Woman's Hour - VAWG Minister resignations, Parental domestic homicide, Author Eleanor Anstruther

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

A new report out today is calling for urgent reforms to better protect and support children affected by parental domestic homicide, following an examination of the long-term impact on young people across the UK and Ireland. Reporter Jo Morris has been speaking to a woman, we are calling Katy, who experienced the unimaginable as a child, when her father killed her mother. Despite this, when he was released from prison, Katy was required to stay with him at weekends. How should children and young people be supported? Chloe Tilley is joined by Sarah Burrows from the charity Children Heard and Seen, and Professor John Devaney from the University of Edinburgh and author of the report. Two of the government ministers who resigned yesterday, Jess Phillips and Alex Davies-Jones, were responsible for the government's violence against women and girls strategy. In her resignation letter, safeguarding minister Jess Phillips highlighted the need for urgent action to combat the spread of online child sexual abuse imagery, where progress has been 'repeatedly stalled and delayed'. The government says it wants to make it 'impossible' for children in the UK to take, share or view nude images. Hannah Swirsky from the Internet Watch Foundation joins Chloe to discuss.At the height of the Cold War, women led one of the most enduring protests against nuclear weapons. What began as a march to Greenham Common became a peace camp that lasted nearly 20 years - inspiring Eleanor Anstruther’s new novel, Fallout.Presenter: Chloe Tilley Producer: Dianne McGregor

Hello, this is Chloe Tilly and you're listening to The Woman's Our podcast. Good morning, welcome to the programme. Now, the technology exists, but the Prime Minister is not implementing it to protect children. That is the accusation from internet safety and children's campaigners who've accused Sekeir Stama of failing to act to stop children sending and receiving new images on their phones. Well, it follows, of course, Jess Phillips quitting as safeguarding minister, writing in her resignation letter, we could make this possible on every phone and device in the country, we could stop this abuse.

We're going to be speaking to Hannah Swirsky, who is from the Internet Watch Foundation. Plus, the author Eleanor Anstruther is going to be dropping by. She's going to discuss her new novel called Fall Out. It's set at protests on Greenham Common in the 1980s. Eleanor feels passionately that the story of the nearly two decades-long protests against the housing of US nuclear weapons on British soil must be taught in schools. We'll explore that with her as well.

And we're also going to be hearing from a woman we're calling Katie, who has chosen to share her story with us here on Woman's Hour. She speaks powerfully about the trauma she suffered as a young girl when her father committed an unspeakable crime, killing her own mother. She says overnight she lost both of her parents along with her childhood. Well, as well as hearing from Katie, we're going to speak to the author of a new report which examines the impact this crime has on children and to a charity working to bring about change to support these young people.

As ever, do get in touch with us. You can text us on 84844. On social media, we're at BBC Woman's Hour, or you can send us a WhatsApp [phone]. Well, today, the King will unveil the government's agenda for the year ahead, but it comes amidst a very turbulent few days for the Prime Minister. Three of the four ministers who resigned from his government yesterday were women. And two, Jess Phillips and Alex Davis-Jones were responsible for the government's violence against women and girls' strategy, which was published after some delay late last year.

In her resignation letter, the safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips, invoked the suffragette's famous call for deeds, not words, arguing that more urgent action is needed to tackle some of the most serious challenges. challenges facing the country. She pointed in particular to the spread of online child's sexual abuse imagery, warning that opportunities for progress have been repeatedly stalled and delayed. Well, the government says they want to make it impossible for children in the UK to take, share or view a nude image. Well, let's discuss this further with Hannah Swirski, who is head of policy and public affairs at the UK charity, the Internet Watch Foundation. Thanks for being with us,

Hannah. Thank you. First of all, to look at Jess Phillips' resignation letter, she said we could stop this abuse. It has taken me a year to get you to agree to even threaten to legislate in this space, not legislate, just threaten. This is the definition of incremental change. Do you share that frustration that Jess Phillips is clearly showing in her resignation letter? First of all, I just really want to pay tribute to Jess Phillips in her role as safeguarding minister. she has been a brilliant champion for this work. And as she says, we alongside her have been pushing for the government to force tech companies

to block the ability to send and receive naked images on devices belonging to children. Now, this technology exists and it can be implemented and would be a massive step in stopping the proliferation of child sexual abuse images, particularly by stopping it being produced at source. So we share her concerns. we share her desire to see concrete action to address this. So talk to us about the technology that is there that is available in simple terms. What would it do? So this is technology, as I said, that already exists.

Some companies are using in-house detection technology, such as meta, Apple and Google. There are also third-party tools such as Safe to Net has an AI detection tool called Harm Block. So on a device, if it is a child's device, and you may need to go through age assurance first, so this would not apply to adult devices. But if there is any detection of nudity via the camera or the screen, then it would block this. So it would block it, for example, at the camera level from being shared with someone else. This is really important because every day our analysts in our hotline at the IWF see abusive imagery of children where they have been groomed or coerced into taking and sending these images

and then they are shared online by offenders. They are also used to blackmail children either for financial gain or for more abusive imagery. So this really would be stopping that at the source and preventing the creation and sharing of this imagery. So why isn't it being used? What are the discussions that the government's having? What's the delay? I think it's a very good question. In the violence against women and girls strategy,

the government made a commitment to working on this and to work constructively with technology companies. We're not always privy to the conversations that go on about this, but I think we share the frustrations of Jess Phillips in the fact that we are yet to see further action. We have a commitment in theory, in writing, but actually now it is about that action to get this over the line. Do you feel that in some ways with Jess Phillips leaving government that you're almost losing an advocate?

Certainly the case that she was a really strong advocate in her role. She was incredibly committed and knowledgeable champion of tackling child sexual abuse and exploitation. So we get to see who comes next and we hope that it will be someone who shares her commitment to this work. And we stand ready to work with them to have further action on this. But I think there is a concern, you know, I have personally, that this political turmoil means that it's harder to get some policy commitments over the line at this point and that focuses elsewhere when it should really be on ensuring children are safe online and tackling the growing rise in child sexual abuse and exploitation online. We invited the Home Office to respond. They pointed us to their violence against women and girls' strategy, specifically the section that states their ambition to make it impolns. for children in this country to take share or view a nude image.

Do you still have faith in the government's strategy to tackle violence against women and girls? We have seen some positive action from the government, and I want to continue to be positive about this and continue to be working with the government on it. So certainly there have been some really good action from the government in the last two years, namely the Crime and Policing Act, that includes measures which will tackle AI-generated child-sex abuse material. So we have reason for hope that more will happen, but it remains to be seen. I was reading earlier today that Lucy Faithful Foundation says that 70 million warning messages were sent to people attempting to access child sexual abuse material. So rather than blocking the content, effectively saying this is illegal and directing them to support services,

700,000 people then went on to access those support resources. Do you think that is something that could help tackle this along with clearly the other measures you've talked about? Absolutely. It's really important, actually, that we don't just focus on preventing children from sharing imagery and actually we focus on offenders as well and preventing action by offenders. So deterrence messaging is really important. As you've said, there's clear evidence that this has a impact on the behaviour of those who may offend.

We have worked with Lucy Faithful and some pornography companies where there's been real evidence that deterrence messaging is effective in signposting and disrupting viewing or trying to buy child sexual abuse material online. So that's really important. Terrence messaging is important. We'd like to see more companies deploy it and indeed be required to under measures in the Online Safety Act. And of course you mentioned that some companies, tech companies already have got their own in-house efforts to kind of use technology to block this kind of material and try and protect children. Really good to speak to you this morning. Thank you so much for coming on. That's Hannah Swirsky there, who is Head of Policy and Public Affairs at the UK Charity, the Internet Watch Foundation. Now on yesterday's program, the former England netball coach Tracy Neville shared the story behind.

I mean, it's a pretty bold career pivot. She's been hugely successful in the netballing world. She stepped down as her role as head coach of the Melbourne Mavericks last year. She's now taken on a new challenge as managing director of Stockport County Women Football Club. The ambition is, I mean a small one, to transform it from a volunteer-led community team into a powerhouse of women. women's football. And she's of course following in familiar footsteps, joining her brother Gary, her twin, Phil Neville, both former England footballers. If you'd like to listen to that conversation again, you can. All you have to do is listen back to the full interview on BBC sounds.

Now, a new report out today is calling for urgent reforms to better protect and support children affected by parental domestic homicide after focusing on the long-term impact on young people across the UK. an island. This comes as Jade's Law, which will automatically suspend parental responsibility when one parent kills the other. It's still waiting to be enacted after being passed two years ago.

Well, recently, a group of adults, all impacted by parental homiciders children, went to Westminster to advise on what needs to change, to give children what they need. Now, a woman, we're calling Katie, was part of this advisory group. Katie was a young

child when her father killed. her mother. He went to prison but maintained parental responsibility and she had to spend weekends with him when he was released. She's now in her late 40s and Katie wanted to talk with Women's Hour about the impact this has had on her and the support that she needed. You may find some of the details upsetting. Well, our reporter Joe Morris met Katie at her home and began by showing Joe a photo from that time in the 1980s. So this is a photo of me and my sibling shortly after my mum had died and I just, when I look at this photo, now this photo does evoke emotion in me

because I remember how I felt in this photo. And I always think that the expression on my face just sort of shows this void. My eyes are just sort of, you know, glazed. And I think that's how I spent. There are many photos like that of me with this kind of glazed expression throughout my childhood. And so, yeah.

How does it make you feel when you look at it then? Makes me feel sad. Yeah. Trying to put on a brave face. Yeah, trying to put on a brave face. Is that how you felt? Yeah. Yeah.

It was all inside my head. Yeah. You can see my grandfather's face as well. Half of it, how unhappy he was. Desperate. Desperate times. And it was your aunt you went to live with? Yes.

My aunt's and her father. Your maternal grandfather? Yeah. How old was your aunt at the time? 18. 18. I mean, that's so young, isn't it? Yeah, really young.

To take on to you small children. Incredibly young. She was still a child herself, really. How did you feel about that now? Well, you know, she was 18, she had her own agenda and, you know, I mean, she made the huge sacrifice to take us in because she didn't want us to go into foster care or a children's home, which probably would have happened with us in the 80s. And so, yes, she made a huge sacrifice, but she certainly wasn't equipped to deal with parenthood at all. And I think, again, that is where there was a huge lack of support. really because it was kind of one or two visits from a social worker and it was like now you get on with it

was your maternal grandmother alive when your mum was killed no she had sadly died six months prior in a way i feel relieved that she didn't have to go through that can you remember katie can you remember a happy time with your mum um not really my memories are really vague and and and very limited and you know having explored that through therapy a lot of it is probably hidden away due to the trauma I think probably a lot of it is locked away I didn't really I something just left me as a child I didn't enjoy my childhood I hated my childhood absolutely hated it I resented the fact that other children had families I just wanted to be an adult.

I thought that when I was an adult, it would all be fine, which is slightly naive. But I just remember, yeah, I just, it was lonely and, yeah, I just didn't know what had happened. And I didn't know where to find any answers or any information or, yeah. And were you allowed, were you ever allowed to grieve your mum? Not really, no. Certainly not openly, not openly.

not openly Katie you were just a young child when your father killed your mother yeah I'd been at primary school a year or so what do you remember about that day are you okay to talk about it a little bit I don't remember too much

but I do have some vivid memories from that evening when things happened I'd gone to bed and I was aware that there was noise and commotion happening in the home and I got up and I remember standing at the bedroom door of my parents' room with my head peered round the doorframe and my mum was lying on the bed and my dad was, kneeling beside her and he suddenly became aware that I was there and um and I said that I wanted my mum and he said to me she's asleep you need to give her a kiss and say goodnight and go back to

bed um what I realise now and know is that she was in fact already dead um um And that for me is really upsetting. I don't have any other memories of that night. I don't even remember what happened. My understanding is that we were alone in the house for some time that night while my father went and disposed of my mum's body. And I only kind of became aware of these things in my adult life. the next day we were

I don't remember but the next day we were taken to my my mum's sister who looked after us and there was a quite a gap between then and when my mum was actually found but I remember worrying about

getting to school and that you know oh I must go to school but no we just that week's a bit of a void really I don't remember anything after that until the point that we were told that my mum had been killed and that she wasn't coming back. Katie, how was it explained to you what had happened to your mum?

So we were sat down, my grandfather and my auntie sat down with me and my sibling and we were told that my mum had been killed by our father. that he was a terrible man and that she wasn't coming back and that was that and I don't really remember that information going in I remember it I remember it being told it

but it sort of became I don't know I just I think from that moment something happens to me as a child that's when that period of kind of being glazed over all the time started from that moment on my life changed and I just entered this I couldn't process anything

you know we just got on with it we were told we had to get on with it and the following week I was back at school and that's where I feel things are so wrong I wasn't ready to go back to school I wasn't prepared to deal with those conversations Well, I had to go to a new school, so I didn't go back to my old school, so I lost all my friends that I did have.

Because you went to live with your... Yeah, to live with my maternal auntie. And so I had to change schools, and I just didn't want to do it. But again, nothing, as a child, I was never asked about anything. I wasn't prepared how to deal with conversations or given any, you know, armour, I suppose, in how to even how to even how to, how to even how. that conversation with friends or what to say. I mean, and obviously school knew about my situation, but even, you know, I don't know, just, it was just nothing. It was like nothing had happened. Nothing had happened. And then all the time, you know, you're going through school and you're

dealing with these weekend visits to a prison, to be made to visit my father who I didn't want to go and see. So. What had your relationship been like with your father before this happened? We were a really happy family, a really happy family, and my dad adored us. He adored us, and I've seen photos of him with us, and he adored his family. And, you know, sadly, you know, that all went wrong for numerous reasons.

But he has to live with that, unfortunately. You know, yeah. So there was no history of violence in your family before this happened? No, no. It was kind of declared as a fit of rage just for a culmination of reasons. Yeah, mental health as well, I think. So you lost both parents? I did.

Overnight I lost both my mum and my dad. effectively. I remember that we were allowed. A black bin bag of our toys was collected for us and brought round and that was it. Everything else just went. Everything I knew. Did you go to your mum's funeral? No, we weren't allowed to and I remember pleading to go but was told that we weren't allowed to. I do remember there being a news item on the television that my dad had killed my mum and thinking, oh, that's a picture of my mum on the TV.

But I just thought it was a really stupid thing that that was on if we weren't allowed to go and that, yeah, so I just remember feeling really confused by it all. But yeah, the TV was quickly changed channel and it wasn't really talked about. How was your dad spoken about at home? Very negatively, understandably.

It was just that man or him. He's a bad man. We don't talk about him. There's literally one sentence and that's it shut down. I did often ask questions. I often ask questions about my dad and was immediately shut down. But equally, we weren't allowed to talk about my mum because obviously it was very triggering for my family. They didn't want to talk about it.

There was one photo of her up in our home. How kind of conflicted were you of? feelings about your dad? Oh, very. Yeah, very. Yeah, on one hand he was my dad and I knew he'd done something wrong, but I couldn't quite, as a child, you can't quite process the severity of it. So one moment I'd be like, oh, it's my dad, you know, that's my dad. And then another minute I'd be like, oh, you know, I'm really scared of him, I'm worried, you know, because I was, he was, he, his daughter. I used to think, does that mean I'm bad as well? I hated the shame of it, really. I hated the shame of it. He was accused of murder, but he was found guilty of manslaughter on

diminished responsibility for six years, and he served three. So you were told your dad was a bad man, and yet you were made to visit him in prison? That was really hard. That was the worst thing. I used to hate going. I absolutely used to dread it. And I used to say I didn't want to go and my family supported me and not wanting to go but they said I had to because he wanted to see us. So we didn't have a choice. We had to go. But what, but your dad had parental responsibility over you or? Well, my maternal aunt had a special guardianship. However, because he, he was a parent, he still had parental responsibility, and he had the right to ask to see us.

It was a, I remember it now. I've driven down those roads as an adult, and those same feelings still come in my stomach of the fear and the anxiety of having to go. And that's not something, you know, I wouldn't wish that on anybody, particularly a child. Were you scared of your dad or? I wasn't scared of him on my visits to prison

But I was scared when he came out of prison And we were made to go and stay for long weekends with him And I used to feel very, very vulnerable on those occasions Of having to go on a Friday afternoon after school And spend the whole weekend I used to worry so much about it I used to hate it I used to hate the walk of shame

out of the house to the car his car he wasn't allowed to come to our house so we used to have to walk a few metres away to the car on our own what were you afraid might happen

I don't know I just knew I think it was because of the obviously what we'd been told this is a bad man and they're sending me there so I felt vulnerable. I used to have milestones.

So it would be like Friday, get there, go out for food, eat, go home, go to bed. Then Saturday. You know, I used to get through the day in milestones. Thankfully, that only happened for a couple of years because I then became an age where I said, I don't want to go, or I would make excuses. You know, I was entering my teens by then.

And I didn't go. But I just think now you wouldn't make a child do that. But I am aware that it still exists that children are made to either return to their father's home after they've committed a crime of domestic homicide. I'm aware that children are made to still go and visit. The fathers who have committed these crimes still have parental responsibility. they can make decisions about their children and the families have no say over it.

Katie, what did you... What did you need as that young child? What would have helped you? I needed my mum. That's what I needed. Yeah. You needed your mum? I needed my mum.

Yeah. But in place of that, I needed someone who I could talk to, someone who didn't shut me down about the things that I wanted to talk about, someone to give me the answers to the questions I had, someone to just help me understand everything because I didn't understand it. Did you need someone to tell you that it wasn't your fault?

Yes, yeah. I grew up thinking it was my fault. What do you think has been the psychological impact of this on you as an adult? It's huge. It's always there. The collateral damage is huge. I used to have quite poor abandonment issues. I used to worry about being left on my own. I quite often felt something bad would happen and I still tend to feel that now. Sometimes it creeps back. in relationships I would be worried about being left. Did you tell people what had happened? No. And I think that's why my first two relationships didn't work.

I avoided things at all costs talking about that. So I, you know, I would say things like my mum died when I was young, but I didn't go into why. It was, yeah, I looked back, it was car crash, really, isn't it? It's awful. I look back now and I think, think, oh my goodness, what was I doing? But I just thought, I can't do this again. And it was at that point that I got some help. I found it was a, it was a therapist who really, um, I could, I felt

safe with. So I would work through the grief. I worked through the anxiety. I worked through why I didn't trust people. I worked through why I felt insecure. I worked through why I was angry with my parents. One of the biggest challenges for me has been when I had my own children. And I particularly suffered as the children approached a similar age to which I was

when my mum was taken away from me. I went through a period of absolute anxiety worrying that I was going to die as they approached the same year, that that happened to me. You know, and for me, I just wanted them to reach that age and get past that point, and then I felt safe. But no, that psychological element stays with you for life. You have to really keep it in check.

The ripple effect, yeah. Collateral damage, I call it. Collateral damage. So I kind of I always, the way I look at my life is that I winged it I winged it through to my 30s and my life began probably in my late 30s Yeah when I was about 37

I started to enjoy my life So you sought therapy and you got support I started to enjoy my life I started to be free with who I am I started to tell people about my experience So if I met somebody A new friend or what? work colleague or I would be open about my past instead of hiding it. That was one of my goals.

My personal goals was like, I have nothing to be ashamed of. I'm going to tell people. And I actually, I met my now husband. And after our first few dates, I said to him, I need to tell you something. I was dying to get it off my chest. I was like, I have to tell you this. And I told him, and it was fine. I don't know what I was worrying about. What did that feel like? it's quite liberating really. It's liberating. And I began to realise that I have nothing to be ashamed of or feel guilty for. Yeah. But it actually only really kind of culminated in my 40s that I discovered a lot more information and I had support from other groups as an adult. I became aware that I had certain rights to find out bits of information. And so I went on that journey. And I always,

I also arranged to meet with my dad and discuss it with him. I asked him openly what happened because I wanted to know and he was the only person that knew. Did he tell you? Yes, he told me a version. Are you in contact with your father now? I am. But it's on my terms. It's on my terms.

And that's how I cope with that. But I will never visit him on my. my own. Never. And what do you need now, Katie? What do you need now? I don't need anything. I'm okay. I've learned to take each hour and day as it comes. And I know if I'm having a wobble and I know what to do when that happens and I will talk about it. You know, in spite of my awful start in life, I have actually had the most wonderful life, you know. So for that I'm very grateful, and I want you to put that in. You want me to put that in?

I do. Well, I have compared to what some children have experienced in similar situations to me, and I'm very aware of that. And that is why now I want to fight for those children. because I know what they've been through or I know what they're experiencing. And not much has changed since the 80s. Not a lot.

Katie there, talking to our reporter Joe Morris. And if you've been affected by any of the issues in this report, do go to the BBC Action Line website where you will find links with support. Now let's speak now to Sarah Burroughs, director of Children Heard and Seen. It's a charity supporting children with a parent in prison. Sarah recently took an advisory group of adults to Westminster,

all of whom as children experienced the death of their mother at the hands of their father. The aim to offer their insights and help shape better support for children today. Morning to you, Sarah. Morning. Thanks for being with us. Also with us is Professor John Devani, who is from Edinburgh University and also co-author of the report out today, children bereaved by parental domestic homicide with a focus on the UK and Ireland.

Good morning to you, John. Good morning, Cluey. Thank you both for talking to us. I mean, Sarah, it's incredibly moving, listening to Katie's story there. And you would have hoped there would have been more support in place for children and indeed their carers. How much has changed since Katie's experience in the 1980s? And my experience is very little has changed. As a charity, we support children when a parent has killed the other and serves a custodial sentence.

But it seems very sketch. the support out there. And children really do need to have a voice and the opportunity to be heard. And as Katie was talking about, to process that trauma, to understand that it isn't their shame, to actually look at the conflicting feelings. The group that met up in Westminster were an ongoing support group, we're wanting to look at what interventions and support do children need. All of those in the group had been their mother killed by their father.

the father went on to serve a custodial sentence. And obviously there's a lot of conflicting feelings for children as well. They've lost both parents at that time, but they have that fear and that worry about the parent being in prison. And also, you know, the parents still having parental responsibility and a number have to go and visit the parent in prison when they don't actually want to. And their fear also about when he's released.

So, yeah, lots of issues. John, what sort of numbers are we talking about? This is so horrifying to even begin to imagine. It's difficult to understand. Do we even know how many children are affected? I think that's one of the challenges is that we have no reliable figures in any of the four UK nations. At best, we've been able to come up with a conservative estimate on the basis that one in five homicides in the UK is a result of domestic homicide. And we think that between a third and three quarters of domestic homicide,

victims have children under the age of 18. So we reckon that there's approximately 120 children a year who experience the death of a parent in these circumstances, which means there's somewhere between 2,000 and 2,000 and 2.5,000 children who are living with this as part of their everyday experience. I was struck when Katie said, I needed someone I could talk to who didn't shut me down to give me answers to the questions I had. Someone helped me understand everything. I need someone to tell me it wasn't my fault. I grew up thinking it was my fault. I mean, Sarah, you've spoken about the lack of support out there now for children. I'm wondering John as well about their carers. I mean, Katie wanted to ask those questions,

but her carers themselves were navigating their own grief, their own trauma. A carer's told, for example, had to tell the children what has happened. Definitely, I think that's one of the challenges that surround in that there's typically nobody who takes responsibility from a professional perspective in terms of trying to support both bereaved children and also the family of the deceased and the family of the accused at what is a time in life when things have just been upturned in every possible way and certainly in our research we had many individuals talk about that internalisation of the shame and responsibility that even if you want to speak to your carers

as in Katie's case her maternal aunt or grandparent there's that sense of not wanting to burden them when they're dealing with their own trauma and I'm sure Sarah's heard that as well from the members of her focus groups. Sarah, talk to us about the adults in the group that you were speaking to who'd all suffered the same trauma. I mean, we heard in Katie's case, she was forced to move school.

She was forced to see her father when she didn't want to. Was that a similar story that you heard from the women in the group who were obviously affected as children? It wasn't just women in the group. There were also men as well. They had all been children

when the parent killed the other. Yeah, there was a number in the group that had to go and visit the parent in prison and there was one from the group that had to go and live with their father her father when he

was released yeah and yes there was very mixed in terms of moving children obviously have to move whether they went into care or whether they went to family members but obviously they had to move schools and lost the area of where they

were known their whole neighbourhoods communities. And so now are children's wishes taken into account? And I appreciate it would depend on the age of the young person. I think there's, I think there is a lack of understanding and knowledge about the issues generally. I think it is navigating it. I mean, we support children at children heard and seen. But it's quite woeful the lack of support out there. And what children need and their carers need, they need consistent support over years. You know, they actually need to be able to process the trauma, talk about it. They need to be able to meet

others in a similar situation to realise that they're not alone and it isn't their shame. But there is really a complete, you know, for lack of provision out there for children and their families. John, do we know about the psychological impact on these children? Yes, I think Katie, experiences which she shared with us today really sum up the range of impacts that children and young people talk about both at the time in terms of the shock of something as horrendous as this happening to them the disruption to their relationships not just with family members but also with peers and also how the benign worry of adults to sort of deal with the practicalities of sorting out

who children live with and who should take care of of them overtakes a fuller consideration of the emotional and psychological impact on children. And then we get into that situation whereby whenever the initial shock has passed, that family members feel that they themselves aren't equipped to talk to children about the complexities of what's happened. And that's easier not sometimes to talk about these things in a way family members and even professionals might feel that through not talking about these, what's happened in a child's life, that they're being careful not to re-traumatise the child,

but as Katie mentioned, that really what that leads is a void or vacuum in terms of understanding what has actually happened. So they've got a narrative, which is also shared by other family members, so there's a consistency in what children know and what they've been told. But also, children aren't supported to have the language and the skills in order to be able to navigate life in the future, whether that's talking to their own. friends about these issues or as Katie mentioned in future adult relationships being able to share what happened and trying to separate it out their part in all of that from feeling responsible

for it. Now despite being given royal assent back in 2024 jade's law it aims to suspend parental responsibility when one parent has killed the other it hasn't been enacted yet no one was available from the ministry of justice for an interview this morning but they did tell us our deepest sympathies are with the families of these victims, we're implementing Jade's law as swiftly and safely as possible. It will come into force by the end of 2026. We're also working to protect children from violent parents by repealing the presumption of parental involvement and rolling out child-focused courts nationally, better supporting victims of domestic abuse and continuing to put the child's welfare at the centre of family courts. Sarah, how are you feeling about the delay in Jade's law

being put into law? And also do you think it goes far enough? I don't think it does go far enough because it's not retrospective. So families who, you know, if they're actually, if they were in court last, if the offender was in court last week, it won't support them in any way. It won't change it for them. And families that we support are really surprised to hear that. They obviously thought with Jade's law coming into force, it would stop the perpetrator being able to control. but that's not going to change,

although it will change for the ones when it is implemented. It needs to be retrospective as well, so they don't continue to control from the prison cell. John, what do you make of Jade's law? And do you think it goes far enough? I think it's a welcome development, but as Sarah's mentioned, there are some weaknesses in it.

One is that it only applies in England and may apply in Wales, so it doesn't cover the whole of the UK. And the second issue is that really courts will only be able to make an order at the basis where somebody has actually been sentenced rather than when they've been found guilty. And the gap between those court hearings can be weeks and sometimes months. And actually not just introduces a period of further delay for children and young people and family members after what will have been the heightened anxiety around a criminal trial. Sarah, off the back of your meeting in Westminster that I mentioned at the beginning of our conversation, I know that you've written to the children's minister, what is it that your advisory group wants to see change now?

We really would like a National Register of Children bereaved by domestic homicide. You know, we actually think we need to know who the children are is the first thing. And also that, you know, children actually need a voice and need to be supported. There needs to be tailored support out there for children and for their families. Do you think there's an appetite for that? I'd hope so. I think it's more that people don't think about it. You know, two of the children we supported and now adults, and they made a film. It's called Children Behind the Headlines. It's on our website.

And I don't think it's, I think it's that people just don't think about it. They forget there are children behind the headlines. It's in the news. It's gone, and these children, you know, are carrying this trauma and really do need support. And I think if people think about it, they'll be like, of course they do. I would have assumed that we'd know who those children were. and that they're getting support. So I think it's more of a lack of knowledge, really, from people. And John, after your report, what would you say are the central recommendations that come out of it?

I think a key one picking up on that last point is having an agency that's responsible for coordinating the care for these children. That's to do with the immediate arrangements for who the child will live with. But it's also about looking at what package of support is put in place for both children and carers. What we do know is that children do best whenever their carers are supported. And so therefore there's something about making sure that agencies don't focus purely on what are the needs of the child, but also think about what are the practical and financial needs of carers and what support do carers need to come to terms themselves with their own grief and sense of loss. And I think the third thing is that many of the adults who we spoke to who were children and went through similar experiences to Katie talked about that sense of isolation. not actually being in contact with people

who had similar types of bereavement experiences and there's something particularly difficult about a parent being a homicide victim and particularly where the person responsible for that is somebody within your own family and so therefore thinking about how do we better connect those individuals as children and then later as adults

so they feel they aren't so isolated. Yeah, I've got a support network. Thank you both so much for speaking to us this morning. Professor John Devani from Edinburgh University and also Sarah Burroughs, of children heard and seen. Now, at the height of the Cold War, when the UK agreed to host American nuclear missiles,

it was women who led one of the most enduring protests. A march to Greenham Common in Berkshire became something more permanent, a women's peace camp that remained in place for nearly 20 years. Some of you may indeed have been part of it. Well, women built camps, they sung, they use their bodies to form blockades. That experience is the focus of a new novel

called Fallout, written by our next guest, Eleanor Anstruther. Welcome to the Woman's Our Studio. Thanks so much. Well, thank you for coming in. So why Greenham Common? Why was that the starting point for your novel? Well, I'm planning actually five books sort of set against big socio-political events with the human stories set at the front of those. So I was thinking about various decades from the 50s through to the 2000s, really. And when I thought of the 80s, Greenham just jumped out. at me. I remember it as a child. I was 10 in 1981, so I remember the headlines. I was seeing it on TV. Knew very, very little about it. And then as an adult now, thinking about it, I realized, well, A, you know, as a piece of material for a writer, it's just incredible because you're dealing with thousands of women for nearly 20 years at a protest site. So, so many stories. And also,

as I began to research it, how much I didn't know. And so it really just thought, okay, I'm setting this novel at Greenham Common and that became, I've learnt so much about great. I thought I knew and now I know. It's become more of a mission really. So tell us about that research because, I mean, you go into vivid detail about just the camp itself. So tell us about that research process. Well, there's amazing archive. Vanessa Pini set up Green and Women Everywhere, which is a website you can go to. And she invited all Green and Women to submit their photographs, their videos, their, their, oral and visual archive there.

So, you know, it was an absolute wealth of material for me, and I went back, and then I contact Vanessa and asked if she could ask any Greenham Women who would come and talk to me, and luckily quite a few stepped forward, including Sue Say, who takes the character of Dawn in the book, which was, she was amazing. So I got to speak to Greenham women, obviously go to Greenham, which doesn't really exist anymore, but you can still see a Blue Gate pillar is still there with the kind of, graffiti on it. So that was really the archive. I read an

enormous amount. On YouTube, you can go back and look at some of the very grainy 1980s footage of the protests. So it was a remarkable amount of information I could get. And then as a novelist, I then have to kind of put it all aside and just be there in the

characters through their eyes. We talk about those characters because it's interesting. The two sort of central women, young women in one case, 15 year old Bridget, her mum, Janet, a dinner lady. They weren't initially particularly interested in Greenham, didn't really know about it, weren't, in inverted commas, politically engaged. Why did you choose to go for that angle rather than someone like Dawn that you mentioned? Right, it was a lot more engaged in the book.

Yeah, well, I think just as an author, it allowed for the reader to discover Greenham as Bridgett discovers it. So as a 15-year-old, we've all been 15, very black and white thinking, it's either really great or really terrible. and to sort of counter pose for them that Bridget's father, Ray, is, as you know, obsessed with building a fallout shelter in the house, which was what the government had told everyone to do in your four-minute warning, paint the windows white, and need I go on. So Janet, not really interested. That's Ray's wife, Bridget's mother. And Bridget, yeah, just thinks her parents are embarrassing. And her mother's a bit boring and her dad's an idiot.

And she's not interested. So it's only when she goes to school with the leaflet for Embrace the Base, advertising the very first action, that she meets her art teacher, Miss Jenkins. And Ms Jenkins is very politically locked in. And it's her that takes her to Greenham. But really, Bridget only goes because she doesn't want to get a netball. She couldn't give us stuff about politics. It's like everyone's an idiot.

So we get to experience Greenham through the eyes of a 15-year-old who has never seen anything like it. And that allowed me as a writer. to explore an open Greenham to the many, many people who've never even heard of it, Chloe. I've met one person under the age of 30 who's heard of it. Well, it's interesting. Actually, after I read the book at the weekend, I was talking to my 13 and 17-year-old about it,

and they didn't know about it, but were absolutely engaged when I told them about it. It's quite interesting as well that you see in this 15-year-old Bridget, a girl who's kind of a bit awkward about her body and doesn't feel very, as a lot of teenage girls go through. But she kind of finds a liberation at Greenham, which actually kind of brings her mum in as well. Yes, it does. Because Janet is only, I think she has Bridget when she's in her early,

I think she's 20, early 20s anyway, so she's very young. And, yeah, so Bridget's liberation, which is really, what Bridget sees when she goes to Greenham is women being humans, not in the roles that they are supposed to play unknowing that these were the roles they were supposed to play. A lot of them aren't wearing bras. They're not brushing their hair. They're not wearing makeup.

They're not in the kitchen. They're not fulfilling those roles. So for Bridget, she can't believe it. There's a moment when she's like, that's the kind of woman I used to see at the bus stop, and that's a granny. What are they doing here? And for Janet, I mean, I found Janet a really fascinating character to write

because she's actually the most sort of social, socially savvy and empathetic character of the whole book. So she does have a political awakening, but it's more that it's rooted in something that she already has. And I hope it's not giving too much a way to say that there's a lovely switch of positions for Bridget and Janet, which really marks Janet's liberation. And the book sort of looks at what it's like to live outside of conventional society in the 1980s. And, you know, it's often easy to forget what some of the expectations were

of different people and different roles at that time. I know. I mean, to me, I'm 55. It feels like yesterday. But I am told this is a historical fiction, which is really upsetting and quite shocking. But yes, to go back, even I was surprised. I went back and I watched a lot of films from the 1980s. If anyone wants to see what it was like, watch pretty and pink

and see what was allowed and thought to be okay. And yeah, I mean, there was no question. You know, we had the 60s liberation. But the 80s, there was a sort of faux liberation there. Yeah, you could be anything, but you also had to be everything. You couldn't leave the kitchen. You couldn't leave your straits as a woman and how are you supposed to behave. And so Greenham really was a point of liberation for thousands and thousands of women.

Has to be pointed out. I've done a lot of looking into equity in protest because it was predominantly white women. And a lot of middle class. There were a lot of working class women there, but just to focus in on white middle class women, this really was the first time when they felt and experienced their right to live without threat being impinged upon by the state. So when they stood up to say no,

then they experienced what thousands historically other women had experienced. And that was also a political awakening. I'm interested that you, I mean, you're obviously very unhappy that younger people, aren't aware of what happened. I'm just shocked. You think that it should be taught in schools? I absolutely do. I mean, we've heard Jess Phillips this morning, just this morning, quote the suffragettes, quite rightly. But, you know, in terms of great, and the suffragettes, you know, amazing and they should be in schools, but Greenham should be in schools too. This was nearly 20 years, the longest running occupied peace camp in history, all women, totally inclusive.

No one ever got thrown out of Greenham for failing to adhere to an ideology. It was an idea that women gathered about, no bombs and give us back the land. And for that to have done, there was violence, but there was only one death. I've just been in America and they're amazed that there was only one death at Greenham. They kept focusing in on that. But it is quite something. There was definitely a lot of violence, but these women stayed. And they stayed through non-violent direct action, through voice and song and funny things like weaving wool around policemen, you know.

And yet it's not a lot of. even a footnote. I mean, you have to go out of your way to find out about Greenham. And I think it should be taught in primary schools, in the history of women, political protest, British history. It should go all the way up to A level and every school leaver should know about Greenham. And why do you think it's not included? You know, it's Occam's Razor, it's women. Simple as that. I think it's as simple as that. You know, a few people have said to me, if it had been all men, A, it wouldn't have succeeded and B, it would have been in the headlines positively. Do you know what I mean? It wouldn't have been

a footnote in history and, you know, I love men and I'm absolutely not against and the only reason men weren't allowed at Greenham was because they knew that there would be more violence on the part of the police because there's a tendency when men are with men, there's physical violence and we all know that.

So it wasn't anti-men. It was women because they knew it would succeed if it was only women. But the fact of the matter is that the media at the time, anybody there will remember the headlines. I won't repeat them here. But they were incredibly dismissive. Women were ridiculed.

And just sort of dismissed as being kind of dirty. I mean, can you imagine? Do you know what I mean? Like not presentable? And I honestly, I've thought long and hard about it and I think the only reason is because it was women. I was also interested as well, and we haven't got a lot of time. I could talk to for ages about this. But touching on the language and the attitude of the 80s,

some of it can be quite shocking. It was really shocking. I mean, even I, who was there, you know, I'm still amazing. that those headlines in various media broadsheets were allowed to be just broadcast with no real contest. Or challenge. And it is heartbreaking. And, you know, we have progressed.

We've moved a long way. But I think one of the other things that we could really take from Greenham is that there was a lot of dissent at Greenham, but no one was thrown out for not agreeing with everything. It's been really lovely to speak to you. And I really enjoyed reading the book. So thank you so much. Eleanor Anstruther there, who has written this new. novel. It is called Fallout based on the events at Greenham Common. Now, Anita is going to be

joined by the writer Canwin Shoe to talk about her debut novel tomorrow called Boring Asian Female. It has themes of identity, ambition, failure and obsession. And we'll be discussing social media addiction or problematic behaviour with children. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Do join us again next time. I'm Noel Titheridge and for BBC Radio 4 from Shadow World, this is impulsive. What happens when someone's personality changes completely? It was completely out of character, never done it before, never done it since. And it's because of a prescription drug.

I asked myself, why would you do such a thing? What were you thinking? I've been uncovering the shocking side effects linked to. medications called dopamine agonists. For BBC Radio 4, from Shadow World, this is Impulsive. Subscribe to Shadow World Impulsive now on BBC Sounds.