Woman's Hour - Wayne Couzens and Indecent Assault, African Queens, Sleepovers, Male Pill and Nikki Haley

Episode Date: February 15, 2023

The former police officer, Wayne Couzens, who raped and murdered Sarah Everard two years ago, has admitted three counts of indecent exposure, one of which happened just four days before he kidnapped and killed Sarah Everard. Now academics and criminologists are calling for a change in the way indecent exposure is seen – saying we need to stop the perception of it as a so-called ‘nuisance offence’ and take it more seriously, as in some cases it can lead to far more serious crimes. Nuala talks to BBC’s Home Affairs correspondent, Dominic Casciani and Jennifer Grant from the University of Portsmouth. What are your thoughts on children’s sleepovers? Are they a rite of passage or just a big headache? Well, #nosleepovers was trending on social media recently after an American influencer and mum of two, Tara Huck, shared her unpopular parenting opinion: she doesn't allow her children to attend sleepovers. When Netmums did a poll of their UK parents - 63% said they ban sleepovers. So is it the end for sleepovers? Victoria Richards is Editor of Indy Voices at the Independent and hosts multiple sleepovers a year, whereas parenting columnist for Velvet Magazine, Emily Martin, is trying to avoid them for as long as possible.A new Netflix series from Executive Producer Jada Pinkett-Smith is out today, telling the stories of African Queens. The first focuses on Queen Njinga, a powerful woman who led Ndongo – modern day Angola – through the slave trade and invasions by the Portuguese. To find out more about Njinga, and why it’s so important to hear her story, Nuala McGovern is joined by one of the writers and former British High Commissioner to Mozambique, Nne Nne Iwuji-Eme.Scientists say that an on-demand, non-hormonal contraceptive pill for men may be a real possibility after successful trials stopped sperm from being able to swim. Tests in mice suggest that it stuns sperm long enough to stop them from reaching the egg. Further tests are needed, but if successful, it could provide a reliable oral contraception. Michelle Roberts is the BBC's Digital Health Editor. The republican Nikki Haley has announced that she will be running for president next year in the US. She's the first Republican to challenge Donald Trump for the party's presidential nomination. Nikki Haley first made her way onto the political scene back in 2010, when she became the youngest governor in the USA at the age of 39, securing a victory against an all-male field to become South Carolina's first female and Asian-American governor. Since then she has been hailed as a rising star who could potentially change the Republican party's male-dominated image. So what does this announcement mean for American Politics? Daniel Lippman is a reporter for Politico covering the White House in Washington.

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, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello, you're very welcome to Woman's Hour. I'm wondering, do you have more kids than usual this morning at the breakfast table? The remains of a sleepover perhaps? Or maybe your kid has gone elsewhere. Well, love them or hate them, half-term break can be so full of them. Maybe you're one of those parents instead

that has banned the sleepover. The cranky morning after kids, just too much to bear. Do let me know. The text is 84844. And also, what about avoiding having kids altogether? Well, we're going to talk about a potential game changer when it comes to the male contraceptive pill

that stops sperm from being able to swim. Many more tests and trials will be needed. And it would also, this pill, potential pill, need to be taken an hour before sex. So thoughts on all of that? Love to hear them. Our digital health editor will be with us on Women's Hour. You can, as I mentioned, text the programme at 84844. Social media, we're at BBC

Woman's Hour or you can email us through our website or indeed a WhatsApp message or voice note is 03700 100 444. And if I say the name, Queen Njinga, do you know who I'm talking about? Well, many of us

will learn about her as Netflix unveils its series about African queens. The executive producer is Jada Pinkett-Smith. She is committed, she says, to educating viewers about female African rulers across history. Also committed is Ene Ene Uwe Jeme, who is one of the writers who will be with us in the Woman's Hour studio this hour. So stay with us for that. But first, I want to turn to the former police officer, Wayne Cousins. You'll remember he raped and murdered Sarah Everard two years ago. He is admitted to three counts of indecent exposure, one of which happened just four days before he kidnapped and killed Sarah Everard.

Now, academics and also criminologists are calling for a change in the way that indecent exposure is prosecuted, saying that we need to stop the perception of a so-called nuisance offence and take it more seriously, as in some cases it can lead to far more serious crimes, they say. Now there's a lot around Wayne Cousins in the papers today. Two of his former colleagues in the police force are under investigation for not identifying him. Let's get the full picture of what is going on. I'm joined by the BBC's Home Affairs correspondent, Dominic Casciani. Good to have you with us, Dominic. Thanks for joining us.

Good morning, Neil. Hi. So, what do we know about Wayne Cousins' some would say ascending criminal activity? The allegations appear to go back as far as 2015. Yeah, that's absolutely right. And what we see indeed is escalating activity as he appears to be emboldened and grows in confidence over the years towards the absolutely appalling crime he committed when he kidnapped, raped and murdered Sarah Everard in March 2021.

Let me just take you back to the beginning. He joined the police initially in 2002 as a special and then went to the civil nuclear constabulary in Kent, guarding the nuclear power station down there in 2011. Now, the first known allegation against him dates from June 2015, when a car registered to Cousins was reported by pedestrians who saw him indecently exposing himself, in essence basically exposing his genitals to them as he drove past. Now the car was registered to him, he was insured on that car and we understand that Kent police effectively took no further action in relation to that allegation now the next thing we know that happens

is two years after he transferred to the Met Police in 2018 so we're now in November 2020 and there is an indecent exposure incident in deal in Kent um I'm going to warn you some of these details is is quite awful but i think it's worth hearing because it shows that this is more than a nuisance offense he stepped out of woodland in deal he was naked and as a woman cycled past him he stared directly at her and he he began to masturbate now she was utterly horrified by what happened. Nothing happened about that incident, but he was subsequently convicted. This is one of the offences he's now been convicted of. We then have a pause, but from January through to literally

days before Sarah Everard's kidnap, there were four allegations, again, of indecent exposure, all of which take place at a fast food drive-thru restaurant in Kent. And similar pattern of behaviour to the first incident in 2015. He's in his car, he's exposing his genitals. The staff are aware of who he is. They eventually get his registration and supply it to the police and he's convicted of two of those offenses um two others uh formally lie on file that means he's pleaded not guilty to them and are not being pursued by the cps but in essence what you have there is a pattern of now confirmed behavior and other allegations over years and the critical issue in this is what would have happened, of course,

had this all been properly investigated. And the allegation is that it wasn't properly investigated, which is why there are now two quite substantial inquiries going on. And people will be reading about the two police officers that are facing misconduct cases in the handling of those indecent exposure reports. What's happening there? Yeah, that's right.

So the first incident involves a former Met police officer. Now, he faces gross misconduct allegations. Now, the allegation, sorry, I don't know if it's he. I'll just stress that. We don't know if it's a male or female officer. The officer is alleged to have breached police standards of professional behavior. And this relates to how the investigation took place into one of the allegations of the indecent exposure at the fast food restaurant. Now, we know the officer is said to have visited the restaurant on the 3rd of March.

We know that the police had the car registration plate and had that car registration plate been correctly searched it would have linked to cousins and this is a critical issue for the independent officers of police conduct who are investigating this about whether or not that officer properly performed their duties now the officers left the police, but the investigation, the misconduct hearing still goes ahead. And the reason why is because if there is a finding against that officer, they can be put on what's called the national barring list, which effectively means that officer cannot apply for another job anywhere in the policing family ever again. Now, the second incident involves a Kent sergeant in relation to the first allegation of indecent exposure in June 2015. Now, we know, again, that the force had the registration plate of the car there.

It's not quite clear why there was no further action taken. But where this becomes important, just going forward in time, is that when Wayne Cousins transferred to the Metropolitan Police in 2018, there were various vetting checks which would have been done to check whether he was suitable to join the Metropolitan Police. And critically, one of the issues that needs to be looked at is whether or not the police in London properly looked into his vehicle history and any potential allegations of misconduct in the past. And had they known about that incident in Kent in 2015, well, there could have been another outcome.

He may have been in a situation where he wasn't allowed to join the Met Police. So I suppose they'll be trying to establish whether those previous offences could have prevented the death of Sarah Everard. And so why are the prosecuting authorities and the police and the watchdog and now a home office review looking into these relatively minor offences compared to kidnap, rape and murder? What's important about that is this whole issue about whether or not he could have been identified earlier. And had he been identified, what would have happened to him? And if you look at the sentencing guidelines on this, I think this is really important for the audience to understand. Indecent exposure ranges in sentencing terms from a fine through to imprisonment. And judges tend to treat police officers who break the law fairly harshly because that becomes an aggravating factor if they become

criminals. I spoke to one leading criminal barrister last night who deals with a lot of these cases. Their view was that it's almost certain had Wayne Cousins been properly investigated and identified for one of the previous incidents that he would have faced a jail sentence. Now, that wouldn't necessarily mean he would have been in jail and therefore ultimately prevented from committing an awful murder.

But what it would have meant is that he would no longer have been in uniform. He would have been thrown out of the police. He would have been on the sex offenders register, which comes with some requirements to notify the police of his whereabouts. There could have been other measures taken against him, such as a civil order restricting his movements as a sex offender as well. All of this could have played a role in preventing him taking this awful step from these relatively minor offences, as they're treated at the moment of indecent exposure, going through to ultimately murder. Yes, it must be so difficult for her family as well as they're discovering all these other aspects as well. I was speaking to one criminologist who's been calling for indecent

exposure to be taken more seriously. Her name is Jennifer Grant. She's from the University of Portsmouth and she's been doing research into indecent exposure for six years. I asked her how many of these cases are treated at the moment. Well, I think they're beginning to be treated more seriously. We had a really significant change as we entered what is now not a new century, as indecent exposure became a sexual offence in 2003. So from that stage, when you report indecent exposure to the criminal justice system, they are treating it as a sexual offence. But there is still a lingering from the kind of societal view that this is more trivial.

So it's not always necessarily being taken as seriously as it should be. What has changed, Jennifer? Because I think a lot of our listeners will remember when it was called a nuisance offence, even though it was disgusting and very shocking at times.

It wasn't given the severity either of consequences or attention previously. No, I certainly agree with that. And I can remember growing up and the message that I was given as a young teenage girl was to laugh if I ever was a victim of an offence, which we know from the research with victims is really traumatising and can have lifelong effects on them. I think potentially as a society we are getting more and more understanding about the seriousness of all types of sexual violence perpetrated predominantly by men against women and girls and that is beginning to change how indecent exposure is perceived.

And do we have concrete evidence that it is a precursor to more serious offences? It's a complicated question because the evidence is still very much in its infancy, but the largest study of its kind suggests that about 5-10% of men who indecently expose themselves go on to commit contact sexual offences. So sexual offences which involve a physical element. So that research is continually ongoing. And I wonder, with your expertise, is there a difference between indecent exposure in public or indecent exposure online, so-called cyber flashing? It's a really interesting question because it's something that's suddenly taken off so quickly, cyber flashing. We understand that there are certainly some elements of crossover,

particularly when we're talking about men who potentially are motivated by misogynistic views and kind of asserting power, as it were. But there are still questions to be answered because there are significant differences in kind of almost the confidence that you need to go out in public and expose yourself and instead send something online to someone. Thanks very much to Jennifer Grant, University of Portsmouth there. And I think Dominic just says she's describing that, that confidence to go out I'm thinking also of what you were telling us about Wayne Cousins

What is next in terms of Mr Cousins' sentencing? Well, he will get sentenced on the 6th of March To be frank, this is a fairly symbolic exercise in sentencing terms because he's already got the whole life tariff for murdering Sarah Everard. So whatever they give him, he's not going to actually serve extra time because he's never getting out there. I think what's more important going forward is actually listening to what the judge says at that sentencing, because we still don't know the full facts of each of these incidents, because the legal process hasn't been quite completed yet. And I think we're going to learn

a little bit more. And I think that's going to add to pressure to upon the Met Police and Kent Police about exactly what they knew and when about Wayne Cousins and what could have been done to potentially identify him as the serious risk he clearly was. Alongside that, Nuala, what we've got is obviously there's going to be a date for these misconduct hearings in both forces involving the two officers who have been accused of effectively failing in their duties. But I think also, very importantly importantly the Home Office has launched quite a significant inquiry independent inquiry which is going to go wider than the police watchdogs reports and

that's going to look into really quite deep analysis of what the forces knew and when looking at documentation looking at you know whether or not there were red flags which were missed and I think that report, which is also going to take into account the circumstances of the serial rapist David Carrick, that's going to be really, really important when we get the results of that. Thank you, Dominic. Dominic Casciani, our Home Affairs Correspondent, explaining those various strands of that story that continue to evolve today. We're going to talk about African queens in just a moment,

but I do want to read some of your texts that have been coming in, 84844. I asked you, are you a fan of the sleepover, particularly when it comes to the midterm break or are you just exhausted? Well, no sleepovers ever happen in my home. I'm a teacher. I deal with exhausted children far too often,

anonymous writes. But I said, Lisa in Culmore, in Derry, she says, we've had a posse of 13-year-olds coming and going here in Derry since Friday evening. We've had one sleepover and on Monday we took a trip to the beautiful seaside where my daughter and two of her friends and I had chips outside. What's not to love about the midterm break? Well, which side are you on? Let us know. 8-4, 8-4-4. We're going to be talking more in detail about sleepovers a little bit later on. But now,

we're going to talk about an incredible woman. Maybe one that you don't know too much about yet. Queen Njinga, the leader of the Ndongo, which is now Angola on the west coast of Africa in the 17th century. She's fascinating, not only in her strength and in her political leadership, but also her achievements in battle. And if you don't recognise the name, I think that's about

to change. Thanks in part to Jada Pinkett Smith and her new series on Netflix called African Queens, documenting the lives of incredible women in African history whose stories have largely gone untold. The first season, and it's out today, focuses on Queen Njinga, and also due in part to one of the writers behind the series, who is sitting beside me. Nene Uwuji Eme. You're so welcome. Thank you. So not only a writer and film director

touted by Steven Spielberg as one to watch, but also a highly successful diplomat, former British High Commissioner to the Republic of Mozambique, as well as the first black British woman to do so, no less, but I could go on and we'd be here for quite a while. But we do need to talk about African queens as well. But before I do, what a list of accomplishments of the roles that you've held. How did you find time for it all? I always get asked that. Well, first and foremost, I love being a diplomat. I mean,

that's my first love. But as with any job that's full on and can be a bit relentless, you need to find outlets, so to speak. So you have diplomats who run marathons. That's definitely not me. You have others who join a choir. For me, it's writing. Writing has never felt like work. It's always been something that got me in the zone. Well, let's talk about African queens and particularly Queen Njinga. I was lucky enough to go to the screening the other night, which I loved. And also the chat that was afterwards about the importance of her. For our listeners that haven't caught the series yet, tell us why you wanted to be involved and also a little of why Queen Njinga inspired you.

Well, the first time the project was brought to me by my agents, I have been a fan of Njinga since I was a teenager, but she's not somebody you learn in schools on that front. So that was the first thing that got me to the table. There are going to be other African queens in the series, but this was the one that made me want to write it. And really why she inspired me, as people will find out today from Netflix, is just what an extraordinary woman she was, full stop, not just for her time. She just had this, she was the first female king in her kingdom. She was somebody who had this whole bag of tools that she brought to the table against the formidable force and

opponents at the time, which were the Portuguese in Africa, and, you know, right at the kind of, you know, epicenter of the slave trade, which Angola came to be. And it was something that was affecting the entire continent, but she just stood strong. So it was, she was just really, it was too good an opportunity to miss. And so this was in the 17th century. We begin to learn exactly about her power but you know one thing that really struck me the other night that I heard, that she was

40 years old when she started ruling. She was 43 when she came to the throne and she ruled for almost 40 years later. So it was like, I think you would have felt that the other night because we spoke about that. The fact that you saw her coming into her prime in her latter years. And actually, she spent most of her years preparing for that moment.

And she hadn't even begun at 43 to do what she would come to accomplish. And it wasn't also from what I saw, she wasn't sitting on a throne giving out directives. Nope, she led, she was leading, she led armies to war, her armies to war in her 50s and her 60s, you know, and it wasn't like she was sitting, like you said, on fire on the battlefield watching people fight in front of her. She was right in the thick of it. And you know, she was just incredible. And what do you think about her when it came to your writing, or perhaps the way you feel as you go about your life, about things we could learn from her? I think maybe two or three things that really stood out for me. I think first and foremost,

one thing about Njinga was that regardless of where she walked into or who she was facing, she was very clear about who she was. You know, she was clear that she was royalty. She was a leader. She was powerful. And whether whoever sat on the other side of the table recognized that or not, she walked in with that. And I think for any woman walking into any space today, that is something that some of us battle to sit comfortably in. But she sat very comfortably in her skin. And it's all the more formidable when you think who she was often sitting opposite from, which was slavers who did not see her in that light at all. And I think also for me, it was quite interesting to see the freedom with which she moved, as in not somebody who was seeking walking with any of the preconceptions we have today about women in leadership.

Right. So if you talk about some of the labels that women have today around if you're a female leader and you're actually good at what you do. Some of the terms, particularly if you're a female leader of colour, you can be labelled with like the angry black woman, or she's very aggressive or intimidating or whatever. And sometimes some of us as women are mindful of that when we step into a space so that we're not stepping on toes or we're not seen to be stepping on toes. She didn't have any of that. She was incredibly clear about who she was, what she came to do, and how she would go about doing it. And I think that's very, very empowering. And I mean, have you felt sometimes as a female leader in a man's world that you have to, in any way, try and, I don't know, slightly change or adapt your behavior? I think, yes, that's all you're always mindful of that. But I think what you need to be careful about is how you do that and to do that from your strengths without thinking you're fitting anybody's box or perception.

And I think Njinga was really inspiring that because she flexed her style to the context. So she would come to the table as a diplomat when that was needed. She would come as a warrior when it was needed, as a strategist, later on as a Christian convert if it was needed strategically on that front. And also she'd come with charm when required. And sometimes that thing of coming with charm as a woman because of certain perceptions we have in the workplace, sometimes we see that as a weakness. But that was often a strength for her in certain contexts to get to where she needed to get to. So that thing of being able to flex your style to the context and read the room, she was very, very good at that. Very good for a diplomat too.

Exactly. Well, at the panel, Jada Pinkett-Smith, who is the executive producer, as I mentioned, of the series, she also joined by Zoom. She was talking about her daughter, Willow, who inspired her to start this project because she didn't know any African queens. How important is it to you that stories like this get told and what impact do you think there will be from this series? I think it's super important that stories like this get told. I mean, I went to boarding school in Suffolk here. And I remember history was my favourite lesson. And I remember one of the classes sitting there and the teacher asked the question

around what has been Africa's contribution? When you think about Africa, what do you think about Africa? And the feedback I got was, sorry, the feedback from the classroom was stuff like slavery and war and disease. And I remember putting my hand up and saying, well, that's not true. There's a lot more in Africa. And the teacher said, well, for example, what? And I felt frustrated because intuitively I knew that they were wrong, but I didn't have the content to back it up. Stuff like this provides that content. I have a son at 14 now, and it's great to know that there's material like this for him out there. So I think it's important. It's important that there's material like this for him out there. So I think it's important. It's important that we share stories like this that inspire all children, regardless

of colour, but that children of colour can also see themselves in phenomenal women like this. And how do you write for Queen Njinga? How do you go there? How do you recreate something that was happening in the 17th century? So we were very lucky that because this is a docu-series, you know, there was the whole factual element, the whole talking heads element. We had a team of researchers who were there to answer questions and make sure that we weren't just plucking things from the air. And, you know, through that material, we were able to get a really good sense of, you know, at least the world this woman was moving around in. And for me personally, in terms of how I approached it, because I was really keen that she didn't just become this character that was this, you know, untouchable icon. It was really important that her humanity came across, that she was somebody that was relatable. And so I guess how I approached it

was looking to say, well, what would it have felt like to be you at that time, before everything we know now, that colours everything that we think about how we perceive ourselves and each other? How would that actually feel at that time? And so that was a good, a very, very good entry point, but done within the parameters of the fact that, look, it still has to be factual, and within the context of what we're doing. The other thing I was very struck by the other evening was the cast and crew. Yes. So many of African heritage or from Africa, so many women of colour. What was that like?

You know what? I really need to commend Westbrook, Nootopia and Netflix for that, because actually starting from the writer's room, having two women of African descent writing about an African queen, that's rare on that front. But like you would have seen the other night, that created a whole vibration all the way through that people felt, actually, this is something special and I need to step up and do my part on that front. There was such excitement in the room. It was. There was. And I think, you know, I think it was, you know, there's not much more I can say than actually, it was really brilliant that there was that energy throughout it all. And I think it carried the script to life.

Well, good luck with it. Thank you so much for coming in and talking to us about it. It's already up there. There will be other African queens. There will be other African queens coming up, I think around me. I think that's about as much as I can say. But for now we get to know Queen Njinga. Thank you so much to Nene Owuji Eme coming in to speak to us here on Woman's Hour. Thank you very much. Now if you want to talk to us about any of the stories you're hearing on today's programme 84844 is the text number at BBC Woman's Hour is social media. I'm talking a bit about sleepovers. Let me see. I love having my grandkids and their friends for a sleepover.

I love hearing their child chats and the excitement of young lives, says one. Emily says, we've a lot of sleepovers both at our house and they sleep out at friends. They're a rite of passage.

My children love them. Doesn't cost much, but they have great fun. I provide drinks and pizza and more or less leaves them to it. Gives the parents a night off and you get a night off in return. Well, that is the question, Emily.

Is this reciprocated? That's what I want to know. 84844 if you want to get in touch on that or any of the other stories, as I mentioned, that we are talking about today on Woman's Hour. Let me turn to my guests i have two of them victoria richards is editor of indie voices at the independent hello victoria hi there thanks for having me i hear you're a multiple sleepover sort of person i am an every friday night sort of sleepover person okay i want to hear about that uh our parenting columnist for Velvet magazine, Emily Martin, is trying to avoid them for as long as possible.

Is that right, Emily? I'm afraid that is right. That makes me sound awful, doesn't it? Every Friday night, Victoria, wow, I'm in awe of you. So yeah, not at my house. I accidentally got myself into this situation

where parents just gleefully dump their kids on my doorstep now and I usher them in. I'm not surprised. I mean, I think if it seems to be like, what would I say, a free babysitting service on a Friday night, I will tell people a little bit

of what initiated this segment for us. The no sleepovers hashtag was trending on social media. That was after an American influencer and mum of two, Tara Huck, shared her unpopular parenting opinion, popular for some, that she doesn't allow the kids to attend sleepovers.

Emily, you might, I don't know, feel a soulmate there. Netmums did a poll of their UK parents. Sixty three percent, 63 percent said that they ban sleepovers. So I'm just asking, are they a right of passage or a big headache? And our listeners are getting in touch and telling their stories so okay Victoria you've landed in it now that every Friday this is happening Emily what is it that has led you to a different frame of mind when it comes to them oh I just think you know life is so busy isn't it and when you get to the weekend when it gets to Friday the last thing I can imagine wanting to do is have everybody else's kids in my house as well as my own kids maybe it depends how old your children

are but I just think when I compare it to sleepovers that I used to go on in the 80s and 90s I think parents have to be so much more involved in them now we have to sort of stage manage them in a sort of much more involved way we have to provide one of your texts said you know I do pizzas and drinks and I don't know I just remember when we used to go to sleepovers they were largely unsupervised although perhaps a smidge more supervision might not have been a bad idea in the 80s and 90s but yeah I just think we're kind of trying to create magical memories because all the parents are so sweet and everybody tries so hard. And I just think they absolutely are a rite of passage. And it's not that I've banned them. You know, I'm obsessed with my children.

I would do anything for them. And we have had a couple of sleepovers. But, yeah, just a lot of effort, a lot of hard work for the parents at the end of the week, I think. OK, back to you, Victoria. Why do you love them, if that's the correct word? Well, I don't know if this says something more about me as a parent but I am extremely hands-off so what I mean is I stump up the cash for a pizza that is true um but other than that my daughter who's 11 and she's the one that I have that has the sleepover she is the host I mean she recently had a sleepover last Friday for her 11th birthday and she had a

almost like a 38 point plan for what was taking place ranging from the game she was going to play they all sat down and had to play um a big uh sort of game of kludo um she put down pizza and movie and sweets on there she put she drew up quizzes who knows me best and best friend quizzes. She even put on her plan for point number 15 or something, stay up late talking. And it's just very, very cute. Oh, that's adorable. That's what Microman did. Yeah.

And it ended with, have a nice lovely breakfast together and then wave my friends goodbye. Oh, that's a good bit. I don't actually have to do anything apart from pay for the pizza make sure they're all safe and then I go to bed early with my earplugs in to be honest what about that Emily well that sounds absolutely ideal maybe because she's 11 maybe it's a bit easier perhaps as they get older because mine my daughter is nine um and my experience of sleepovers is you know. It seems to be you have to sort of put on activities for them.

Like they want to do like a bit of painting. And then can we do some pottery? And can we, you know, there just seems to be like a lot of things. You have to start getting out paints. And, you know, then they change their mind and want to do something else. And I really like the idea of being like very hands off. That sounds much, much better. Emily, can I ask about the sleepover?

I think maybe it was one of the first ones when your daughter had just turned seven. Yes. Yeah. So we did have one. She begged and begged for a sleepover. And of course I said yes, because I remember my own sleepover at age seven very fondly. And so we just had one friend round who is a lovely little girl. And we really planned it. You know, we worked out what we're going to have for dinner and made homemade pizzas and they decorated them and et cetera, et cetera.

But, yeah, we had a couple of incidents. They kept they kept coming and saying they wanted something else to do. So that was quite labor intensive. And um at one point the little girl climbed the radiator in our um bathroom you know like the towel rack radiator uh that looks a bit like a ladder but isn't a ladder um and she climbed it and it came off the wall so that was um that was a moment and yeah they were up very late giggling and talking which is lovely isn't it but um yeah I was exhausted at the end of that one and I thought I'm going to wait another year. Because I think what I'm hearing is the sleep deprivation is the part that gets to a lot of parents.

What about that, Victoria? Well, I quite like the fact that I send all the kids home on the Saturday morning and it's their parents that have to deal with that. I don't really have to see the after effects. And as for mine, it means a pretty easy Saturday because they then, or my daughter then just wants to sort of crash out in front of the TV or catch up on sleep. So it's sort of a win all round. I really do think so.

I have had to step in though at three o'clock in the morning once. Girls, it is really time. It's so late. So I'm seeing a message come in. I just managed to sleep over with six 14 to 15 year old girls on Monday night I slept badly as they were all up until 3 30 but the laughter and fun was worth it what about that Emily well that's true that's lovely but were they all laughing and having fun I don't know if you ladies can relate but when um when

we used to have sleepers they were always there were always ones that were giggling wanting to stay up and then there were like half of them that wanted to just go to sleep somebody would always start crying and there's always one that wants to go home there is always one that wants to go home that's so true and there's always some sort of health drama like I remember having a lot of nosebleeds at other people's houses or you know something would happen and the allocated mum would have to step in and sort of become a nurse or yeah wanting to go home was always a bit of a thing. I didn't ask Victoria what your memories of sleepovers are were when you were a kid? Well I think to be honest this is what has set me up on this sort of strange life choice. I do remember really vividly

when I was 10 having a sleepover and it had a bit of a twist because we decided to play or my mom suggested that we play a game called Nelson's Grave. I think it must have been Halloween or something like that.

And that's meant to be where you have like cold spaghetti and everyone wears blindfolds and you have to feel it and you're being told this spooky story about how it's you know someone's intestines or something a bit gruff um but the problem that I didn't foresee is that my uncle is actually a butcher and what my mum had done is get actual animal body parts. So if she was saying, ooh, imagine this is an eyeball, and hey, presto, it actually was an eyeball. So I think that was quite...

I love your mother's sense of humour. Maybe you could introduce that on Friday night. Yeah, I should do, shouldn't I? I'm not sure you'd get as many guests if you started doing that. Maybe that's the way. That's the way I crack down on it. I start introducing intestines and rib cages. Yeah, those games were,

I remember that game. What was that game where you had to wear like a hat and scarf and eat a chocolate bar with a knife and fork and a blindfold? They were the activities

of the old days where mums were very much hands off, I think. We just used to make it up. I have some more messages coming in just to read to you before I let you go. Let me see.

Teenage sleepovers are a nightmare. There's all the bedding to sort and they want to be up half the night. Exhausting. Next from Vicky in Hampshire. My children are all adults and I now discover that their friends who used to come and stay for sleepovers

have such fond memories. Makes the effort all those years ago very worthwhile. And another. I feel I'm privileged as a girl guiding volunteer to organise sleepovers with our girls and see them grow in confidence overnight.

So Friday nights are continuing, Victoria. Emily, are you going to relent? Well, do you know what? Since I've been on air, my daughter's texted me saying, can we have her little friend to sleep over tonight? And why am I against sleepovers?

So I've got some explaining to do, I think. She's a clever girl. She has realised she could just hit you when you're vulnerable. Let me see, sleepovers. Think about your neighbours. 3.30 on a Monday. Great if you don't have to work.

Oh, that's Maria. Must have had a sleepover next door. Emily Martin, Parenting Commoners for Velvet Magazine. Victoria Richards, Editor of Indie Voices at The Independent. Thank you both so much. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Should we stay with kids? Seeing we've got those parents giving them a chance to vent their opinions on sleepovers, let's hear from some teenage girls the chance to talk about

grown-ups instead. Enna Miller has been talking to girls about their lives for an occasional series called Girls World. And today, what makes Francesca, Saskia and Olivia laugh?

And why don't adults get the joke? We have a lot of inside jokes so we'll like if we're in class or something and we like look at each other we'll burst out laughing because we end up like thinking the same thing when something happens. When I say stuff to my parents like I make a joke to them they won't get it and they'll tell me off for it. Yeah, that's exactly like, I show my parents a TikTok that I think is absolutely hilarious and they're just like, I don't understand. And then I have to spend 15 minutes explaining it and then I get a lecture about it, which I did not want in the first place because I feel like my friends understand me. We don't have to say anything to each other.

We just know, even just eye contact. We don't even have to laugh and we know what happened. There's certain teachers that we have inside jokes about that I'm not going to say, but sometimes we'll take two teachers and make a storyline up for them. It's just funny to be in our own little world and make up our own things that we can all just have a laugh about,

but it's never anything rude. It's just... It's like a made-up love story. And having these jokes, I guess, brings you together? When we, like, say something, it could be, like, the smallest thing. It could be a normal sentence, but the word could be slightly funny and then everyone will just, like like look at you and start laughing. When I mispronounce something, it turns into a whole big joke fest. Like they'll start making fun of me for like 15 minutes straight of just how I said something. It's never in a harmful way. I'm trying to say something serious, but the

conversation before was very funny and Francesca's sitting across from me dying on the floor laughing. I find something funny, but no one else does. So I'm sitting there laughing for like 15 minutes. And then when they find something funny, they're all laughing and I don't know what's happening. And she's like, what? Guys, what is it? Made me laugh. Another best worst sleepover before I move on to our next topic. At our house was when

eight wee girls were all sleeping in the living room. Around 4am they all arrived in our room screaming. A bat had flown down the chimney and was circling the room. Exciting times. That's Barbara in Lochmaben.

Thanks for sharing your stories about the sleepovers. They are coming in thick and fast. Now, what if you don't want kids at all? Trying to avoid them. Well, scientists say that an on-demand, non-hormonal contraceptive pill for men may be a real possibility

after a successful trial stops sperm from being able to swim. The tests were in mice, I should say, but they suggest that it stuns sperm long enough to stop them from reaching the egg. And further tests are needed. I think it's rabbits maybe, and then humans. But if successful, it could provide a reliable oral contraceptive.

Exciting times as well here then. Michelle Roberts is the BBC's digital health editor and joins me now in the Woman's Hour studio. Good morning. So tell me a little bit more about how this pill would work. Yeah. So basically these scientists at the moment think they found a special switch that can stop sperm swimming. So it's a cellular pathway and they found a drug that appears to just block it. And the good thing about it is it doesn't need hormones. So a bit like, you know, the female contraceptive pill obviously puts hormones into your body. And while that can work well, it can also have side effects. So they were looking for something that didn't have to knock out testosterone the male hormone because that really for men if you've got low testosterone can cause some problems

libido and various things so what they think is they can use this drug and it's quick to use and that it can sort of be on demand if you like so somebody if it works in in people too they've started testing sperm from men in the lab and it seems to look good with that but they need to move on to proper clinical trials in humans once they've done a bit more in animals um but if it does work the idea would be pop a pill about an hour before you wanted to have sex and then that pill would cover a period of maybe a few hours that it just stuns if you like the sperm. That's so interesting a few hours which I want to ask you about 8-4, 8-4-4 what do you think when the first parts that you're hearing about this potential male contraceptive pill the guy taking it an hour beforehand and lasting four as we'll get into now

with Michelle. I mean, how would they know when it's still effective? So they're looking at testing how long. In the mice, they think it was about 24 hours. So a human or a mouse will keep producing sperm. The male keeps producing it all the time. So this would work on a batch, if you like, of sperm. So within that safe window, you could go ahead and have sex.

Obviously, it doesn't cover, like a condom would stop STIs. This wouldn't. So it's not going to protect against any infections. You've got to think about that. But the idea is to stop pregnancies with this. And you wonder, perhaps, maybe this will have to come out in the trials, that men of different ages, different body types, would it be the same dose? Would it be the same pill that they take?

Yeah, I mean, I guess they would have to bear that in mind. But then we've got other treatments that are a pill. I mean, the other thing people have asked about is kind of what about spontaneity? But then I suppose with a condom, that's still an interruption. And men have used Viagra, you know, taking a pill beforehand and pre-planning. That's the one, yeah, that perhaps has more of a parallel in the sense of timing.

Because I believe it's an hour beforehand. This one appears to be, they need to check. But yeah, that's the idea. An hour beforehand and then it might take about 24 hours or a bit longer to fully wear off. But the safe window might be a lot shorter. Could this be the game changer that I'm reading about? It does have good potential.

I mean, all of these things. It's been really difficult because male contraceptives, there's been a lot of research, but not so much funding. That's what all the scientists keep telling me. So interesting. Male contraceptives, there's been a lot of research, but not so much funding. That's what all the scientists keep telling me. So interesting. Yeah, but I think pharmaceutical companies have wondered in the past whether there's a big market for it. So there was this sort of idea that men might not want to take control of contraception and that, you know, if there's already a good female pill out there. But that's changing. That sort of mindset is changing. And there is

quite a lot of investment now going into these types of trials. So, you know, the science is probably moving there. It's whether there's the will to then really drive this forward. Yeah. And I guess the part that would strike me as well is that this is non-hormonal. Yeah. I mean, other people are looking at other non-hormonal things as well. The sort of gold dust one would be to find something that's non-hormonal, quickly reversible, quick action, you know, which is why this one looks interesting. Other people have tried something that's like a gel

that they're calling a non-surgical vasectomy. Other researchers have been looking at a gel that you apply to the skin, but that's got some hormones in it. So there have been lots of trials going on actually in people. And I guess when I say non-hormonal, I should be specific in the sense of this one is non-hormonal, but women taking control of the contraception is often hormonal for them. Often, yeah. Even with a coil, sometimes that actually has some hormones on it,

depending on the type you have. A message coming in, 84844. It says, Do people plan an hour ahead when they're going to have sex? Seems quite unlikely to me! I don't have a name. I want responses to that from our listeners. What about that? Planning an hour ahead. Is that something that might stand in the way? I'd imagine there'd be an awful lot of money to be made on this, though, if it does go ahead, if it is. I mean, there's a big market out there, potentially. I guess it's finding something that would be desirable for people to use,

palatable, you know, all of the stuff that you'd want to check that it's safe, that it's effective. And then whether it gets the take up. And is there any timeline that they're talking about for this? Well, all of these things, usually you speak to scientists and they say, 10 years, 5, 10 years is your bog standard answer with any sort of, you're at the very early animal stage and you've got to get to human. Again, there are ways of doing it quicker. We've seen that with COVID, you know, getting COVID jabs through. It depends on the desire to have something quickly and not skipping any important steps. You do need to check full safety and get it through regulatory hurdles.

And that's the sort of sticking point, really. Yeah, a story a lot of people are reading today, though. No surprise about that one. And Michelle Roberts, BBC's digital health editor, has it written up online. Thanks so much for coming in to tell us more about it. Welcome. Thanks. All right, some more on the sleepovers. You guys all have an opinion on it.

84844. We had children to stay from about age five onwards. I think it's a great learning curve for children and parents that they can spend a night away successfully. It's also a preparation for sleeping away opportunities that are so good for children's independence. That is from Tricia. Let me see.

My girls were extremely shy and wouldn't go to sleepovers or wanted to have friends over. However, once a month they would have a sleepover with each other. That's really sweet. They remember all the giggling with great fondness.

Sleepovers. Here's some advice. Keep it simple. Ask guests to bring their own sleeping bags or duvets and pillows. Simples. What about that?

I think I've heard about that as well with guests. Just bring your own sheets and that makes it much more, what would I say, not such a labour, shall we say, for those that are hosting.

Somebody else. We are the sleepover house. We have four kids anyway and so one or two more don't make a lot of difference. Trusted friends of our kids are almost members of the family anyway.

Okay, I think I'm feeling a lot of positivity. Trusted friends of our kids are almost members of the family anyway. Okay, I think I'm feeling a lot of positivity towards the sleepovers and what's coming in so far. Keep them coming, 84844 or at BBC Women's Hour is another way you can get in touch

or email us through our website. We were talking about African queens a little bit earlier. I want to talk to American leaders next because the Republican,

Nikki Haley, she has announced she'll be running for president next year in the States. She's the first Republican to challenge Donald Trump for the party's presidential nomination. Let's listen to a little of her announcement

in her campaign video. The railroad tracks divided the town by race. I was the proud daughter of Indian immigrants. Not black, not white. I was different. But my mom would always say,

"'Your job is not to focus on the differences, "'but the similarities.'" And my parents reminded me and my siblings every day how blessed we were to live in America. Some look at our past as evidence that America's founding principles are bad. They say the promise of freedom is just made up. Some think our ideas are not just wrong, but racist and evil. Nothing could be further from the truth. Those little wishes that you kind of heard in the background there,

that was from her ad or campaign video. But it was American flags being set on fire, which was part of the video as well. If you know Nikki Haley, you might know she made her way onto the political scene

back in 2010. She actually became the youngest female governor in the States at the age of 39, securing a victory against an all-male field to become South Carolina's first female and also Asian-American governor.

I think she might be the youngest governor actually in the States, full stop. Since then, she's been hailed as a rising star who could potentially change the Republican Party's male-dominated image. But what does it mean for American politics for that long campaign election cycle ahead? Let's bring in Daniel Lipman, reporter for Politico,

covering the White House in Washington. Hi, Daniel. Welcome. Thanks for having me. So Nikki Haley, she's decided, I mean, it's really interesting, I think, her timing to be that first person going up against Donald Trump within the Republican sphere for the Republican nomination. What do you make of it? Well, what I think is interesting is that while she is going up against Trump,

she's not criticizing him by name yet. Remember, she worked for him as his U.N. ambassador for a couple of years. She had a pretty good exit from that job while most cabinet members were fired or let off on, you know, I remember Brian Supribus, who was the chief of staff, he was fired on the tarmac at the Andrews Air Force Base. But she got a Oval Office exit where Trump and her talked about how great the other person was. But now this time she's running against him. And so Trump's campaign put out a pretty harsh statement against her, calling her a career politician who

was just in it for herself and who had served on corporate boards. And so she's going to have to play that balance of how do you appeal to that Trump base without criticizing him too much, but still distinguishing yourself. I mean, I did see some reports saying, you know, he hadn't given her an insulting nickname yet, which he did, of course, to so many of his opponents. But I'm just wondering how long can that last? Yeah, because eventually, you know, these candidates will be on the debate stage in the fall, probably. And they're going to have to distinguish themselves and to attack each other. And so that voters can say, hey, what's the difference

between these candidates? And so a lot of Republicans who are kind of independent analysts were wondering, why is she exactly running for president? She's talking about a new generation of leadership, but she's not actually talking about what she would do as president. She criticized the New York Times for their 1619 project, which was tracking the after effects of slavery on black Americans. But she wasn't talking about any major programs that she wanted. And so I think this almost is like a next logical step in her career, but she doesn't have a strong base. I think she was polling recently at 1%. And so this might be a play to be the vice presidential candidate for whoever wins the Republican primary, because I think there's a lot of pressure, even in the

Republican Party on picking a woman to be on that ticket. And so, of course, she's going to work hard in this campaign. But in the back of her mind, of course, she's going to work hard in this campaign. But in the back of her mind, I'm sure she's thinking about how she could be the VP candidate because of this campaign. Okay, there's a couple of things there I want to pick up on. One, the little clip we heard as well from the campaign video. I mean, she went straight into race, ethnicity, not black, not white, Indian background, wanted to talk about the side of the tracks that she grew up in, trying to talk about the issue of race within the Republican Party. How did you understand it? No, I think the Republican Party is pretty anti-woke these days, and they don't like to

talk about identity too much. But then they also bring up a lot of these types of issues to appeal to their white working class base. And so who do not like, you know, talk about transgenderism or differences in how people are treated by race or systemic racism. I actually wrote an article about a another Indian American guy named Vivek Ramaswamy, who is a big entrepreneur. He's made a couple hundred million dollars. And he also wants to run for president. And he's 37. And so it shows how important fighting the culture wars are in the Republican Party that she feels obligated to talk about it. One other thing from her announcement video that I thought was interesting was you could see the house

that she grew up in. She did a picture of that. She included a picture which was a very modest looking house and then in the end of the video you can see her talking from presumably her new house with big windows

in the living room, which the South Carolina news outlets reported think she had bought a $2.5 million house. And so a much nicer house. You know, she's done well in her career. And so she's definitely lived the American dream. So interesting, the optics of it, as that overused word is. But you did mention the 1%. You did mention potentially looking at a vice presidential position.

However, back in 2010, when she became governor, she was considered something of a long shot right then. Yeah, she was actually flailing in the polls, not doing that great. And she was revived by an endorsement from Sarah Pillan, a name we haven't heard from in a while, who, remember, was the vice presidential candidate for John McCain in 2008, was criticized for being very green and inexperienced. took a liking to Haley and endorsed her and that helped put her over the top among the Republican conservative voter base in the southern state of South Carolina. And so it's interesting to see that political history there. And Haley in office, I think the most prominent role she played was she consoled the state after a white supremacist, Dylan Roof, killed nearly 10 African-Americans in that black church in a very racist attack. And so she led the efforts to take down the Confederate flag from the South Carolina Capitol, which got her a lot of media attention back then. What's interesting is that she had actually opposed

efforts to remove that flag years before. And so it was a switch about in light of the, how the state was changing and how a symbol of that Confederacy was no longer acceptable. Very interesting. Just very briefly in our last minute or so, we mentioned about her, about a potential VP candidate.

Looking over and talking about being a new generation, some thought that Kamala Harris, Joe Biden's vice president, would be a sure thing running for president, for example, in this election cycle. But she seems to have, to many intents and purposes, somewhat disappeared. What happened? Yeah, we haven't really heard from her that much. That's a good question because she was seen as a rising star in Democratic politics. She quickly moved from California Attorney General to U.S. Senate to VP. But she has been assigned this portfolio of issues that are very tough in terms of solving immigration and the roots and the root causes of all the migration from Central America in terms of improving the economic development of those countries, which is a very, you know, even even the most the smartest economic minds would be would find that hard would find themselves hard pressed to fix that issue and also solving voting rights uh in in the country and how democrats think republicans are suppressing the voters uh you know particularly black voters in you know across the country and so she hasn't had much progress on those issues and she has not grown as a politician in terms of her political skills that much and so she's had she's had a

kind of a fall from her rise. Yes, interesting. No doubt we'll be picking it all apart in the coming months. Daniel Lipman, reporter for Politico, covering the White House

in Washington. Thank you so much. OK, the last sleepover. My daughter is now 31. She still brings six of her old school friends over for sleepovers. Some are married,

some have kids. They all sleep in the same bed and they scream until 3 a.m. I'll see you on Monday. Thanks for listening. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello, I'm John York and I want to tell you about Opening Lines, a new series from BBC Radio 4 in which I'll be looking at books, plays, poems and stories

of all kinds that have made a mark and asking what makes them work. I mean this stuff is jaw-droppingly shocking. I'll be asking lots of questions. What's at the heart of the story? How does it achieve its effect? What makes it special? History is usually written by winners but he wants to give a voice to people who are not usually heard. I'll be hearing from people who know and love these works. Writers. We do have an orgasm evoked on the page. Dramatists. Biographers. It's worn better as a book

about England than it has as a book about sex, I think. And directors too. In the end I'll be asking what makes this work worth reading now? Join me to find out in opening lines from BBC Radio 4 and available on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies.

I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service,

The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.