, but it's okay. I started feeling some pain and the first thing I did was to buzz them and meantime I messaged Mustafa telling him that I've got horrible back pains and it doesn't feel like bathing pains, it felt something different. The midwife came and she put me on the monitor. Even though I was explaining to her the pain is a lot, she wasn't understanding the severity of the pain because by looking at me I was calm and I actually told her I'm in a lot of pain and I had done hypnobirthing before so I'm just doing these breathing exercises and she said oh you're on a monitor if anything the monitor will show us and you're not giving birth basically she had put me on the wrong monitor and the placenta basically I had placenta detachment She wasn't looking at all the readings, otherwise she would have picked up on it.

They had called the doctor, but someone else had another pain and the doctor went to see the other person and they forgot to tell her to come and see me as well. By eight o'clock, another midwife came. Usually the midwives were very nice and very caring. She came and she told me, please sit up in a very stern voice. And I thought, why is she shouting at me? What has happened? She brought this small monitor and she wanted to look for the heartbeat. I actually, initially I was relaxed

because we heard the heartbeat throughout the night. We couldn't hear the heartbeat and I thought, oh, she's not doing her job properly because I felt she was rude to me. So I thought, she's one of those ones. And she said, please get up, we're going downstairs for a scan. You know something's wrong, but you don't want to face reality. They scanned me. When I saw it on the monitor, the baby had a fetal position.

I straight away knew my baby had died. At the same time, I could not believe it. And I begged the doctor for another scan, even though she had just done one. And I just told her, please, please do another scan for me. I want to see, I want to make sure that my baby's gone. And she kindly did do another scan. And obviously, you know, no miracles happened. I'm so sorry, Hora and Mustafa. What did you think, Mustafa, when you were getting these phone calls from Hora about pain?

She had told me just before she went for the scan, they were going to take me for a scan. And she went quiet then. I was the jury in the Vatican at the time. I kind of knew where we were. It was a very remote area, poor reception, but I got a call from one of the nurses, and I could hear her crying in the background. I wanted to be there and support her.

I got to the hospital about 4pm. What can you say? What is there to say? And, you know, not being there, and then realisation that she has to give birth. Difficult question, but how did you feel not being there with Hora? That was the real difficulty for me. There's always this regret, did I do the right thing by going? Where should I have stayed?

In hindsight, I would definitely have stayed. We can't read the future, we don't know. I had met the Pope, and you know, it was quite a big day. I was quite excited for him to be there. I remember he came on Tuesday or Wednesday and he said, I have cancelled. And I was like, well, why are you cancelling your meeting? I'm fine here, I'm safe here. What was your daughter's name? Malik.

It means angel. Malik. Malik. Can you take me back to when you came back home from the hospital and walked through that door? Can you remember? I remember leaving the hospital and I felt I'm leaving a part of me there

but I felt they were forcing me to go and it felt very quick even I felt that what happened straight away? could you talk to each other about it? no it really changes you

I thought I was dead myself I was alive in a physical form but inside everything was dead You could see the grief and you could see the pain but then sometimes you feel there's no soul because... No soul? Yeah

So you felt like all your soul had gone? I did feel I was dead. So I've almost tried to see through that. He knows me very well. He knows me very well. Some people see us, you know, in some communities it's even a shame to talk about it and shame on a mother, for example, to feel...

I wasn't ashamed. I didn't do the only thing that I should have done, having a baby, the glue that brought us together, and now she wasn't there anymore. My husband was here, everyone was around me, but I felt I didn't belong here anymore. How did it affect your relationship in those early days? I wanted Mustafa to be there and not be there. Sharing with him was very difficult.

I do remember that he was pestering me to share things and he would talk and I know he's not someone who's very talkative about. I wanted to get her out of this pain. You wanted things to go back to normal in some ways as well. And you've got a daughter who needs attention as well. How soon did you go back to work, Mustafa? Just over a week later, after the peril.

People put pressure on you to move on. Do you think you were grieving differently? Yes, definitely. I definitely felt that I was more trying to protect Hora and her feelings. That inner instinct came to me more than me grieving. I didn't have the same connection to the newborn in some ways. You're nodding. Hora, do you think you were grieving differently? The short answer is yes, we did grieve differently.

After a few weeks, I felt Mustafa's moving very fast, but I was still stuck at some point. And sometimes I even found it insulting that people around me not Mustafa specifically but everyone around me that had moved on even seeing people go to the park or you know invite each other for dinners and I felt I've lost my child how can people move on so fast. Mustafa come them come back from work. Usually it's like a loud hi and Jenna would run to him and it gets very lively. But when he gets home, I wouldn't come downstairs.

I remember that. You know, I didn't want him to try so hard. I think sometimes when you're trying to protect, you try and take control and move things in the right direction that you think is right. I sensed I had to move on quicker, much quicker. To go back to work, you have to disconnect. So as a couple prior to this, you were very connected,

always talking to each other. We'd talk a lot all the time. On the phone, make text messages, at home, at night. Suddenly we were kind of separated. I think we were both in our own worlds. My sisters or my mum would take Jenna out. She started to just immerse herself in watching TV. That's all I was doing. I watched all sorts of subs and documentaries and just to run away really. Literally I would have eyeache by the night

because I've watched so much TV. Mustafa, men can feel very pushed out after baby loss. Was it seen as your loss? Or just Horah's? I definitely think it was more felt as Horah's loss. As a man, you try to show less emotion, particularly outside of family, at least. So you also had your older daughter, Jenna,

who was three, at home. I remember trying to be there for her. I think she was there for me more than I was for her. I do remember she bringing a lot of smiles to my face when she was there for me more than I was for her. I do remember she bringing a lot of smiles to my face when she was around. That's definitely helped me a lot to come back to reality because someone's relying on me and I've got to push myself and make an effort. So what was the turning point? What was the point when you sought help from outside at the hospital they gave us a folder of petals the charity that looks after parents and families who had a stillbirth

do you remember karen one of the counsellors emailed me i remember telling mustafa what did you think mustafa when you heard i kind of thought it was okay for my wife to go, but I didn't want to be present. I didn't see it as I needed to go. I had no clue even if I was allowed to go. Why would I seek a counsellor? I'm not going mad. Can you take me back, Cora, to that day

you first walked into the counselling room? I walked in there thinking, I have nothing to say really. I have nothing to share with anyone. I think I cried the whole time. I do recall coming back feeling better as if there was a cover over my heart or my head or my shoulders and that was taken away. that heaviness wasn't there anymore first of all horror went and then you started coming as well how did you feel when you first walked into that counselling room i think there's a bit of a boyish culture that you know you've got to man up i don't know why i feared it so much because it it was so liberating in some ways allowed us to open up with each other in a way that we've never done before.

We don't talk about our darkest moments in life to many people. Sometimes we don't talk to anyone about it. I think we can now share it together. I always think that if we didn't seek the right support, God knows where we would be. Sorry. You're going to get it. My daughter's awake.

Then you're going to feed her? Yeah. Hello, baby. Come, baby. This is Amal. It means hope in Arabic. She's four months old. She's doing her first interview already.

So how old would Malik be now? Three years old. She's doing her first interview already. So how old would Malik be now? Three years old. So she would be her three-year-old sister? Yeah. And she is her three-year-old sister. She is her three-year-old sister. Bless you. That's a lovely sound to end that report on.

Hora and Mustafa talking to Joe Morris. Thank you to them and to Joe. And the details of charities offering help and support, I should say, are on the Woman's Hour website. All of the other episodes are of the Under Pressure series also available on BBC Sounds. Just search for Woman's Hour. And speaking of what you should search for on Words,

we still have Susie Dent with us. I'm very happy to say our wordsmith. We've borrowed her from Countdown for the day. Susie, we've had so many messages and I wanted to come back to you about words people are using. One that's come in and a few like it, nesting. This message says,

my 22-year-old daughter is due to give birth after having had COVID three times in 12 months and having experienced loss and pain. We are hopeful for the future and for celebrations. People do tend to feel like going a bit in, don't they, at this time? Yeah, and there's some lovely words to do with that. So to nudificate is to do just that, to nest, to build a nest and stay there. If you want to hide in a corner and then you come out when you feel like it, that's latipulating.

And then there's another word. I think it was Susan earlier on you mentioned, talked about wanting to hibernate. And a hibernacle is where you can do that. That's just where you can go and spend your winter time. Well, we also got a message that I read out saying that somebody was going to say disappointed. And then after hearing your descriptions,

she was now smiling. Oh, that's really nice. Words can just take you absolutely anywhere. And actually just listening to that really difficult story as well and the baby Amal and hope in Arabic, that's a beautiful word and I bring it out every single Christmas time, but it's just so appropriate now. And that is respare.

It's the opposite of despair. So it's fresh hope and a recovery from despair. That is lovely. That is great. It's the opposite of despair. So it's fresh hope and a recovery from despair, despair. That is lovely. That is great. Are your Christmas cards, if you do them, just wonderful? I mean, are they filled with the best sentences ever? No, not really. I do always think it would be lovely to just design a set of Christmas cards myself or to draw them myself with some of these words on. So there's another beautiful one for Christmas Day which is confelicity and I think you mentioned the definition earlier Emma that is joy in someone else's happiness confelicity so let's hope for that all around this Christmas. Spare confelicity I mean if you wrote my scripts I would stumble a lot but I'd sound a lot better. Susie you'd

picked your word of the day earlier but if you don't mind me saying you avoided my question because I asked how you were feeling so Susie Dent I don't ever like to leave a question unanswered. So what is the feeling for you at the moment, Susie, as we go towards Christmas? I think I'm trying to sort of whip up enthusiasm. So like a lot of your listeners, I think one that came up on Twitter in response was Wabbit. You're feeling a bit wabbit which is just a little bit wishy-washy um and just maybe just a bit sort of sickly and and weak so i'm going to do my best to um another good one per tolerate to per tolerate is to endure steadfastly and get through difficult times so um that's what i'm going to try and do i'm going to try and be um jolly and happy get for some comflicity and some respect

and yeah, just find your own words again. Susie Dent, all the best. Thank you so much. And all my best to you and yours over Christmas. I'll see you on the other side. Woman's Hour's back tomorrow at 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time.

Join us again for the next one. We are all driven by our needs and wants and this can take us places we never expected. My body was craving a pregnancy, my mind was craving a pregnancy and then that's what made me start looking up Facebook. You can get anything on the internet. Just like meet you and you just give them your sperm and they just go back into their house? What? I'm Dr. Alex Kretosky, and in this 10-part series, I'm investigating the unregulated, unlicensed fertility market, a place of hopes and dreams and unchecked desire.

I don't want to give you my full name. I don't want to give you my age. You're not going to be able to find my identity. I just want to get people pregnant. From BBC Radio 4, Mail Order. Listen and subscribe 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.