Woman's Hour - Tina Sinatra, Meg Winterburn and Willow Grylls on a new TV drama about the serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, Dame Christine Lenehan

Episode Date: September 25, 2023

Claiming to tell unknown stories about the iconic singer, alongside songs some of his much-loved songs, this world premiere musical hopes to reflect his enduring legacy. His youngest daughter Tina, one of the producers, and the director and choreographer of the show, Kathleen Marshall join Emma Barnett.We discuss the possible decision to cancel another part of the high speed rail link - HS2 - and the impact it could have on women with Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson, co-director of the Women's Budget Group, a Feminist Economic Think Tank and Zoe Billingham, Director of the IPPR North - based in Manchester.Between 1975 and 1980, Peter Sutcliffe murdered 13 women and attempted to murder at least seven more across the North of England.  A new ITV drama series, The Long Shadow, portrays the women who were killed, and their families, as well as the hardworking but flawed and misogynist police investigation.  Joining Emma are Willow Grylls, executive producer of the show and Meg Winterburn, who worked on the investigation as a police sergeant.Exclusive research shared with Woman’s Hour claims that £60m is ‘wasted’ in England every year on Tribunals for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. Local authorities ‘fight’ thousands of parents of disabled children about what support the child gets and where they go to school  – but 'lose' 96% of those cases. This comes on the day that one of the country’s leading experts delivers a valedictory lecture after a 40 year career advocating for disabled children. Dame Christine Lenehan, Director of the Council of Disabled Children, part of the National Children’s Bureau, Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Studio Manager: Duncan Hannant

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. I went to a pond this weekend for the first time with a friend who does it a lot and swam with all sorts tickling around my body. I don't want to think about that bit. It was soupy, women only and very, very cold. But quite frankly, it was wonderful. There's a lot going on at the moment, all of which we will get to, or at least some of it, I promise.

But even if you aren't a big Strictly Come Dancing fan, you may still have heard about Angela Rippon's leg and where it went on Saturday night. The 78-year-old broadcaster, who happens to be the oldest contestant in the show's history, got it over her head like you do. Thinking about the fact that I went swimming for the first time in a pond, the fact that Angela Rippon has left some judges open-mouthed and perhaps some audience members, I was looking on Twitter for some of that response, what have you done with your body that is unexpected? What physical remarkable feat do you surprise people with? Let me know. I'm in the market for all responses. I'll just see which ones I can read aloud on air.

Tell me your response to that question. Text me 84844. Text will be charged to your standard message rate on social media at BBC Women's Hour or email me through the Women's Hour website or WhatsApp message or voice note with the number 03700 100 444, all terms on our website about potential charges. On today's programme, exclusive research which shows £60 million is wasted, inverted commas, every year on tribunals for children in England with special educational needs and disabilities. We'll have all of the details for you on that story and that figure.

Tina Sinatra is here, Frank's youngest daughter, to talk about why she's producing a new show explaining her father's life on, but crucially, off the stage too. And a new way at looking at a terrible reality that centres women and children. All to come, but first. We've learned this weekend that government might cancel another part of the high-speed rail link, HS2. It was rumbling on at the end of last week, too, and more this weekend with sort of what's not been said

and what's been said by others. Let's try and look at that. And it's apparently because of a rise in costs. The former Conservative Chancellor, George Osborne, has said scrapping the high-speed link to Manchester, that's that bit we're talking about, would be a gross act of vandalism. The Labour Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham,

has said abandoning the extension risked creating a north-south chasm. The last official estimate on HS2 costs, excluding the cancelled eastern section, added up to around £71 billion. And the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, recently said costs were getting totally out of control. Over the weekend, the former Transport Secretary, now Defence Secretary, Grant Shapps, said it'd be crazy not to look again at how much it's costing. But it made us think this morning about what women want and need from public transport. What do we know on that? And of course, what do you want to say about this? The number you need,

84844. That's the number to text. I gave you the number for the WhatsApp, but just again, 03700 100 444 or on social media at BBC Women's Hour. Dr. Marianne Stevenson, let me talk to you first. Co-director of the Women's Budget Group, a feminist economic think tank. That's how you describe your particular group. And I know that you've looked at this a little, but perhaps there's more to say. Good morning. Good morning. What do we know? Well, we know that women and men have different sorts of transport uses. So women make about a third more bus journeys than men men make about 40 percent more train journeys than women we know that our

public transport system is largely based on the needs of male commuters so it's reasonably good at getting people into the center of cities and towns in the morning and out again in the evening what it's not so good at are the sorts of journeys that women often need to make, you know, taking the kids to school, then going to work, then coming home via mum to check that she's all right, then picking up some food for dinner and then getting home. Those sorts of trip training journeys are actually quite difficult to do on public transport. And we did some work with the Women's Environmental Network, which reported last year, and they did workshops with women at the grassroots level. And the thing that came up, well, there were several things that came up. One was about safety, which often

doesn't come up in discussions about public transport, that women talked a lot about feeling unsafe, feeling unsafe at isolated bus stops. But the other was about the way in which public transport didn't meet women's needs. So just on that, because there's a lot of information in there, and I should say I'm going to be talking in just a moment, you can hear a little bit of background noise due to where she is, to Zoe Billingham, the director of the Centre Left Think Tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research,

better known by some as the IPPR. I believe, Zoe, you're in Bournemouth at the moment at the Liberal Democrat conference, which has just begun. I'll come to you in a moment, just to explain a bit of the noise on the line there. Mary-Anne, to come back to you, in light then of what you've started to paint as a picture about this, what we do know about how women can use public transport differently, because of course, some women will use it exactly the same as men, and some men will be doing some of what you've described in terms of caring duties, but we know the bulk still is in women's hands, as it were. What about this potential scrapping of this part of HS2 then? Is that a problem?

Well, I think there is a problem in that there is a lack of investment in physical infrastructure, particularly in the north of England, and a lack of investment in public transport. But I think that the wider point that I would want to make is that we need to see that investment, not just in terms of the big high profile train project, but also in things like bus routes, bus routes in more rural areas, because that's the sort of public transport that an awful lot of women use. Is that what Rishi Sunak is potentially betting on? When making these sorts of decisions,

I'm not saying you know, I'm not saying he's sat there thinking with his team of advisors, yes, if we can scrap this, it might not actually affect as many people or upset as many people as we might think, although we've certainly heard that to the opposite. But he might actually know and his team might know that there are other transport needs

that the money would be better spent on. What do you make of that? We haven't seen an investment in the bus infrastructure in this country from central government. I mean, far from it. What we've seen is a significant reduction in the number of buses in the last 13 years. One of the impacts of austerity and the cuts to funding of local authorities is that those routes that were supported

by local authorities have been substantially cut. Where we have seen investment in bus systems has been the announcement that's been made just in the last few days from Andy Burnham in Manchester about the new fleet of publicly owned buses in Manchester. And I think that is a recognition that you need a transport policy that isn't just about long distance train journeys, although those are important. So women and men of Manchester might not be as bothered about this bit going if they get better. That's not what I'm saying at all. No, no, I'm not saying you're saying that. I'm saying I'm very interested in the women and men of Manchester who might be

listening and get in touch with me this morning and have a say if they are more concerned perhaps about the metro working there and that being better linked as well as the bus and those linking journeys. I am not saying you're saying that. Let me bring in Zoe Billingham at this point, IPPR, the bit that's based in the north, I believe in Manchester as well. Zoe, good morning. Good morning. What do you reckon of the idea that maybe this isn't such a big problem for women in Manchester? Well, I disagree with that premise. The government is playing fast and loose, as we've seen, with transport and rail investment. I totally agree with Marianne that traditionally big rail and road projects have been designed with men in mind, but there's a lot of interactions here.

You sound like you're on a train. I don't know where you are in the Bournemouth Lib Dem conference, but I've got to point that out. Carry on. Oh, bless you. I'm speaking to you from the media centre in Bournemouth, live from Lib Dem conference. Live. Our woman at the Lib Dems. Go on, go on, carry on as you say. And so in terms of HS2 itself, of course, increasingly, you know, women are also the commuters.

I am an example of one. I live in Liverpool. I commute to Manchester and to London, so I would be a strong user of HS2. But there's also a really important interaction with Northern Powerhouse Rail that hasn't been mentioned much in this debate. And that's the line that links east to west in the north, which is also sort of on the table and in discussion with government. government and if HS2 is pulled the leg between Birmingham Manchester as we're discussing that removes a lot of the shared infrastructure with northern powerhouse rail so actually it has a direct knock-on effect to the northern rail infrastructure northern powerhouse rail

which also caters for shorter routes shorter stops more complex routes as Mary-Anne was saying as well as integration with local bus services so there is a direct additional knock-on effect to women and men in Greater Manchester for that reason alone. Is that why the former Chancellor, George Osborne, he of Northern Powerhouse Connection, used to obviously, that was a big part of what he used to speak about, as well as his role, when in government has said it would be a gross act of vandalism because there is a lot of incoming if this is going to be the move by a Conservative Prime Minister by previous Conservative ministers. Yeah, I think, look, the fact that we mustn't forget

that this government is still on a 2019 mandate, which included a promise to level up the country and of which both HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail were a key part of that. So rolling back on both of those elements is totally not in the spirit or in the practice of what they set out in 2019 and to which they should be still being held to account. We've had two prime ministers since then and on to the third. There's a message that's just come in I wanted to share with you,

Dr Marianne Stevenson, as the co-director of the Women's Budget Group. You were talking about there hasn't been enough focus on what women specifically want from transport. There's a few messages to that point. May I read them to you? Here's one that says, What I want as a woman is manned stations, ticket offices and trains to support safety. Women need good transport links. We need good public transport. One of the things HS2 is doing is really pushing the rail and construction industry in getting more women

into the industry, including at senior levels. It would be great to hear some positive news about this project. I'm a woman and I work with industry on this project. No name on that, but to that point, it would be very good to hear from some of the women working at the moment in this. Let's see what we can do on that. Here's another one. Here's one I see and have experienced time again.

People with buggies being turned down from getting on the bus because they have a two buggy limit. Sometimes when it's pouring with rain, it's often made me late to drop the kids and then soggy arriving at work. You can't hold a buggy and a toddler's hand and a brolly all at once. And another to this, that travel with children on trains is still so impractical.

We need more infrastructure for children, play areas at stations, toilets suitable for children and breastfeeding spaces. The small spaces on trains are hellish if travelling with babies and young children. No space again for prams or luggage makes this point. I could go on and on and on. Dr Marianne Stevenson, what do you say to some of those messages? Well, I mean, absolutely that's in line with what I'm saying. We don't have a public transport system that meets the needs of women.

And as Zoe's pointed out, those will be many and varied. Some women will be commuting between major cities. Some women will be taking their kids to school on the bus and then getting on to work more locally. More women, one of the things that came out in the focus group was actually a lot more women wanted to cycle, but they didn't feel safe cycling. When you visit countries like Denmark,

where they have proper cycle lanes separated from the main car lanes. You see a huge range of people of all ages, you know, grandparents cycling their grandchildren to school, for example, because it's safe and it's well organised. And so we need a transport system that integrates trains and buses and cycling and walking routes as well. Yes, well, I think that we're starting to see that come through on some of these messages as well. Zoe Billingham, to come back to you, and again, as I say, the soundtrack of your background really is like a train. It's giving a real authentic feel to this. We discussed on the programme last week about the role of local authorities after what's happened in Birmingham with bankruptcy and the decentralisation. What do you say to those people who talk about the fact that,

we just said a little bit about what's gone on in Greater Manchester with the buses, it's down to local authorities to spend the budgets better on the local needs of people, and in this instance we're talking about women, and what is needed for public transport. That's where it should be improved. What do you say to that, Zoe? Well, I think there is a really positive story here about devolution. And what we've seen in Manchester is the result of what happens when you hand the power and decision making to the metro mayors at the combined authority level and the impact they can have on on local networks but i don't think we can ignore the fact that when we talk about kind of big inter-city transport you know there is a role there for for central government to come in

because local leaders whether at the local authority or combined authority level don't have the necessary financial levers to be able to sort of pay for that themselves. So they're still very much dependent on central government funding those major intercity transport links. So both can be true at once, both that we need the central government's support for the major infrastructure projects, but also that there's a lot that Metro mayors are already doing at the local level. So Billingham, we'll let you get back to the Liberal Democrat Conference in Bournemouth. Thank you, Director of the Centre Left Think Tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, the IPPR based in Manchester has done research on

public transport use. And Dr. Marianne Stevenson, thank you to you, Co-Director of the Women's Budget Group, a feminist economic think tank. Messages coming in. Disabled women need cheaper accessible trains. Very straightforward and important message there. Another one. What frustrates me about the HS2 project is that people talk about how it will benefit the North, but when they talk about the North, they only seem to mean Manchester. I feel Northumberland, County Durham are forgotten about. The North does not stop at Manchester. and in order to level up things, there needs to be major infrastructure investments up in the northeast as well. I live in Stockport, reads this message.

I don't want HS2 to come to Manchester because the cost is astronomical. I should like to see much better transport from west to east of the north and much better local transport. It takes two hours to get to London from Stockport. That is fast enough, says Linda. Hearing your voices today on Women's Hour, keep them coming in. Another one here. Women need connectivity within towns and cities. Regular buses and

trains that are circular and along with ring roads so that centres are not the only place to connect to other areas of town. That's Birdie, who's listening in Leeds, as she describes it, the abandoned HS2 city. Here in the North West, we need better east-west links. HS2 won't help us, particularly as the London terminus is outside of the city. It's just over two hours from Warrington to Euston. It is indeed, I know that route well myself, says Trish. Good morning to you.

Another one here, cycle lanes is the best best on every level way of transport. And in my town, Stratford-upon-Avon are totally neglected. and deviate actually from the campaign manifesto that was campaigned upon, rather the party manifesto that was campaigned upon only a few years ago, if you can hold them in your mind. Keep your messages coming in. I have to say some wonderful ones coming in about what your body can do that has surprised you. Inspired by the broadcaster Angela Rippon, even if you're not a fan of Strictly Come Dancing, she's the oldest contestant, I'm told, on Strictly Come Dancing at 78. And her leg was, or ankle rather, was by her ear this weekend in her dance.

And there were some wide-eyed views from audience members and judges in awe. You, with your messages of what your body can do, let's see what I can read aloud on the radio. I can hold a correct plank on long arms. I didn't take up keep fit until after I'd retired and now I'm 83. I took up yoga at 50, which includes a headstand. And I can still stand on my head and enjoy that rush of blood 25 years later. The feeling can't be beaten, says Elaine.

Good morning to you. In quiet moments around the dinner table, I push my hair behind my ears and then wiggle independently both ears the response is usually laughter not pity and then lots of attempts to copy my skill without success says pearl good morning to you i have a bmi of over 40 but i can still touch my toes tie my shoelaces while i'm down there people are always astonished so i do it often says linda you have to get those those trainers on to be able to do that. Thank you. Keep the messages coming in.

What can you do with your body that surprises you and perhaps those around you? In the meantime, let's have a bit of this. Some exotic booze. Is it too early at 20 past 10? I don't know. Frank Sinatra's youngest daughter, Tina Sinatra, is here, and she's the producer of a new show Sinatra the Musical it's just opened at the Birmingham Rep it's the first time a production has explored the iconic singer's life both off stage and on across a 60-year career Frank Sinatra became one of the world's most famous singers selling 150 million records worldwide he also starred in major films such

as Guys and Dolls and Maggio and From Here to Eternity, for which he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. The director and choreographer of the show, three-time Tony winner Kathleen Marshall, is also with us. Tina, I'll start with you. Tina Sinatra, good morning. Welcome to the programme. Good morning. Nice to be here. It's lovely to have you on. tell us how this production came about well it originally occurred to us that the music being biographical would make a good live theater show so but with book it was important to us and to essentially tour it even across the globe if possible. It was about the music first and the book and getting Kathleen to direct it. So all had to be in place. I'll come to Kathleen in just a moment. But what do you feel that hasn't been said about your father that needed to be said or shown

through the music and through his story as you know it as his youngest daughter well i think our our play our musical play is about his emotional being uh the you'll uh you'll see what i what i'm um meaning by putting the music to the life because the life was was the emotion of song and song of life. He was complicated, but very easy to understand a man if you knew him. And I would grow into that. We all have to learn about our parents as we become adults, I think. But I have to add to that that he hadn't done anything personal about himself in his life and would not.

He wouldn't. He thought his life was his music and that also he wouldn't talk about anybody. He wouldn't. That was against his moral code. So we've done it for him and for that matter, for my mother and Ava as well. What do you think he would make of that, the personal on the stage? Would Dad admire Matt? Would your father like this production, do you think? Oh, I think he would. I believe he's loving it. They have been on my shoulders, my parents, from the beginning,

which dates back almost four years. Joe DiPietro, our wonderful playwright, he was brought on before COVID and that gave us time to work on it. It did. It gave a lot of people a lot more time perhaps than they were thinking in some ways, otherwise much more difficulty for the arts and for theatre. Kathleen Marshall, good morning. Good morning, Emma. Tell us about your connection to this and what you want to tell people about it. Well, I was brought on board after Joe had written a book and I met with Tina in Los Angeles.

And, you know, to get to bring the story of such an iconic man and singer and actor and entertainer to the stage was sort of really thrilling. And I think what'll be interesting is that for a lot of people, they don't know this part of his life. We focus on the sort of early 40s to the early 50s. And I think a lot of people think that Frank Sinatra was just at the top of his game from the time he was a young man all the way through the rest of his life. And I think a lot of people don't know that he had a really precipitous fall that he had at a certain point in the late forties and the early fifties, nothing was working. And he was, his, his, his movie career, his recording career were not, were not happening. His marriage was in trouble. He was having an affair with Ava Gardner that in the newspapers were just raking him over the coals. And he was his the social and liberal causes that he supported.

He was being criticized in the in the conservative press. And and he had what is considered one of the greatest comebacks in showbiz history. And so I think that learning learning about the man behind the music is what we're we're trying to do with this production. And why do you think that is important to know? Because, you know, some people just they heard a bit of Come Fly With Me there. They go somewhere else. They escape. They don't always want to know about their heroes. They don't always want to know the details. Well, I think the reason that Frank Sinatra's music endures is because it is so emotional. It is so truthful. And I think that when you hear those songs like Come Fly With Me or That's Life or One For My Baby, that they're sung by a man

who, as Tina said, is complicated and had incredible highs and incredible lows. And all that emotion and all that truth is in his music. And I think that's why his music endures. And I think it's why his music keeps getting discovered by generation after generation. Tina, he refused Frank Sinatra, your father, to play in segregated venues where black and white audiences couldn't mix. Tell us about him taking a stand.

Well, originally, I think he decided to put his powerful foot down in Las Vegas, which he was pretty Lena Horne's daughter, Gail, dove in the pool at the Sands Hotel, and there was a stink about it and draining of the water. And he said that, I'm out, I'm leaving, you fix this in your own heads, or I'm not coming back. And that was one of several incidents. It was not pretty.

No, it must have been. It's hard to believe, isn't it? Yeah. Shocking, yeah. Very. And you cover, I mean, you also, Kathleen, you don't shy away from nodding to Frank Sinatra's involvement and connection with more criminal types, shall we say?

Absolutely. I'm here to talk about it. No, as he used to put it, he never drove the getaway car. It was from childhood. They grew up together. They would then own the clubs and hire him when no one else would. And I'm not glossing it. It's really that basic and simple. His judgment, which we tell in our play, yes, he does go to Havana at some point and meet Lucky Luciano and get photographed shaking his hand.

Was that smart? I guess not. It really ticked off Mother, I can tell you that. But he didn't think that way. You know, you're loyal to your friends. And as I said, they lived on the same block, many of them, in Hoboken. When you say they they who are you actually referring to you some of his friends but well I don't know exactly which ones they were but I know that one empowered was uh Joe Joe Fischetti it was a large family by the way they may have come from

other parts of Jersey but if you knew these people as kids when they were just kids you You don't, it's not an Italian, you don't judge people. My father did not judge people in general, but Italians are loyal. But he was clean. He did nothing wrong. I mean, you're talking about your father here. As you say, you get to know your parents as adults yourself when you grow up and then a different lens on them as they grow older again. What was Frank Sinatra like as your father to you? Well, as a little one, he was as constant as he could be. Dad left us when I was six months old. I think he lived with terrible guilt for that. We discussed it when he was near

his end. And I kept reassuring him that all is fine. All was fine. He was a constant in our lives. This is not easy for a man who was working 42 weeks a year, mostly out of town anyway. So he would anchor himself, base himself in LA and Palm Springs, and we would be within in either place. And as we matured, we got to go where he was, which was a great deal of fun on vacations and stuff. So we worked it out. It's I had a lot of friends during my young life, my school days, whose fathers were never home, and they were married to mother. Yeah, I... It's not as dreadful as people thought.

It was a wonderfully... It was not joyous at times, but it was... It was a good life. Privileged, too, by the way, of course. Yes. Can you sing? You want me to give you bars?

There was a wonderful Sinatra Dean Martin family Christmas special. Oh. What year was that? 64. 64. So you were a teenager. We were all young and adorable. Listen, it's really fun.

I don't know how many times in my life i'm going to get to interview a sinatra and if you don't ask a sinatra if they can sing you've done something wrong in my trade i i did they made me sing you know i had no choice at times but i did not follow that no i acted for a while and several uh casting directors said are you sure there isn't something else you want to do seriously i think well i you know i had to ask i had to ask kathleen just just a final word to you um unless you feel like breaking out into song as well i don't know if that's uh appealing this morning i've just talked about having a drink having heard frank sinatra's words i think we are the comedy relief this morning for you good Good. That's always welcome. Please come again. But, you know, for you, Kathleen, were you a Frank Sinatra fan? Did you have a favorite tune? Was there a connection already

there? How's it been working on this? Oh, absolutely. I mean, a huge fan of his music, but also of his movies. I mean, the variety of movies he did from dramas like, you know, from Here to Eternity, but also High Society. I love I love Anchors Away. I love Guys and Dolls. I love Pal Joey. I sort of grew up on all those movie musicals. And so it's it's just joyous to get to the songs in our show because he has such incredible taste in the songs that he chose to sing. We have in our show just the best songs from the American Songbook, one after another.

And you have mentioned him a few times, Matt Doyle. It's his job to play Frank Sinatra. I imagine quite a nerve wracking thing to bring these to life. He is fantastic. I've known Matt for 10 years and worked with him and adored him. But when he came into audition, he had such swagger. And you know, the shows I've known Matt for 10 years and worked with him and adored him. But when he came into audition, he had such swagger. And, you know, he's the song, the shows I've done with have been a bit more sort of pop sensibility. And he totally inhabits this music and this world. And then we found out that his grandmothers are both Italian. So that he's half Italian. And he just so he gets it. He understands because this is a show about a family. You know, here we are in the woman's hour. And it's like the women we are in the woman's hour.

And it's like the women characters are very strong in this show. Frank's mother, Dolly, Nancy, his first wife, and then Ava Gardner. Very strong women. And as Matt says, oh, yeah, I've dealt with strong Italian women my whole life. Very strong. Tina Sinatra, final word to you. What's the song you reached for from your father what's the one that if you had to to play one again and again to yourself what is it I think I'll pick one from our show I have many but uh I I'd say I'd say

you know what I'm gonna pick I'm gonna pick New York. Do you know why? Because it makes everybody smile like you are right now. I love it. I have very, very good memories associated with that, with my grandmother loving it and my godmother. So it brings a very good smile for that reason, in particular for me. The show, rather, is Sinatra the Musical. It's just opened at the Birmingham Rep. You were listening to Frank Sinatra's youngest daughter and producer of that, Tina Sinatra, and the brilliant choreographer, director Kathleen Marshall, too. Thank you so much for talking to us this morning. Thank you, Emma.

Thank you. All the best there. Thinking of strong Italian women as well and some of that music. I'm sure you'll be in touch with some of yours and some of the favourites. And more messages coming in about your surprising things to do with your body and how you sometimes entertain those around you. Lucy says, I surprise myself and all those around me every day as I'm doing a cartwheel every day.

Oh, gosh. I'm a survivor of acute myeloid leukemia and was discharged from University College London Hospital last year, UCLH. I'm 56 years old and my cartwheeling challenge is to raise money for the incredible nurses who saved my life and their research into leukemia. You go girl. You go woman, you go girl. I'm very inspired. Cartwheel every day. Good morning. I taught myself to wolf whistle in the bath when I was eight years old.

Influenced, I think, by Starsky and Hutch. It's been a useful whistle over the years. I'm now 50-ish, mother of two, and I don't look like the sort, says Kat. My body has birthed two babies, one nearly 10 pounds, with no pain relief. Epic! Exclamation point.

It really is. Thank you very much. Keep those messages coming in about those, the answer to those questions and anything else that you'd like to get in touch with. Now some exclusive research for you that's been shared with this programme with Women's Hour. Claims £60 million is wasted, in inverted commas, every year on tribunals for children in England with special educational needs and disabilities. Thousands of parents of disabled children take on their local authority if they disagree about the support the child is getting or where to go to school. And 96% of them win those hearings, as it were. This research commissioned for the Disabled Children's Partnership,

that's a coalition of over 100 charities and campaign groups, calculate the money spent on these wasted battles would fund, wait for it, almost 10,000 disabled children's school places a year. This comes in the week that one of the country's leading and most respected experts retires from her 40-year career advocating for disabled children and their families. Dame Christine Lenahan, Director of the Council for Disabled Children, will deliver a lecture tonight

in which she will warn that far too many disabled children are continually let down. Dame Christine's just joined me in the studio. I'll talk to her shortly. But first, let's get more on this set of figures. Our reporter, Carolyn Atkinson, has more on that research

about the cost of tribunals for children in England with special educational needs and disabilities. Carolyn, good morning. How many children are we talking about? Good morning. Well, the latest government stats show there are about 1.5 million children in England with these special educational needs or disabilities. The vast majority, around about 1.1 million of those, will get all the support they need in a mainstream school. It'll have extra SEN funding to support children who

most commonly need help with things like speech and language and communication. And of course, everyone agrees in a very ideal world, all children with special educational needs and disabilities would get the support they need in their local school close to home. But of course, we know that doesn't happen. The government accepts it doesn't happen. And in fact, 400,000 children currently have needs which are higher than the school can meet or that the special educational needs budget can actually plan. And it's a legal document. It lays out what the child needs, how it will be provided. And the key thing is it has to be followed by the local authority. So today, what have we learned that's new? We basically learned the cost of when things break down. So this is newly commissioned

research by the Disabled Children's Partnership. And it was carried out. The number crunching was done by Pro Bono Economics and it shows that 11,000 tribunal applications were lodged by families in the year 21 to 22. Now that's up a third on the year before and the report calculates that these standoffs between the local authorities and the parents are wasting, they say, almost £60 million a year just in England. And they say that's because 96% of the cases that get to a tribunal hearing are actually found in favour of the families. Now, the claim is that that money could be much better used. They say it could fund 10,000 places for children who've got special educational needs but they could be supported in a mainstream school.

Well I understand I mean there's a lot for people to take in those figures and what they could be used that money could be used instead the financial costs to the public purse we also need to talk about beyond that the toll that this can take on the families of disabled children and their siblings. I mean, we talk about this a lot on Women's Air and the Disabled Children's Partnership report has actually looked at this impact and it found that mothers in particular are much less likely to be in work. They're suffering the biggest financial hit, basically. They feel often they're left with no option. They have to go part time. They have to resign maybe, both to look after the disabled child,

but also to have time and energy to take a case to tribunal because it, by all accounts, is completely exhausting. That's what happened to this woman, Joanne, who I've been speaking to. She has a 13-year-old son who has learning disabilities.

He's autistic. He's dyspraxied. And he has sensory processing disorder. And Joanne described the process of going to tribunal as hell. The local authority refused us every single step of the way. They had refused to even assess him to begin with, even though we now had the backing of the senior school, who were also screaming the fact that he needed assistance. They still refused to budge. So we had to go to mediation because that was one of the steps in the process to, you know,

cross all the T's, dot all the I's and follow the protocol. And that's a good idea, isn't it? Because you could have possibly sorted everything out at that point without the stress of going to tribunal? No, because they refused. From the initial requests, they were instantly refused. When we went for mediation, they refused to overturn them. I had to actually make an application for tribunal for an assessment. At that point, when the local authority got notified I was taking it to tribunal, that's when they then conceded and agreed to assess. They did the assessment and then refused to issue, which is why we then had to go back to mediation. And yet again, they refused to change their mind and issue us with an EHCP. They agreed to the

fact that it had additional needs and had learning issues, which is by law all it needs to state to get an EHCP. They agreed to all that in writing, but still refused to issue an EHCP. What did it entail? What did you have to do to prepare for going to the tribunal? Where do I start? See, I'm getting emotional just thinking about it but um just draining everything in my life was put into this everything to get my son a decent level a standard level of education which I should not have to fight for um mentally it was so emotionally draining having to go over your son's conditions, your son's needs, hearing other people's assessments of your son's needs. It was heartbreaking, absolutely heartbreaking. But I knew it had to be done. But it was just it took over my life. I had to give up work because of the issues that he was having, the fight that I was having to fight. He had to have operations, medical appointments,

all in the same span of me having to fight this. So financially, it hit me hard. I then had all the concerns of going through thousands upon thousands of pieces of paper, medical letters, because you're only allowed to take 100 pieces of paper forward to tribunal. But you've then got to try and prioritise this paperwork. What is going to make them see that my son needs help? I didn't know what I was going to be facing. I didn't know if I'd be facing a local authority barrister. I had no idea what was going to be coming. So as well as all this stress, it was the anxiety of not knowing what I was facing either. I can honestly see why a lot of parents give up because it takes its toll every day. If they had just given him an EHCP

and not taken me to tribunal and that having to cost them anyway which was more than likely more than my son's EHCP we wouldn't have been in this predicament with funding. So what do you make of this research done for the Disabled Children's Partnership that shows they say 60 million pounds is wasted every year on tribunals that are generally 96% successful in favour of the families like you experienced. And that being, they would say, a total waste of money. I completely agree. 100% agree. I just don't understand. And I will never understand. All the medical letters, all the doctor's diagnosis, everything screaming out that my child needed help. The funds they're wasting taking parents to tribunals, which, as you stated, 96 percent are won by parents.

They need to have a look at themselves. Joanne, the good news is she says her son has all the support he now needs and is doing well. Still here, our reporter Carolyn Atkinson. Carolyn, let me ask you, the figures in this Disabled Children's Partnership report talk about a failing system and wasted money. What do the Department for Education and Local Government Association, which represents local authorities on this, say? So Department of Education first, it says it knows that the system needs to work better for parents and it says the vast majority of education health and care need assessments and plans are concluded without the need to go to resort to tribunal hearings. It says it set out ambitious reforms including strengthening mediation between parents and

local authorities before going to tribunal and creating consistent high quality national standards. Now the local government association which as you say represents the local authorities here they told us that councils issued a record number of EHC care plans last year 66,000. They say that shows the significant challenges that councils are facing managing a big rise in demand for support. It thinks the government's special educational needs reforms will fix some of the problems with the current system, but they warn that improving levels of mainstream inclusion

will be crucial to the success of any reforms to reduce this reliance on costly special schools and other settings. Carolyn, thank you. Well, listening to that, I said before, Dame Christine Lenahan, let me remind you, she began her career as a social worker on the front line for two decades before joining the Council for Disabled Children, part of the National Children's Bureau. During her time there as director, she's written the Lenahan Review

for the Department of Health about how children with learning disabilities are supported. She's continued to advise ministers and civil servants. Good morning. Good morning. What do you think, first of all, about these claims that £60 million is being spent or, as is seen, wasted every year in England alone on tribunal hearings, which parents, majority of them, win? I think it's indicative of a system that's in trouble. You know, the system's really, really hot and really angry at the moment. And actually, the best thing of, really hot and really angry at the moment.

And actually the best thing of all you want to do is actually solve things before, you know, identify challenges when they start so families don't go through this process. I think the example was a good one of the level of exhaustion that families go through. But also it drains local authority resources. So we spend a huge amount of time. So I see the tribunal system as

a representative of a failure in the system to actually make things work. You said as well just because you're looking back at the moment I know as well as forward but you've said you began your career when children with additional needs were locked away treated with little humanity and dignity sometimes in asylums I mean when you look back on that now what was your view then and how how can you process that? So I suppose I've always been passionate about this group of children you're right my first roles were working in the long stay hospitals as they were then the asylums and actually looking at whether these children could live in the community that these processes bringing children out and actually those children are even less complicated than the children we have now

so for me the whole goal of my career has been about making sure children have citizenship the ability to live at home the ability to be part of the family and it's quite distressing seeing that even over that time we haven't quite got there yet we have still children who are away yes and not and not where they should be yeah because you're going to talk about that tonight in in this lecture that you're delivering what haven't you done not just you on your own but this whole uh the side of things the people working who are trying to make this better that it should have been done by now i think there is a there is a challenge about the sort of increasing need in the system and the increasing complexity. I think there's also, we sort of know what needs to be done, but we're not

consistent at implementing it. We're not consistent. So if you look at how often the systems change, we've changed education, how often we've reformed health or whatever, we sort of need a sort of single line of sight on children to make the system work and we've struggled to hold that really. So when I suppose people listening to this think you've been working in this area for more than 40 years and then they hear these sorts of headlines what do you say is your role in that difficulty in getting to where we should be? I think the role of the council and my role has really been trying to keep bringing people back together, keep having a look at what is possible in whatever the set of scenarios we are. Do you take some responsibility for that failure? I think everyone who works in

the system should take responsibility for that failure. But I think that the way I work is also to say if you just believe in failure, failure will always be there. So we have to positively engage with what makes. And it's where Caroline started. The vast majority of children with special educational needs get their needs met in the right places. So it's something about dealing with that complexity and challenge and actually always going in and saying what is it we can do rather than you know almost giving in on families what do you think's changed for the better over your career i think that um well i'm confident that parents

are now involved at every stage in every way i don't go into meetings at any level now where parental voice isn't there and that's absolutely right obviously that's a challenge because parental expectations are high yes um and we have a system that relies on a public service programme that's losing money. There's very little money in local authorities, there's little money in health. So parental expectations, parental voice. I also think that we are much clearer at recognising the rights of these children themselves. Sometimes they get rather lost in this process. Dame Christine Lenhan, Director of the Council for Disabled Children, thank you. You're welcome. As I say ahead of a lecture this evening and after a long career with a lot of experience in this area. Now often when we talk about what

I'm about to introduce we do so in a certain way but how we talk about such things and people and in this instance, women, matter. So let's try to do something different then and refocus a very familiar crime in a different way. 23 children left without a mother. 13 women murdered. Attempts to murder at least seven more. Between 1975 and 1980, this is what a man called Peter Sutcliffe did. True crime programmes and books in recent years have speculated as to whether other unsolved murders could also have been at Sutcliffe's hands. Well, now there's a new ITV drama series, which is called The Long Shadow, that portrays the women who were killed and their families

who were left behind. The many legacy issues, hence the name The Long Shadow. The drama also looks at the flawed police investigation. Joining me now, Willow Grylls, the executive producer of the new show, and Meg Winterburn, who worked in the incident room for the murders as a police sergeant. I'll come to you in just a moment, Meg, but good morning to you and welcome to Woman's Owl. Morning. Willow hello. Hi. There will be some even though I've talked about the fact that you have focused this perhaps differently and you can say more who will think do we really need another drama? It's a good question. When we when we look started looking at this case and thinking about whether we should approach it for dramatization,

as you so clearly mentioned, it appeared to us that this is one of the biggest criminal cases in British history, but it's been distorted in the way it's been represented in the media for the last few decades. Firstly, it primarily focuses around Peter Sutcliffe. And secondly, the real people who are so affected by these tragic events are barely represented at all. And if they are represented, they're represented often in the forms of mugshots, black and white mugshots, which does very little to represent who they were as people. And so when we decided to approach this dramatisation, we decided to take a radically different approach with George K. We decided we would only see this through the prism of the victims themselves.

George K is the writer? George K is the writer, and of all seven episodes. And we would also choose to focus on Peter Sutcliffe barely at all. Do you think this is a change in your line of work even as recently as a decade? I mean I'm just also going to bring to people's attention a landmark BBC documentary series in 2019

reminded viewers that normalised misogyny was woven throughout the police investigation and the surrounding media coverage. I wonder how much of a change you think this is? There is no question when you look back at the police investigation, although there were many well-meaning and incredibly hard-working detectives on the case, that this was a case that was hampered by institutional misogyny and racism. And the change in your industry about the

representation of this, because you're doing this as part of the media that you're saying has misrepresented. We certainly are doing this as part of the media, that you're saying has misrepresented? We certainly are doing this as part of the media, but I think that when you come to decide to approach anything like this, for me, it has to be focused. I can't speak for other people, but for me, it has to be rooted in two questions. The first is, will the people who are most affected be comfortable with the choices you're making?

And the second one is, does it have something to say to now? And I believe that retelling this has something to say to now? And I believe that retelling this has something to say to now. Let's get to the now in just a moment, because I'm very interested to hear your view on that. But Meg, Willow started to talk there about the way this was handled by the police. And you were in that incident room, you worked in from 1978. What was it like? And what were the attitudes to the police officers around you like when it comes to misogyny and towards women? Well, yes, I did work in the incident room. I didn't join it until Helen Ricker had been murdered in Huddersfield. There were several incident rooms

already running throughout the force. And it wasn't until we amalgamated it into one huge room in Milgarth in Leeds City Centre that it became quite chaotic. As you can imagine all the different incident rooms had a system of its own that had to be brought in and then we had to amalgamate all the different cards because bearing in mind we were working on a card system we had no technology at all um corded telephones manual typewriters a pen and a card um and the interim staff were dealing with all the paperwork that was later passed out to the outside detectives. So we didn't come across what the chaps outside were saying. But when you look at the time that it happened, misogyny wasn't used in the way that we use it now. Misogyny was seen as a hatred of women. And it's only because I think the feminism, the second wave of feminism in the 70s brought misogyny to the fore. And then as it's gone

further on, it's been extended, if you like, to include different groups, different societies, etc. And I feel the police, yes, there were, there was misogyny. I was certainly a subject of that when it came to promotion. I went, I went, did three years in the incident room and went back out to subdivision, applied for a promotion board. And I was told, I'm sorry, you have been away from the streets for so long. You have to go out and prove yourself again. Whereas male officers, because they'd been knocking on doors, they were classed as having been doing police work. I mean, it's something that will be difficult for people to hear about your career,

but there'll also be some people still thinking that maybe there are those issues there today, maybe not quite in the same way. And certainly thinking about today, there's been a lot in the news in the last 12 months and for longer about women's trust in the police. Meg, how do you feel about trusting the police today with some of these reports?

I don't trust them. Simple. We've lost a lot. We've lost a lot in the way people were interviewed for the jobs in the first place, the training scheme that's gone to pot. Why don't you trust the police though? I just feel that they haven't got the training, they haven't got the, I don't know the word I want really. We were always had instructors, we were questioned about everything we did.

And nowadays... Do you think it's got worse? I do think it's got worse. And do you say that specifically as a woman? No, as young men as well. Women and men. If you don't fit into this male culture of sexism and etc., you don't stand a chance. Because it's still, I know women are getting promoted now quite a lot more.

A lot of the senior officers are women. But if you're a woman now, you just fly through the ranks. And without having to go through all the various steps we had to go through. I know it's a different world, but I'm afraid I would not trust police to get things right. Well, we have a lot of people who work in the police who listen to this programme. It would be very interesting to hear some of their responses. Not much time left, but Willow, if I can go back to this, the long shadow, you are the

producer of this new drama on ITV. You talked about things speaking to today. What are you talking about? Because we've just talked there about the view of the police from someone who was within it. I think Meg's put that incredibly succinctly and at the time in which, four years ago, we started approaching this story,

there were many instances sadly that, you know, the Sarah Everard murder, Nicole Smallman succinctly and at the time in which four years ago we started approaching this story um there were many instances sadly that you know the severa everard murder nicole smallman beaver henry nessa um that really it it felt like there were so many parallels between today and then and that's what we hope that people will see when they watch this this is more of a state of a nation piece than a true crime dramatisation. You talked there about Sabine and Nessa. In terms of what we can take from it today, I mean, you say that you hope the people

who you've represented are happy with it. You've worked closely with them. Will we still see women being killed on screen? No, no, we do not. I mean, as I said, we've barely featured Peter Suckbiff at all and we do not see the murders themselves at all. We see the aftermath of the murders. We see their effect on their families, their wives, their that, but you might still have to put that in. And I know that's a question people will be asking and be thinking. It's called The Long Shadow. It's a new ITV drama series. You were just listening there to the executive producer of the show,

Willow Grills, and to Meg Winterburn, who worked on this investigation as part of, of course, a much bigger team who worked in the incident room for the murders as a police sergeant. Very striking to hear what Meg had to say there about trust in the police. Perhaps that's something I can pick up with you a bit later on this week's programmes. Thank you for your company. I'll be 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. Hello, I'm Nick Robinson. I want to tell you about my Radio 4 podcast, Political Thinking. It is about why people think the things they think. What is it in their lives, their backgrounds that explains who they are and what they believe? My mum was a very community-minded person. That's what brought politics to life for me, actually. These are conversations, not newsy interrogations. Lucky, ruthless, probably a bit of both. And they're not just about rows or problems.

They're quite often about the good politics can do. There is nothing like government. Good government gets things done. That is what democracy is all about. That's Political Thinking with me, Nick Robinson. Listen now on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, Listen now on BBC Sounds. 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.