Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Anya Taylor-Joy, Arlene Phillips and Oti Mabuse, Lone Female Ukrainian Refugees

Episode Date: April 16, 2022

The Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police has met and personally apologised to three victims of grooming gangs in Rochdale for failures in the investigation of the sexual exploitation of children. The apology comes exactly a decade after the 2012 trial that resulted in some members of the gangs being convicted for their crimes. We hear from Maggie Oliver, the former detective who blew the whistle on the police’s failure to tackle these crimes.Anya Taylor-Joy's decision to leave school at 16 to pursue a career in acting has certainly paid off. In 2020, in the first month of its release – a staggering sixty-two million households watched her play chess prodigy Beth Harmon in the Netflix mini-series 'The Queen’s Gambit'. She discusses her latest film – The Northman - a brutal and bloody viking revenge epic.In August 2018, Kylie Moore-Gilbert, an Australian-British academic travelled to Iran to attend a seminar and conduct academic research. At Tehran airport on her way back home to Australia, she was arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Accused of espionage, she was imprisoned and later convicted and given a ten year sentence. She was released in November 2020 as part of a prisoner exchange deal negotiated by the Australian government. She’s written about those 804 days, in a new book The Uncaged Sky.The UK government has been told to stop matching lone female Ukrainian refugees with single men. The UN has intervened following concerns that women and sometimes children are at risk of sexual exploitation. Under the government’s Homes for Ukraine scheme, British hosts must link up with refugees themselves, leaving tens of thousands of people to resort to unregulated social media groups to connect. We hear from Louise Calvey, Head of Services and Safeguarding at Refugee Action and Times reporter, Shayma Bakht.With over 100 million record sales, an Academy Award, a Grammy, and an award from The Council of Fashion Designers of America, very few artists have a catalogue that matches the iconic Cher. A new musical, touring the UK - “The Cher Show” - tells the story of the Goddess of Pop’s meteoric rise to fame. The director and choreographer behind the show are two Strictly Come Dancing legends - Arlene Phillips and Oti Mabuse.

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Chloe Tilley. Welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Coming up, we find out what risks some women fleeing Ukraine alone might be facing when trying to find a new home in the UK. Strictly legends Arlene Phillips and Oti Mabuse tell us about a new musical touring the country and we meet Kylie Moore Gilbert, an Australian-British academic who spent 804 days in an Iranian prison.

But first, a major apology ten years late. On Tuesday afternoon, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, Stephen Watson, met and personally apologised to three victims of grooming gangs in Rochdale for failures in the investigation of the sexual exploitation of children. The apologies, which have now been published online, come a decade after the trial that resulted in some, but by no means all, members of these gangs being convicted for crimes that took place between 2008 and 2012 against children as young as 13. These three women, now in their 20s,

have also received what's been described as substantial damages. Well, the case was brought against the police by the Centre for Women's Justice. Former Detective Constable Maggie Oliver, an officer who worked on the investigation, resigned from Greater Manchester Police in 2012 to publicly speak out against what she recognised as gross failures to safeguard these victims. Well, Emma spoke to Maggie earlier this week and started by asking, is this apology too little, too late?

Yeah, better late than never is what I would say. And I am grateful that finally we have a public acknowledgement and apology for these three young women. The harm that's been done, Emma, can never be undone. And when I sat there yesterday with these three young women who have become like my own children over this 10-year period. I felt vindicated, but I also feel really angry that it's taken 10 years to get this apology. The previous two chief constables refused to engage or even consider that anything was done that was wrong. But these girls, these children, were victims.

They were vulnerable. They were failed. They deserve protection. And right from the day that I began to speak out about this, when I was a serving police officer, Emma, I was just saying what they apologised for yesterday. So actually it is too little too late. But my reward was sitting there yesterday with Amber and seeing her face when for the very first time there has been a public acknowledgement that she was a victim.

That all the abuse that she suffered has been recorded and crimed. That she is the same as all the other children and they apologise for not treating her that way. So too little, too late. But I do hope that it's not just an empty apology, that it leads to changes in how victims and survivors are treated from now on. Yes. And if I may, I was just going to say, you know, I started by saying, is it too little, too late? Of course, in many ways it is.

But as you say, it is very important to have this acknowledgement. Why do you think the other chief constables couldn't do it? Because institutions like the police, the first thing they do when they are challenged, even when they're wrong, is close ranks and defend the indefensible. They protect the organisation. They are unwilling to say sorry. It's such a little word, but it makes such a phenomenal difference. And, you know, they've got very powerful legal departments. And you've just said that this was a two or three year battle. This has been a 10 year battle. No, no, of course. I meant with the specific court elements of this and how that's been playing out. But you're right. This is a decade of these women's lives and also of people like yourself trying to tell the public about it. Yeah, I mean, I took the girls, more or less the day after I resigned, I went to seek legal advice for them.

The first lawyers allowed legal time limits to run out. So when I went to the Centre for Women's Justice in Harriet Worcester, we actually were on a back foot because we were really legally not able to take action. This is only half of the action because the CPS have, there have been legal proceedings issued against the CPS as well. And they are unwilling to acknowledge their failures or even apologize and when you add that Emma to the news again yesterday that rapes are not being charged that children child abuse is not being prosecuted when we have the the head of the CPS still insisting that the way these children were treated in Rochdale is okay well I fear for the future because to bring about change you have to acknowledge the failures

and what they have done to these children and to me is actually unforgivable and it could have all been avoided. But the police are powerful. They are unaccountable. I hope that Stephen Watson really is going to bring in changes that are sadly very much needed. Of course, the police would say they have watchdogs that look over them, that do keep them to account. But we have also been hearing many cases of recent reviews where that also hasn't happened. You brought up the CPS, the Crown Prosecution Service. We did request a

statement from them with regards to, as you have described it, the CPS not having apologised yet and that case ongoing. And a CPS spokesperson said, as there are ongoing court proceedings in this matter, it would not be appropriate to comment. You're smiling at that. I'm smiling because this doesn't need to go to a court procedure. All they need to say is they're sorry. And why don't you think the CPS will say sorry? I mean, there'll be people, of course,

who are not as familiar with how the police and the CPS interact, but they are separate, but they are very interlinked. For exactly the reason I've just said, Emma, because they protect the organisation. You know, empty words are easy. They come on the national news and they say that victims today are being treated better. Well, they're not.

You know, my work in the Maggiol of the Foundation, today I'm talking about this case, but in the Foundation we are dealing with multiple cases today of victims and survivors being failed by the criminal justice system who come to the Foundation in desperation. has apologised, said it's going to do better. But what you were referring to yesterday was of a parliamentary committee report looking at the current prosecutions and the current way those who are alleging that crimes have happened in this space and they are not content with changes that are being made or not being made and are very concerned about it.

If I can just, Maggie, to bring this back to these individual women and these specific apologies. The apologies are quite jaw-dropping in some of the detail, aren't they? And I just wondered what particularly struck you about them. I actually feel that I could have written these letters 10 years ago because this was what I was telling the chief constable then. So reading these, I felt it was actually a very emotional

meeting. It was really emotional to see these girls sitting there and know what the road we've travelled together and that finally they will have these letters. Amber said that she was going to frame this letter and put it on her wall because it's the first time she's publicly been acknowledged as a victim, and she was. Because it's extraordinary, again, for those who are not as familiar with this, that those who were children were not treated like they could be victims. The entanglement of their lives, it was like they were treated like they had agency,

they knew what they were doing, and yet they were being abused by men. I mean, if anybody, anybody who understands what grooming and child abuse is, knows that these children are vulnerable, they are frightened, they are being coerced and controlled. And when you think that a woman who's, say, married and being controlled by her husband, can often take years to get out of that relationship what chance has a child of 13 or 14 got in escaping a gang of predatory controlling men who threaten them at gunpoint who terrify the wits out of them lock them in houses in standing up for themselves. So when the police are involved and the children are picked up in circumstances

that should open questions in any ordinary person's mind, not even a police officer, it makes me despair that it's taken 10 years to acknowledge those failures. And there are some specific details as well, and this is quite distressing, but I do think it's worth picking out just one of the details because it was, as you say, an emotional meeting with a lot of information conveyed. One girl was 13 and pregnant and the police gathered DNA. Again, as I say, this is distressing, but from her terminated fetus without her knowledge or consent? You know, Emma, I was the one who had to tell Ruby that we had a foetus that had been locked in a freezer for two years,

that the police and the social services had attended her termination and seized that foetus, not telling her mum, not telling her, and they did nothing with it. Now, to the everlasting credit of Ruby and her mum, they then gave permission for that foetus to be examined for DNA. The man who got her pregnant was 40 years old, three children, married. The CPS chose not to even charge him with rape. They chose to charge him with sexual activity with a child and he was out of prison in less than three years. The first time she knew he was out of prison was when she bumped

into him in the local supermarket because probation hadn't contacted, hadn't sought her opinion about whether he should be released but the CPS made the decision to charge him with sexual activity with a child. It should have been rape. He should have been in prison for many, many years. And those are the failures that we are asking the CPS to look at and apologise for and say they are not going to repeat these same failures again. But they're unwilling to do that. But the damage to Ruby, Emma, will never go away. I should say also, you're mentioning different names here of individuals. They have the right to be anonymous for life. These are names that are used in lieu of their real identities.

I just wanted to also make that clear. And what about the expunging of criminal records? Because, of course, these girls, as they were now women have criminal records some of them they shouldn't because they weren't treated like victims and that has therefore impacted their life and their ability to move on and have jobs yeah massively and i have to say that um the stephen watson the chief constable yesterday was really supportive of our comments that this should be changed, that the law should be changed to overturn that. And he said that he would support that campaign going forward because these criminal convictions stay with them for the rest of their lives. One of those three young women has been trying to get a job in social care.

She's been trying to go to college. And because as a child she went to prison, actually she was arrested in the company of her abusers, driving a car that she wasn't supposed to drive. She didn't even have a licence. And that criminal conviction has stayed on her record forever. And because of that, she can never get a college course or work with vulnerable people. Can that be expunged? In the law at the moment,

no, but it needs to be addressed. That's the former detective constable and social activist Maggie Oliver. Now, Anya Taylor-Joy's decision to leave school at 16 to pursue a career in acting has certainly paid off. In 2020, in the first month of its release, a staggering 62 million households watched her play chess prodigy Beth Harmon in the Netflix miniseries The Queen's Gambit. More recently, you may have seen her play Gina Gray in the final series of Peaky Blinders. She starred in many films as well, from The Witch to Jane Austen's Emma. Her latest, The Northman, is a brutal and bloody Viking epic that follows a young prince on his quest to avenge his father's murder. Anya plays Olga of the Birch Forest.

Well, the film is directed by Robert Eggers and stars Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman and Kate Dickey, who you'll hear Anya refer to in the interview. Well, when Emma spoke to Anya, she wanted to know what attracted her to the extremely bloody film. I read the script and it just felt so epic and I hadn't read something like that ever. You know, it feels like that kind of epic filmmaking had a moment and then has semi disappeared a little bit.

And I was really excited by the prospect of doing all of it for real because I knew that that's how Rob does it. You know, everything that I was reading was something that we were actually going to go and do in real life with no green screen. And that was a thrill. In freezing Northern Ireland? Yes, ma'am. Yeah. I mean, just we'll come to that because I'm a person who's always cold. Many women are, but you seem to be able to do very well in that scenario, not wearing very much and barefoot, it looks like, a lot of the time,

as would have been, I suppose, the Viking times. But it's a lot of violence, isn't it? A huge amount. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's just part of their culture. I think every time I do something, you know, historically based, I'm always amazed at just how difficult it was to stay alive. Like truly just every day, it was such a struggle to live. And it was quite funny because, you know, my first day I wanted to do all of these lyrical things with my delivery. And then you get into the space and you go, ah, yes, it has to be direct and deep and low. Because if you don't get this information across, you're going to die. There's no time to paint a picture with your dialogue.

You've got to just kind of get it out. You're playing an enslaved woman, Olga of the Birch Forest. There's a great line where you're saying to Prince Amleth, you have the strength to break men's bones, but I have the courage to break their minds. It's a great line. Did you enjoy saying that? Yes, very, very much so.

Spoken from the heart? Well, absolutely. But I also think you've seen Alex in the movie now. His name is Beowulf. He is a mountain of a man. And I don't think for a second Amleth believes that Olga is anything other than his equal simply because she is so much smaller compared to him. I really feel that in their relationship and throughout the film, you understand that there's a kind of ebb and flow of power in terms of how they can help each other. They really are a team and a duo and they're both

playing to each other's strengths. I was ecstatic on the set. I loved every second of it. Although cold, no? Northern Ireland, no shoes. So here's the thing that I find kind of strange. I really enjoy it. I'm not a complainer. I get literally stuck in with everybody and I see it as my unofficial job to keep everyone's spirits up because if the tiny blonde girl is not complaining about being in the ocean for the fourth hour in a row, you as the big burly stuntman can't really say anything. You know what I mean? It's like I'm assessing or I'm attempting to set a tone of do not get lost in how quote unquote difficult this is right now. This is a privilege.

I believe, is this right, that when you were making this film, which sounds all consuming, this is when The Queen's Gambit was coming out and, you know, many, many millions of people were watching it. Absolutely. And I feel very lucky that that's kind of how that went down, because I was so isolated and so removed from everything that for a while it only existed on my phone. And I think the first time I really realised something was different was I've never been on a set where everyone had seen what I'd just done. So I'm getting mic'd up and they're like,

hey, I watched the show, it was great. And I was like, oh, thank you. And then it just kept kind of snowballing. It must have been weird when you went back into the real world, though. And were you suddenly aware of that? Literally dropped into New York, went out for a walk, thinking everything was normal and was back in my apartment an hour later being like, not normal.

Things are different. We're being chased now. cool gotta gotta sort this out um and how do you do that and how do you cope do you think what's the what's the strategy did anyone give you any advice oh yeah i've been i've been incredibly lucky with um with people being very generous with their time and their experience but i i honestly think it's just time because i i really am and I'm not saying this to be, you know, blah or anything like that. But I really didn't get into this job for that side of things that that is something that I'm learning to acclimatize to. And the

good news is most people are very, very nice. One person to one person contact. I adore it's when it's large groups of people and you suddenly realize, oh, I am one person and I need to try and figure out the situation. But I do think it's just time. And then as I deal with everything, I just work. The other thing I was just going to ask you about, we are talking on Women's Hour, is I read that you actually only made friends with those your own age quite recently. And it was older as some of the women in your life that you had those strong bonds with and a lot of people can relate to that and how important those older women are and I wanted to ask you about that. I spent so much of my adolescence feeling very out of place and like there was something very wrong with me and then it was me seeing

Kate Dickey and realising oh there's not something wrong with me. I'm just I was living in the wrong world. And she and I became so close and we've lived together over the years multiple times. And we lived together when we made this film. And I think because I'd gone to an all girls school and I'd had a rough time there, I was slightly afraid of girls my own age. And then through meeting such incredible women that were older, I think it kind of got me over my fear a little bit. And now I have a gorgeous troupe of female friends who are just so wonderful and so fierce. It's a different kind of fierceness and loyalty, which I adore. I think that's fascinating because a lot of people will feel like their school experiences were like that as well.

And they have benefited from the intergenerational wisdom of those women around them. Absolutely. And I really think it's our duty to share the truth with each other. I'll give you a very brief example. But I remember a friend of mine was shopping for a wedding dress and she just said, I wish someone had told me that this would be stressful and that I would cry and that my mom would probably drink one glass of champagne too many rather than just hearing, it's going to be beautiful. It's going to be so lovely and sweet and whatever. It's like, we have to share about our experiences because otherwise

we're all just staying quiet in a vacuum saying was there something wrong with me that this situation didn't go the way that it's been proposed to us and not even from us from society I think it's important that we talk about all of these taboo subjects that just have not been communicated about. Anya Taylor-Joy there, and the Northman is in cinemas now. Still to come on the programme, the choreographers Arlene Phillips and Oti Mabusi tell us why dancing is so important and something we could all be doing more of. And remember, you can enjoy Woman's Hour any day, any time.

Just go to BBC Sounds to find the free daily podcast. Now, it's been nearly a month since Nazanin Zaghari Radcliffe, the British-Iranian aid worker, was freed from Iranian detention after almost six years away from her husband, family and London home. Someone who understands much of what she went through at the hands of the Iranian regime is Kylie Moore Gilbert, an Australian-British academic who spent over two years in Iranian prisons, half of that time in solitary confinement. All she'd done was travel to Iran

to attend a conference about her area of study. And on her way home to Australia, at the airport no less, she was arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Well, accused of espionage, she was imprisoned, later convicted and given a 10-year sentence. Well, Kylie was released in November 2020 and has written about her ordeal in a new book, The Uncaged Sky. Emma asked her how it felt to see Nazanin Zaghari Radcliffe be freed and be able to come home. Oh gosh, when I saw Anousheh Ashuri and Nazanin Zaghari Radcliffe both coming down off that plane, you know, I was ecstatic. I was so, so happy for them and for their families,

both families of whom have really, really campaigned so hard over the past few years to get their loved ones home. But, of course, it was bittersweet because they didn't bring all the Brits home and there's two, possibly three, most prominently Murad Tahbars, whose family's also spoken out, I think, even on your programme. They were left behind. And, you know, I was very, very saddened for their families, because I know up until the very last moments, they were hoping that they'd be on the plane too. Yes. And I'm also very aware of the word free in this context,

because Nazanin had served her sentence as well, just to specifically come to her case, and had been a part for many, many years. And we'll come to, I know you've got strong views as well about how governments handle this and what has been termed quiet diplomacy. But just to stick with Nazanin for a moment, I believe you met briefly while imprisoned, is that right? Yeah, I saw Nazanin a couple of times in the prison

hospital. And I've, you know, I've been in touch with her since she's come home as well. Yeah. And I don't wish to pry into those private conversations. I suppose there's just been such a clamour to understand how she is, what's going on. And then there was that press conference, which was, of course, very soon after she was released. What did you make of that? I don't know if you did anything similar upon your release. No, I didn't actually. I understand that Nazanin was being, you know, hounded by the press, obviously, given her profile upon her return. So I think she thought giving a press conference would enable everyone to then back off a bit and let her have some privacy to rest and recover and reconnect with her family. Of course, she hadn't seen her husband for the entire time

she'd been in prison, nor her daughter for, I think, three years or so as well. So, you know, I understand her wanting to speak out and to make a very strong statement about her treatment. And I fully support her in that. But I do really hope that, you know, she'll be given the privacy to recover as well. Let's talk about the beginning of this situation for yourself. It was your first visit to Iran. Did you have any concerns about making the trip when you went? Not really, no, not concerns out of the ordinary any more than any other Middle Eastern country where I'd travelled in the past. I did ask around other academics, I did get the advice of others

who'd even done research projects in Iran itself before. And most people said, you know, in contrast to other states in the region, there is no war, there's no terrorism. Sure, it's an authoritarian regime, but name a Middle Eastern state that isn't. And that's relatively stable compared to its neighbours and you should be OK. So, you know, I didn't really have any undue level of caution before I entered Tehran. And as I also said, it was when you were leaving, you were at the airport, at Tehran airport, that you were arrested. Did they explain, or those who took you to the room

where you were first taken, did they explain why you? No, they wouldn't even tell me who they were. It took me some time, I think about two weeks, to figure out that they were the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Before that, they were just, all I knew were they were plain clothes, thuggish-looking men, largely old men, largely dressed in black with no identification whatsoever. And, you know, I didn't speak Farsi, so I was at sort of the mercy

of those who decided they would translate information for me. Most of the stuff wasn't translated, including the arrest warrant itself. So I had no idea why I'd been picked up and even who had arrested me. And even when I was thrown into Evin Prison, I didn't know that was where I was. It took me several weeks and only when I established a channel of communication secretly with another cell was I told by those fellow prisoners that I'm in Evin Prison. What were the conditions like in the prison? I was in Unit 2A, which is under the control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It's not the standard E in prison. It's a maximum security interrogation facility, really only designed for

holding people in that initial interrogation phase. And then after they get convicted, they get sent to the regular prison, which is a little bit laxer and freer relatively. So it's really, really dire. It's deliberately tough. They want to psychologically break you down for purposes of interrogation. Solitary confinement is the norm. The initial cell I was in didn't even have a toilet. It had no furniture, absolutely nothing to do. Complete sensory deprivation, no window, no natural light, LED lights on in the ceiling 24 hours a day, static noises and such to disturb you in the room. And, you know, you really go insane in there. And it's deliberately dehumanising and it's deliberately trying to break you down

so that you would make a false confession in the interrogations or you'll give up all the information you may or may not have. How did you cope with that? As I said, a lot of your time was in solitary confinement. The beginning was the most difficult. After about two weeks or so, I managed to slow down the frenetic pace of my mind and my brain and live in increasingly and inhabit my long-term memories, kind of close my eyes and be in this half asleep, half awake state where I'd go back 20 years in my mind and reimagine my childhood, revisit places from when I was in primary school, family members who were long deceased, this sort of thing, and

just become less and less aware of the passage of time and more and more living in a space within my own mind. This was not at all intentional. It was a sort of a state of mind that I developed over time in response to just the painful reality of solitary confinement. And I found that by switching off all other aspects of my brain, I was able to just focus on the here and now and the prison routine and turn off everything else. And in such a mental state, I was able to tolerate the deprivations of solitary after a couple of weeks. And once you were, if I can put it like this, it's not meant to sound like it was a good

thing, but once you were given the conviction, you were told it was going to be a 10 year sentence for something that you didn't even understand you were being accused of. How did you then live with that? Because the terror of that reality must have also added another dimension of trying to quieten that mind. Yeah, thankfully, when I was actually given the conviction, this was about 10 or 11 months into my incarceration. So I had a couple of cellmates at that point who became my dear friends and like sisters to me. To them, I actually dedicated the book. and we coped with it by trying to have fun trying to laugh and mock and you know find the black humor and the black comedy in the whole situation so I wasn't expecting 10 years that was the maximum for the charges that I'd been given in the sham kangaroo

court that I'd gone to and I came back and I just screamed, 10 years! And my two cellmates jumped on me and we sort of danced around the room laughing and crying and we had a bit of a party, which might sound bizarre, but really it's one of the only ways you can process or react to the shock of such an event. I knew I'd be found guilty, but I didn't in a million years expect them to give me the maximum sentence given there was absolutely no evidence. So, you know, me and my friends tried as best we could to laugh at it.

And meanwhile, we should say your friends back home in Australia were trying to get you out because I presume you had very limited contact with those back home. Yes. At that time, I had actually been banned from family phone calls and from consular assistance as a punishment. So I had zero contact with the outside world whatsoever. This was for a period of about nine to ten months that covered my trial, my conviction, my appeal, everything in the legal, so-called legal process.

I didn't have contact with my family at all. So I had no idea how anybody would have reacted to my trial, my sentence. And, you know, I have plenty of friends in the UK as well who are advocating for me, as well as people I didn't know in the UK. And, you know, I'm so thankful for that. And without them speaking up, I don't know where I would be right now. But you also found that playing up, going on hunger strike, resisting the situation you were in, even though it led to you having punishments, was more effective in some ways. It was effective in influencing my immediate conditions

inside the prison unit. Whether or not it was effective in influencing the diplomatic negotiations over my release, I think it perhaps was even counterproductive to that or it had no effect whatsoever. But it was effective in that I was able to win concessions for myself, sometimes along with other cellmates or alone, in terms of being able to improve my own conditions, my living conditions, my access to medical care, this kind of imprisonment, about quiet diplomacy, this idea that the families of those should stay quiet while diplomatic channels are being worked. I should say you were eventually released through what was deemed a prison swap negotiated by the Australian government, but I don't believe the Australian government have ever linked the two or discussed the details. What do you make of how your case was handled politically and diplomatically? I think it's far too convenient for Western governments, and they all seem to do it no matter what country we're talking about, to claim that

quiet diplomacy with a state like Iran is the best option. It's convenient for them politically. I don't think it's always the best option for the incarcerated person themselves. I had been calling to my, I'd been having my phone calls hung up on by my captors by calling my parents and yelling at them over the phone, please go to the media, please go to the media before the line was cut. I even was able to ask

that of the embassy in one meeting I had with them before my meetings were cancelled. So I'd been very clear that that's what I wanted. But, you know, the government here in Australia, because I was given the choice, the British government or the Australian government, which one do I want to represent me in dealing with Iran? And my own captors recommended I don't go with the British government because, you know, of Nazanin and Anousheh's case and the case of others which should damage relations. And, you know, the Australian government very much pushed the same line as the UK government in that they said, stay quiet to my parents, my family, stay quiet. You'll harm Kylie if you speak up.

And I myself wanted to be given the benefit of the doubt of knowing what was best for me in my situation and my fate. And I judged it to be best for me that the media and my friends and family be able to campaign for me and draw attention to it because I'm of the belief that sunlight is the best disinfectant here and that shining a spotlight on my conditions in prison as well as the travesty of justice, which was my court case, would actually be of benefit to me and hasten the Australian government's ability to get me out, as well as pressure the Australian government and the British government

in Nazanin's case to prioritise me as a hostage and my situation as one of arbitrary detention over the many thousands of other consular cases that they have to deal with at any one moment. This is a big question, but I know you will have given a lot of thought to it and some of this is in the book but but how has 804 days in Iranian incarceration changed you I'd like to think that it hasn't changed who I am as a person at my core it's in a way I'm still going through the journey of recovering from my ordeal everybody thinks that the first moments when you're released are the toughest and you're going to be shattered, you're going to be broken. But I don't think that's true.

I think it happens in my experience, at least much further down the track. And maybe I haven't processed through all of that yet. But I would like to assert that I haven't fundamentally changed as a person. I don't want to see myself as a victim. I want to turn the experience, which was profoundly negative and damaging that I went through, into a positive, find the silver lining and try to make hay out of it and do something good, you know, for human rights in Iran, for the friends that I have who are still suffering in prison, for the arbitrarily detained in other countries,

try to use my voice to speak out for them and try to make the best that I can out of this horrible experience, looking forward with positivity and optimism. That's my goal. And, you know, I hope I haven't changed too much in that, only become more determined than I was before, you know, to push forward that agenda. Kylie Moore Gilbert and her book is called The Uncaged Sky, My 804 Days in an Iranian Prison.

The UK government has been told to stop matching lone female Ukrainian refugees with single men. The UN has intervened following concerns that women, and sometimes children, are at risk of sexual exploitation. Under the government's Homes for Ukraine scheme, British hosts must link up with refugees themselves, leaving tens of thousands of people to resort to unregulated social media groups to connect. More than 200,000 people in Britain have applied to host refugees under the scheme, but just 28,500 visas have been issued so far. Louise Calvey is Head of Services and Safeguarding at Refugee Action and Shaima Bakht is a reporter at the Times newspaper.

She posed as a 22-year-old Ukrainian woman online and within minutes was inundated with inappropriate messages. When I spoke to both of them on Thursday, Shaima told me about this experiment. So we posted on the largest Facebook group, which is an unofficial way of matching Ukrainian refugees with UK hosts who have homes that they would like to give to these refugees. And we, yeah, it was initially a, well, I actually reached out on that group as myself as a reporter to ask women if they had any issues um and I found that there were quite a few who sent me screenshots

of um dms as well as public messages from men saying that they wanted a wife or they wanted um you know a 30 to 40 year old woman or they were looking to share their bedroom with someone um but we had had a hunch that that would be a lot more insidious if if it was you know in in the private messages those were the messages that were put out on the group that were being kind of cleared by admins and other women who were volunteering their time to try and keep the group safe um yeah we thought that we would go go into those dms and we we did find um some pretty shocking things within minutes as you said we were instantly messaged by and this is not in itself you know necessarily a risk but there were about 40 you know single men who very openly said that they lived with no one else but within that group there were also men who were you know had had very risky exchanges on offer for the sponsorship.

Yeah. Did you get any positive messages? Yeah, we definitely did. We did get positive messages, but the thing was, we posed as a young female refugee who made it clear that she was coming here alone. And instantly we found that in our in our dms the overwhelming majority were single men that's that is the truth um we had a lot of great people

reaching out and um and it's really lovely to see that there are those options out there it's just an issue of being on social media where it's just so hard to regulate. There's always going to be these problems and we just wanted to know to what degree. And, and I mean, some of the offers that were given in these private DMs were incredibly enticing, maybe better than some of the offers, you know, given by families to a, to a lone Ukrainian woman. And they came with jobs that came, you know, with an ideal location in central london um and and you

know they there were so many promises people would say things like these some of these men would say things like i can take care of you i can give you anything you want in in the uk and for a woman who's fleeing you know a war-torn country with nothing that is a very enticing offer and for someone who's coming alone um but it there were there were some you know some messages that genuinely sent shivers down my spine because um it was clear that even when even with some of the men who weren't saying and there were men who said that they wanted sex in exchange for um for the sponsorship, for this home and for all of this help. But even some of the men who didn't say that outrightly said things that were, in my opinion, as a woman, equally terrifying.

And I've spoken to Lou Calvi, who you're going to talk to in a moment, who found these to be massive signs of potential risk. Sorry, go on. No, no, I was going to say well i want to bring in louise but shyma do stay with us because i'm keen for you to still be part of this conversation so louise calvi is head of services and safeguarding at refugee action louise were you surprised with the speed with which people got in touch with shyma the volume and the bluntness of some of them um no bluntly i I wasn't surprised uh um Shaima and I spoke um I think a couple of days uh before she she started to get those responses and I I think that I I sort

of briefed Shaima that that I was aware that that that this was happening in the level of risk and I think Shaima uh sort of probably thought well surely not surely surely not uh and so I sort of pointed her towards some of those Facebook groups and then and then she she kindly got back in touch a couple of days later to to explain some of the messages that she'd received and they were devastatingly predictable um we are hearing these reports um to an alarming degree to to the extent we're so worried that we actually Refugee Action along with 15 other refugee and trafficking anti-trafficking charities wrote an open letter to Michael Gove on the 26th of March warning him about these risks about some

of the stories that we were hearing about some of the stories that we were hearing, about some of the extraordinarily worrying situations that were being advertised as situations of safety to incredibly vulnerable women. And so, yeah, three weeks ago, we warned government about this. Well, Louise, we've obviously been in touch with the government. Let me read you the government's statement. Attempts to exploit vulnerable people are truly despicable. This is why we've designed the Homes for Ukraine scheme to have specific safeguards in place, including robust security and background checks on all sponsors by the Home Office and local authorities. Councils must make at least one in-person visit to a sponsor's property, and they have a duty to make sure the guest is safe and well once they've arrived.

So you would hope from that, even with these messages, as awful as they are, in theory, they would never be allowed to take someone into their home because they would fail those checks. Yes, but unfortunately, the practice doesn't follow the theory. The government are quite right. They have placed an expectation

on local authorities that at least one in-person visit should be done. But there's no obligation on local authorities to do that prior to the arrival of the refugee. So it says, the guidance says, your best endeavours are to visit before the arrival,

but it doesn't require it. And that's a key. So we say, we're saying to government, there are a few simple steps that you can do to make this safer. First of all, stop unregulated matching. Stop Facebook matching. It's not difficult. You've got a complex visa process. You could quite easily, within that visa processing application framework, have a look at the the home and the host before arrival. And if you can't do that, you should be requiring the local authority accommodate that refugee in a hotel until that they can get to the property to say that no single men should put up um women because you know that

there's going to be people out there who are listening saying well i would love to help and i've got a house but i happen to a man who live on my own is it fair to just say no single men should be allowed to help i do think it's a blunt tool yes i completely understand why unhr yesterday uh came out and and made that. And I think they've done that because the government have ignored us for three weeks. They've ignored these risks for three weeks and they're not making adaptations to the process that they've developed. I think banning all single men is a blunt tool to address a risk. Let's remind ourselves, as Seema mentioned, the vast majority of people that want to do that are coming from a position of generosity and wanting to help with the very best of intentions.

There is a very, very small minority of people that are incredibly dangerous that are in this system. And there are more nuanced, more powerful and impactful ways of addressing those risks than banning all men from doing that. However, in a situation where government aren't listening to the experts around this, they're not listening to UNHCR, they're not listening to the refugee and trafficking charities, you then reach the point where you say, well, actually, do we have to remove all single men from this system? And that would be a pity because there are single men that really do want to help and not all single men are predators. Of course, of course. And people who want to help and really change the lives of these people who are fleeing absolute horror.

Before I let you go briefly, can I just ask you about another story about refugees in the news today? The Home Secretary Priti Patel is launching this trial scheme to forcibly remove single men arriving in Britain via channel crossings and send them to Rwanda. I know from my experience of speaking to people, migrants who've crossed, many single men come over first, they settle in the country and then they try to bring their families over safely afterwards. Is there a danger with this rule that men will decide to come with all of their families and make those channel crossings because they fear otherwise their family won't be able to get to Britain? Without doubt, we're going to see different patterns

in those dangerous crossings because one thing is for sure that the proposed pilots from government this morning will not prevent those dangerous crossings. It will just make them more expensive for people, more dangerous for people. There will be more human traffickers and smugglers. So, yes, absolutely, there's a massive risk that you're going to see more women and children make those crossings and climbing into boats. We should also be mindful of the fact that many single men are fleeing torture. That was Louise Calvey and The Times journalist Shaima Bakht.

Now, she has 100 million record sales, an Academy Award, a Grammy and three Golden Globes. There can only be one share. Do you believe in life after love? I can feel something inside me say I really don't think you're strong enough, no Well, a new production called The Cher Show tells the musical story of the goddess of pop's rise to fame. The director and choreographer behind the show are two strictly come dancing legends, Arlene Phillips and Oti Mabuse.

Now, when Emma met them, she started by asking Arlene how important Cher has been in her life. I was in my late teens when I first heard Cher sing and absolutely fell in love with her voice when she sang I Got You Babe. I got like goosebumps and I couldn't, I just couldn't believe that this young girl of a similar age had a voice like that and the look, the style I wanted to be Cher. So it means a lot but also as a woman, a fighting woman, an older woman that wants to stay young. I feel like there's so many things about myself that I identify with Cher. Well, there's an amazing quote from a Rolling Stone article about her career, which says, Cher's the coolest woman who ever stood in shoes. Why? Because her motto is, I don't give a about what you think. There are folks all over America who would, in their heart of hearts,

love to date people half their age, get multiple tattoos and wear feathered headdresses. Cher does it for us. Oti, what is it about Cher for you? What have you learned looking at her life? Oh, my goodness. So much. I think with what we've been through, especially with this musical, is just the ups and downs that she's had

and how she's been able to remain resilient through all of them. You know, when the times were tough, they got really, really tough, but she always had the spirit that she would come back and make a hit again. And again, it's this idea of her really fighting for women and always saying, all these men are telling me what to do, but I'm Cher. I can take control of my own life. And I guess the older I grow as well in my personal life,

as a child you're kind of not even aware of it, but I think all of us, we go, as women, you know, it should be normal. It shouldn't be something that we're fighting for. And everything that she's been fighting for since the 80s, 70s um she's still there for us to kind of look up to yeah and also you know as a single mother there's there's so many parts of her story aren't there arlene yeah about what she had to fight for to keep going absolutely and also she was dominated by men in every way you know know, there's a part in the show that tells how in her relationship with Sonny, he owned everything and he worked her and worked her and worked her. She had no time to see her child.

And it's her independence and it's her inner power of the sense of I am who I am. I will not be knocked down. But should something tip me, I will come back. I will stand up. She's really quite remarkable. And also she's had emotional traumas in her life. Awful relationships has come through them. And also I think the thing you say, she's a mother and the mother is devoted to her

children. And I think sometimes Cher looks back and regrets the hours that she in some ways was forced to spend away from them because she was forced to go on stage. And I know what it's like living with that you work even even as an independent woman your children are the most important thing in in your life all of that will be reflected I'm sure but do we know if she if she's going to like this is she going to be in Leicester from Friday watching this I wish I'm confident enough that she'll like it. Have you had any contact? Not personally, our producers, yes. But it's just an honour to be able to actually put on a musical about her life. I've worked with all the divas, you know, Diana Ross and Tina Turner and Whitney.

But I never got to work with Cher. But now I'm sort of feeling very close to her. Well, I'd love to hear a lot more about all of those different things. Maybe we'll have to explore that at a different time. But many of our listeners have been getting in touch knowing you were both coming on. And I used it as a brilliant excuse. I always talk about dance if I can, because so many people want to dance, don't they? But they don't.

They don't find a space in their life. They don't have a space. I'm loving some of these messages. One of them says here, a friend and I went out for dinner in York on Friday night. While walking home, we passed Pop World nightclub on a whim. We went in for a dance on their revolving dance floor. We only stayed half an hour, but it was joyous.

We're 59 and 60. Both of you are smiling. Yes. Why are you smiling so much? I love it. I love the idea that you go in. Think about dance. Music and movement connect.

They can raise your spirits. They can put you in a different place. You just have to watch people walking out of a theatre in a musical and the orchestra's playing and they have a spring in their step. Dance is life and it fulfils something inside of you you never knew you needed. Well, Oti as well, I was saying this just at the start of the programme. Last year it was reported GPs in England are going to start prescribing dancing and boxing and some yoga classes specifically to women.

Because research shows that more than half of women, this was by Sport England, continue to say they were prevented from doing such things because they're worried about what others would think. Isn't that a shame? Isn't that a shame that just living the best life, we still have people telling us what to do. But you know what, as Arlene said, dance is life. It's very rarely when you go dancing, even when you're doing the two step or you're clicking your fingers that you're upset. You're usually doing it because something about changing your physiological state makes you so happy. And that's the thing about dance. The end result is always this joy that you feel and it kind of releases those hormones.

When do you dance? All the time. Do you? When you're not working? I mean, seriously, are you in your house? I don't dance in my house. No, I don't do that. I probably sleep all the time in the house. But, you know, I'm either preparing for a tour. I'm going out on my own tour, doing Cher, choreographing Cher.

Yeah, choreographing Cher. But when I'm dancing, it would also be in my studio when I'm just with my husband. And we're trying to create new choreography and new movements. I did Strictly for eight years. Indeed, and I think what's interesting, I want to ask you the same question, Arlene, but I think what's interesting about Strictly is you do have this phenomenon

of lots and millions of people loving it, but sitting there watching people dance, which is quite an odd thing. You know, Arlene, they don't necessarily get up to do it because it's such a high standard, but they love it. Oh, I i mean everybody loves strictly and and there's there was a time you know when i started on the show by year two

the expanse of classes grew around the country dance shoe shops which really were sort of going out of business suddenly were revived. Everybody wanted to dance. And so Strictly is responsible for a lot of people dancing. But a lot of people are afraid because of Strictly because it looks so complex, getting together with somebody else, trying to move with somebody else. But what people don't realise, there are many, many classes

where you dance freely and alone. You don't have to have a partner. Do you dance enough as much as you should? I don't dance as much as I should. I walk a lot, but I definitely don't dance as much as I should because I'm on my feet sort of directing and it's physical, but it's physical with your body language trying to help them understand or create the characters. But I'm not actually dance dancing. I wanted to ask, Arlene, what's harder, going into the jungle for I'm a Celebrity or choreographing two shows at the same time, which I believe, well, choreographing and directing at the moment? Choreographing and directing, I feel like I could do it in my sleeve.

Yes, because Grease I'm choreographing. That's opening the Dominion. However, going into the jungle is one of the hardest things I have ever done. The biggest challenge. You were the oldest contestant I was reading. You overtook the Prime Minister's father, Stanley Johnson, by a year. Emma, I'm the oldest person I know that does anything. Having a baby at 47, what?

I didn't even know I was pregnant. I thought it was a menopause. So I've always been old. So that doesn't bother me at all. But going into the jungle, it's having to bond with other people, sleep virtually on a freezing cold floor or next to a, you know, not very small mattress, snakes, living on rice and beans three times a week it was tough yes it was tough were you thankful you were one of the first out if not oh i was oh i was skipping i was preparing myself then she was dancing what could yeah what could i do

because it's time to go and also everybody will also, everybody wanted to win. You know, I was there for a personal challenge. Maybe that's the wrong way to go into it. But I wanted to lose fear of snakes, fear of spiders. Did you lose it? I wanted to lose fear. Oh, my gosh, yes. I was in a glass, I mean, it felt like a coffin, glass box with 35 snakes around me. And I just swam.

I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. Fear is something we have to lose. Fear is something that doesn't belong in our lives. And so for that, yeah. A little life wisdom there from the multi-talented Arlene Phillips. Now, the Cher Show is at the Curve Theatre in Leicester until the 23rd of April and is then on its UK tour through to March 2023.

Well, that's all for today. Thank you for listening and do join us again for the next one. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. I'm Sarah Trelevan, 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.