Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Coleen Rooney, IVF add-ons, Online safety, Talking on the phone, Singer Mica Millar

Episode Date: October 21, 2023

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has launched a ratings system to let patients see which IVF add-ons are backed-up by evidence. Emma Barnett is joined by Professor Tim Child, chair of the HFEA's Scientific and Clinical Advances Advisory Committee, and Jessica Hepburn, who spent over £70,000 on unsuccessful fertility procedures.In October 2019, Coleen Rooney was concerned by articles appearing in newspapers that could only have come from stories on her private Instagram account. She laid a trap for the account she suspected of the leak, and then told the world ‘It was…Rebekah Vardy’s account’. Rebekah Vardy, who continues to deny she was the source of those stories, sued Coleen for libel. In a radio exclusive, Coleen speaks to Emma about her side of the story, told in a new documentary: The Real Wagatha Story.Jazz/soul singer Mica Millar is performing as part of the London Jazz Festival in November. She joins Anita Rani to talk about her new album, Heaven Knows, which she wrote while recovering from a spinal injury during lockdown. Britain's long-awaited Online Safety Bill is days away from becoming law. Emma talks to legal expert Joshua Rozenburg about what will be in the act. She’s also joined by Baroness Kidron, who has been very involved in getting the act through the Houses of Parliament, and Rashik Parmar, CEO of BCS, the chartered institute of IT, about the future of online safety.Are we becoming afraid of our phones? A recent survey suggest half of 12 to 26-year-olds don't answer the phone to their parents and a third of them feel awkward speaking on the phone generally. Emma speaks to Helen Thorn, a writer, podcaster and comedian and to 17-year-old Iona Cooke Mcintosh. Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Lottie Garton

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 Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to another weekend Woman's Hour, highlights from the week just gone. Coming up, it's Wagatha Christie herself. Rebecca reached out and messaged and said, have you blocked me? So I followed her back, said it must have been a mistake, then accepted her back onto my account. From there, I then done more and more fake posts,

which some of them then did go on to be in the newspaper. Colleen Rooney will tell us what it was like for her to go to court against Rebecca Vardy. Plus, the new online safety bill is about to become law. Hear how it's going to protect women and children. And how do you feel about phone calls? I do think the phrase, oh, can we talk, is way more loaded. I do feel very anxious when someone's like, can we talk or can we call specifically?

I feel like I'm about to have a big moment like something something's about to happen. We'll find out why increasingly people seem to be avoiding phone calls so grab yourself a nice hot drink or a cold one and settle down. First this afternoon earlier this week the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, or the HFEA, launched a rating system to help people going through IVF to learn more about add-ons. Add-ons are the extra and often very expensive services that IVF clinics may recommend. This new rating system lets patients see which fertility add-ons are actually backed up by evidence. So far, not one of them has been given the highest green rating. To find out more about this, Emma spoke to Professor Tim Child,

who chairs the HFEA's Scientific and Clinical Advances Advisory Committee, and Jessica Hepburn, who spent over £70,000 on unsuccessful fertility procedures. Tim started by explaining the new rating system. Back in 2017, the HFEA were concerned that some clinics were offering add-ons that didn't have any evidence behind them. There was a cost associated with them. And so a rating system came in. It was quite a simple rating system, just red, green and amber.

And last year we went out and we asked patients and people working in the sector how it could be improved. And that's what we've done now. So the range of rating outcomes, the types of data, etc, have just been finessed further. And not one given the full green light, the top rating there. That's quite striking, isn't it? Yes. Well, what you're referring to is whether any of the add-ons actually increase the live birth rate per cycle, which is obviously the main thing that fertility clinics and patients are wanting. Well, you're not doing it for health, are you? You're doing it to achieve a goal.

That's right. So none of them reach green. None of them? No, none of the 13 that have been assessed reached green in terms of increasing the live birth rate. Other outcomes such as miscarriage rate, etc. Some of those were green, but not live birth rate. So if you are going through this procedure at the moment and you're trying to navigate it, because that's the other thing, the context of this, what should you take from this?

Because you want people to engage, I'm sure, with what work has been done. What should you deduce? I think we should deduce that not all add-ons are bad. So certainly many patients coming forward for IVF will have done their own research and will be interested in looking at whether particular add-ons could be added in to their treatment cycle. But to make a decision, patients need to be informed. And it can be very difficult for people to find out unbiased evidence for this. And this is what we've tried to do. And some procedures came bottom, given a red rating.

Does that mean they're pointless? Well, red actually means that an add-on might actually lower the live birth rate or might be dangerous. The black rating means that the add-on is pointless. So black means that studies have been done and show that the rating does not improve the outcome. But red means that it can actually lower the outcome or have some risks associated. Can you give an example of a red rating something that got that is that so one of the ones that got red that previously was amber which meant that we didn't know is um where the endometrium which is the lining of the womb is assessed to try and work out the optimal window for embryo implantation so it's about changing the day that you put an embryo back um and we've actually shown with based

on some recent studies that people who use that, it actually can lower the light birth rate per cycle. Which, you know, is really sobering, I suppose, for people to hear and especially for women to hear when thinking about what to put their money towards, what to put their efforts towards. Let me bring in Jessica at this point. Jessica, what's your response to this? Oh, well, lots. And I mean, I really welcome the traffic light system. I mean, I have to say, as you said at the beginning, Emma, I went through 11 rounds of IVF, unsuccessful IVF. I used many of these add-ons, but I'd also like to say no regrets. You know, like you are trying everything to achieve this dream. And, you know, like I, I was involved in that panorama program that you mentioned,

and it was some years ago now, I was actually a patient at the time. And one of the things that I said very strongly, then is that I do feel patients are complicit in deciding whether they want to go ahead with these treatments. So I don't think I'm not like, I've never been super critical of all the doctors that prescribe me them to me. However, I also really believe that knowledge is power. And there were a lot of things that I didn't know. So I do really very much welcome this this traffic light system and this advanced traffic light system, which has sort of increased in the number of levels now. And if I may, I was just going to say, I know what you're saying. It's a really nuanced, important point about being complicit. And yet at the same time, you're not,

not everybody's in a place or a state of mind to think critically, to think, will this work? And it is a money making exercise, to an extent that it costs a lot of money. And the fact that there is such a variety of bills that you can have. So there is also that criticism, isn't there, that you shouldn't be offering something, especially now, if it's on the red level, or even black. You're so right, Emma, because you are vulnerable as a patient, because, you know, not only is this treatment that is going on to your you know it's affecting your body it is absolutely affecting your mental health and you feel that if you cannot achieve this dream that you may never be happy so yeah and absolutely

I am sure that that makes patients very very vulnerable and one of the things that I would like to ask Tim actually I was thinking about this morning, when I was looking at the new traffic light system is that it does feel like there's a bit of still too much onus on the patient having to sort of work their way through this traffic light system. And I just wondered how much discussion there has been at the HFEA about potentially ensuring that clinicians who are going to prescribe these treatments actually talk through what they are suggesting. And maybe there's some consent forms, and obviously you do have to sign a lot of consent forms when you're going through treatment, to say that you have had this treatment

talked through with you and you do understand where it sits on the traffic light system. And I'd love to ask Tim that question myself. Tim? It's a very good point there so certainly the HFEA have told clinics and doctors that they need to be discussing the rating system with patients when add-ons are being discussed. Now at the moment the HFEA has no remit to actually make clinics report the data on how many patients are using add-ons or the costs associated with that. And as you'll be aware, there's actually, I mean, Parliament are considering reforming the HFVA Act, and certainly in the next month or two, we, the HFVA, are putting proposals towards the government. And that would include, for instance, HFVA having some powers over the use of add-ons. Do you have any power to stop clinics from offering add-ons that are in the black

or in the red zone? No, I mean, from an HFVA perspective, no. I mean, certainly, the Competition of Markets Authority have looked at how IVF clinics advertise their services, etc. And obviously, doctors are also bound by the GMC. So there's other regulatory authorities out there. I suppose it's just with this being so clear on a rating system, one would hope that doctors working in a private capacity, which is a lot of what we're talking about, wouldn't be able to even suggest things that could lower the rate of a live birth. Is that frustrating for you? It is. I think a good example, though, is that previously, the endometrial scratch, which was a very, very commonly used procedure three or four years ago,

which was where before an IVF cycle, a doctor would pass a small catheter or straw through the neck of the womb and make some temporary damage to the womb lining. And that was thought by many people to maybe increase the success rate. We on the HFEA then showed that in fact, it didn't improve the success rate at all. And now it's pretty uncommon actually

that patients even ask for that procedure or quite rightly it is recommended by clinics as well. Just because I'm short of time, is this information all on the HFEA website? Yes, it's going live today. So it's hfea.gov.uk. Professor Tim Child and Jessica Hepburn there. And as Tim says, there's more information on the HFEA website. Now, earlier this week, Emma spoke to someone we read a lot about but rarely hear from.

Colleen Rooney's life story has been in our headlines since she was 16 and met arguably one of the best footballers of our time, Wayne Rooney. But perhaps the story that comes immediately to your mind is from 2019, what came to be known as the Wagatha Christie affair. Colleen posted on social media that she'd been concerned by articles appearing in the press that could only have come from information on her private Instagram account. So she laid a trap for the account she suspected of the leak, then told the world it was Rebecca Vardy's account. Rebecca Vardy, who continues to

deny she was the source of those stories, sued Colleen for libel. That case was heard in the High Court last year and the judge ruled in Colleen Rooney's favour. Vardy was ordered to pay Rooney's legal fees to the tune of £1.5 million. Colleen is now putting her side of the story in a documentary series, out now on Disney+, and she came into the Woman's Hour studio for a radio exclusive with Emma.

I just have to laugh about it now, but it was something very serious for me that it did get mocked a bit, you know, with the memes and the Waggath Christie title, but it was a hard time for me to go through. Now that it's over, I can be a bit more light-hearted about it, but it was a really difficult time for me and my family and loved ones around me as well.

Of course, and I definitely want to get to that. But I think just to kind of sort of signal what a moment it became, and, you know, it's your life, you're a real person, you've been a real person behind so many headlines since you were very young. There was even a theatre show, you know, the Wagatha Christie trial. Yeah, I know.

I was just wondering, and obviously there was the drama, I was wondering how it was going to get played out, but it was the transcripts from court, so there was not an extra in there. They just used them transcripts, which was clever, and obviously they had to do it for legal reasons. Yes. Have you watched any of these? No, I did watch the drama, and my friend messaged me and was like,

when did you start baking bread? Because she baked bread. She was watering the plants with a watering can. She's like, that's not yours. I have nothing to do with this drama whatsoever. So TV Colleen bakes bread, but real Colleen, I can confirm in this exclusive, does not bake bread. All right. We've got that bit out of the way. You are now in charge of a TV part of this, though,

which is your multi-part documentary with Disney. Yes. Why did you want to do it? I took my time. Obviously, I needed to process the whole journey and that's how I go about my life, really. And then the documentary is giving me time to explain from beginning to end what went on before

the case and also now that it's come to an end and the verdict came out so it was it was the time I couldn't go on a radio station and explain it all from beginning to end also on daytime tv I felt like the documentary was the right place to do it and tell my truth and put it all from beginning to end. Also on daytime TV, I felt like the documentary was the right place to do it and tell my truth. And put it all in one place. Because you just alluded to this about, you know, the nickname Wagatha Christie, although funny for some, was far from funny for you. And in the documentary, I've seen a couple of episodes of it. It's really, really watchable. I think, you know, you tell your story really clearly. So congratulations on that, if I can say it like that. It's very clear you're not in a

great place when this all begins. And just to remind people, because this begins quite a while ago in 2017, your husband, Wayne Rooney, caught driving over the limit in another woman's car. You're pregnant at the time with your fourth baby and you're away with the boys when this starts to begin. Yeah, starts to to begin yeah I was saying it was summer holidays and I was due to fly back to England and the next day when the story broke out and it was it was it was hard personally because as a lot of my life it was all over the national newspapers everyone had their say and was commenting on what was going on but for me I deal with my personal life behind closed doors which is completely different to how the court case was played out because it was so public because it

was a legal matter so people say oh you know she's gone through all this with her marriage and things have been in the paper however we, we're husbands and wife, we can go into our house and lock ourselves away and see if we can then deal with it and if we are going to go on in the future, whereas the legal case was very different to that. It was, and I think what you've just started to talk to there is how you have learned since the age of 16,

which is when you and Wayne got together and the paps started following you and trying to get a photo of you, is you've learned how to delineate what's public and what's private. And that extended to your Instagram accounts that you did have, which some people may still not know, you had a private one, which was for your friends and family and people you approved, and you had a public one. Yes. And it was from the private one that information started to appear in the newspapers. Yes, and it all started from that story, from the car story. And I wasn't in a good place at that time

and it was really frustrating that someone was giving my private information to a national newspaper. It's private for a reason. You know, it's something... Some of the stories, I wasn't bothered that they were out there, but it was the fact that it was wrong to leak someone's private information. That was my whole, like, thought process behind it.

It shouldn't be getting done, full stop. But, you know, you aren't a detective, you aren't working in the police. What makes you think it's coming from Rebecca Vardy's account? What was the first clue? At the beginning, I didn't have a clue. I went through my followers and went through it time and time again and no one really stood out to me.

And Wayne did say, delete your account. And that wasn't my, that wasn't the answer for me. I enjoy being on Instagram, especially my private account. I get to keep in touch with, you know, friends and family that I don't pick up the phone to every day. And it's just nice to see family members and children and how they're getting on. And I do enjoy that side of Instagram. So to delete it wasn't the answer. And again, I took my time going through and the thinking behind why would someone do this? Was it for money? Was it, you know, to be relevant? And it all boiled down to this is someone who has a connection with this newspaper, the newspaper that it kept going to all the time. I was very struck by the newspaper it kept going to because anyone you know as a northerner anyone who knows someone from Liverpool knows if something's going in the Sun

newspaper you're probably not putting it there yourself because of the relationship that city has with that paper. Definitely not which it struck a chord with a lot of people that you know it's something that you know Scousers wouldn't. So obviously that eliminated a lot of other people from my followers that I probably wouldn't even have thought it was, but the fact that it wouldn't have been. We're talking, of course, about the Hillsborough tragedy and the way that paper covered that, or didn't. Rebecca Vardy's account is the one that bubbles up to the surface

as the one for you that could be doing it. And you decide that how. You've looked through your list. I looked through the list. Obviously, there was a connection. When I Googled, there was a lot of Sun exclusives. But also, there was the WhatsApp messages from previous that Rebecca reached out to me a lot,

whereas I never reached out. You know, we don't live by each other. We're only connected through our husbands playing for England together, which was every blue moon. You know, it's not like a week-in, week-out football club where, you know, you get to see each other. So it was from time to time and I read over the

messages back as far as it went and it became relevant that it could be an account because she wanted to keep in touch and the messages just I don't know you just get that feeling with you just don't add up and she wanted to be friends and I was always friendly I always answered back because you do adopt if I may say quite a genius approach at both misleading who you thought was snitching on you uh to the press as you called it that you put a few posts out along those lines and also the press you know seeing what you could place as a journalist I found that fascinating what fake information you could leak about yourself and you limited it to one person on your account, on your private Instagram account, who could see it.

You didn't know about that function. You found that function and it was to Rebecca Vardy. And you were able to, from your point of view, deduce you thought, you felt, and you still, I believe, stand by this, that it was her account that was putting out these stories. That's quite a leap from thinking someone's there and perhaps you could block them,

you could unfollow them. In fact, you chose to trap them. I did block beforehand. And then Rebecca reached out and messaged and said, you know, have you blocked me? So I followed her back, said it must have been a mistake, and then accepted her back onto my account. And then from there, I then done more and more fake posts, which some of them then did go on to be in the newspaper. Did you tell Wayne you were doing this? No, and people are really shocked at this. And his reaction to it all when it came

out was what have you done because keeping things to myself has always been a coping mechanism of mine I don't like to trouble anyone else with my worries until you know there is a problem there and also it was as you like to call an investigation I'm not going to tell anyone in case, you know, and I can trust people, but it was my problem. It was my investigation. So I didn't want to ruin it or I didn't want to tell anyone for them to then worry. So I just kept it all to myself until I knew which account it was. Were you angry? I was frustrated you know people going behind your back and delivering information which is my information to deliver if I wanted to do it then it's down to me but not for anyone else. Did you tell Wayne the day you were going to post the big post that was the reveal of of your detective work? No, he was in America at the time.

He was playing for DC United and he was five hours behind. So I'd put the post up and he didn't ring till hours later because he was still in bed when the post went up. So, and that was the words he did say was, what have you done? It was a very manic day. I knew it would get some attention, but not the amount it got. I mean, it was huge. It was massive, yeah.

And I just didn't, you know, I didn't expect that at all. That might have been sort of where it had ended. I mean, it wasn't over. You probably had a lot still to deal with at that point. But it then goes, as you say, to the courtroom. Yeah. It becomes a legal case. I just wanted to put an end to it.

And that was my thought process about putting the post out there because I had done warning posts to say someone was doing it to me. And I even put one of them warning posts public and said someone is leaking my private information to a national newspaper and I want it to stop. It didn't stop. It continued. So I just had enough.

And I thought, I will answer the questions that people are asking me. Did you ever find out who was leaking that information? So I thought, you know, just put it out there, put a stop to it. Little did I know there would be a court case. I would never in a million years have thought a court case could come from that. And it was Rebecca Vardy who took you to court? Yeah, which I, again, the documentary was a place for me to explain that because people think, oh, it was happening to Colleen,

and then she took her to court, which it was never the case. I did not want to go to court. It was, you know, I was terrified took her to court, which it was never the case. I did not want to go to court. It was, you know, I was terrified about going to court because I've never been in a courtroom before. I've never been through that, you know, that type of legal battle. It was tough and, you know, it was really hard. It was, I would say I've been through some tough times in my life, but that was one of

the toughest times I've had. Do you feel like you won and how did that feel? Yeah, of course, you know, the judgment was really detailed and I was surprised at how detailed it was. And when the court case finished the last day of court, I felt like a cloud had been lifted. But when the verdict come out, that was, you know, the cherry on top of the cake it was it explained what I was saying from the beginning and my truth from the beginning was the same truth at the end my story never changed throughout it was always the same story because I was telling the truth and that's something that you know has been with me from a young girl my dad's just always said to me as long as you tell the truth you'll be fine in life and that was what was playing over in my head time and time again don't get me wrong

I wanted to drop out of the legal battle so many times. Did you? Yeah it got to a point where I was just I would cry and cry and I just didn't want it to get, and that's not me. I would like to say I am quite a strong-willed, strong woman. However, it was just mentally just draining. And I've got four boys, even though I was physically there looking after them, mentally I just wasn't there. I was just constantly thinking about this this core case and because you presented like I mean obviously how you present and how you feel are two different things but it sounds like you were going home at night and just

crying and yeah and it was you know I the lawyer would get on the phone on a Friday evening and he'd say you know try and have a good weekend, but for Monday, can you try and, you know, look through your archive for this and can you get this up? And I have to do things then and then. So I would be on that call at tea time, 6 o'clock. I would still be on the computer at 2 o'clock in the morning. Wayne would just come in and roll his eyes at me

and say, come on, just get to bed now. He'd be waiting on the couch for me to come and watch some telly and it would never happen. I mean, the other reason people may be confused is Rebecca Vardy has continued to deny that she did that and that was her actions. Well, that's obviously, I can't comment on what she thinks, but I, at the end of the day day I'm happy with what I did it turned up to court I said my piece and the judge seen that in the verdict and that's all that matters to me

Colleen Rooney the real Wagatha story is out now on Disney plus and her new book My Account is out on the 9th of November Emma also spoke to Colleen about her marriage to Wayne and whether or not she really likes football. You can hear the full interview on BBC Sounds. It's the Woman's Hour episode from the 18th of October. And talking of BBC Sounds, remember, it's always there if you can't join us for Woman's Hour during the week. You can listen to us anywhere, anytime, all for free.

Just search Woman's Hour on the BBC Sounds app. Still to come on the programme, the online safety bill, which has been six years in the making, is about to become law. We'll hear why it's taken so long and what it will mean for companies, as well as the safety of women and children online. And what's your reaction when the phone rings? Research shows more of us have a habit of dread and would much rather a text hear both sides of that debate. Yesterday on the programme, we had a real musical treat. The soul jazz singer Mika Miller is on a meteoric career trajectory. This summer,

she's sold out shows and done opening slots for none other than Gregory Porter and Lionel Richie. Now she has a new album, Heaven Knows, which she recorded during lockdown whilst recovering from a spinal injury. Well, Mika came into the studio and she told me what a busy year it's been for her. We started touring in May and then we toured all the way up until the end of July. But yes, performing at the Royal Albert Hall, supporting Gregory Porter for three nights was really incredible. And then we did the Blenheim Palace with Lionel Richie.

Oh, how stunning. What a location. And you're going to be supporting Gladys Knight, is that...? Next year. Oh, my goodness me. Just been announced for her UK farewell tour. I mean, that is a seal of approval. I mean, everything I've read about you and all the people that have worked with you,

they just adore you. thank you it's like I mean how does it feel when you get that phone call say Gladys Knight wants you it's fantastic and it's funny because it's a real full circle moment when I first started performing I used to go to these pubs in the back end of beyond doing like covers gigs when I was like 18 in Manchester around? Around Man, yeah, around the North West. And I remember as part of my set was Gladys Knight, Midnight Train to Georgia. So, you know, and I saw her perform in Manchester and she was absolutely amazing.

And when she did Midnight Train to Georgia, I thought, great. And then it wasn't long after that that I was asked to do the support slot for her farewell tour. That's magic. It's pretty amazing. How did you get into um soul and jazz tell us about your upbringing a bit in Manchester and what you were listening to yeah I mean my parents were really into soul music my mum was a huge lover of Motown and collected lots

of vinyl and they sort of introduced me to music at quite a young age and I sort of fell in love with Stevie Wonder when I was about eight years old and had this record on repeat and the Jackson 5 and all that sort of thing. And my grandfather was a jazz saxophonist, so it wasn't until later that I sort of came to realise that and then became more interested in jazz and certainly there's still so much more music for me to explore. But, yeah, I was brought up in a very musical family. My dad's a drummer and my granddad, of course,

so I feel like the baton was handed to me at a certain point. And I always loved writing songs, so I was writing songs from a really young age. And, yeah, gradually just sort of started to teach myself piano and, you know... Yes, self-taught. Yeah, yeah. Spite ear. And, yeah, you know, I just loved writing songs

and I think that's kind of how I gradually discovered my voice and, you know, I just loved writing songs. And I think that's kind of how I gradually discovered my voice. And, you know. You can tell you love writing songs because of the album and the lyrics on the album. 14 tracks on the album Heaven Now. What are the themes? I mean, it explores things like love, spirituality, oppression. Oh, gosh. It's a plethora of... And there's a track called Girl.

And there's a track called Girl, yes. Tell us about Girl. Female empowerment. Absolutely, you're in the right space. Absolutely. Well, that was actually inspired by sitting round, I think, after doing rehearsals with my backing vocalists. And when you work and sing with people,

there's a bond that that creates, I think, that is like no other, let's say. And we would sit afterwards and kind of have maybe a glass of wine or a cup of tea and sort of talk about things. And, you know, that sort of female support that you get around of bottle up that feeling and put that together in a song, how nice that would be to kind of, you know, to be able to do that. So that was really what inspired, inspired those conversations around the table. Talking about female empowerment, you strike me as somebody,

when I was getting to know you from reading about you, how powerful you are, because you have had a really tough time of it. You wrote and completed this album, not only during COVID, but you had an accident. I did, yes. have had a really tough time of it you wrote and completed this album not only during covid but you had an accident i did yes i had a spinal cord injury um about midway through making the record and it's a self-written and self-produced record so it was already quite a challenge let's say that's the first time i've kind of you know put together a body of work of this it It was really serious. Yes. That's a very serious spinal injury.

Yeah, I was very nearly paralysed from the waist down. But I'm very lucky to have been able to recover from that and that it wasn't, you know, spinal cord injuries are, of course, very serious, something that I'm actually, you know, championing at the moment, trying to raise awareness of. What happened? I had a trampolining accident, you know, championing at the moment, trying to raise awareness of. What happened? I had a trampolining accident, you know, recreational, enjoying a dry January, actually, which I will never do again.

There's a lesson learned. There's a lesson. And, yeah, so I landed badly, basically. So, you know, it was just a moment of, you know, a mistake in a moment. And it obviously could have... it has changed my life. It certainly changed the course of the record, which now in hindsight was a really, you know, really positive thing. In what way?

Well, COVID came just, I had my accident in January 2020. And I think the lockdown was March. And so I was sort of just about getting back to walking. And then it was like, no. So all the studios had closed and I had planned to go back into the studio so what ended up happening was that we I sort of reflected on how am I going to finish this record and I realized that lots of musicians were grounded of course so nobody was touring people were at home in their own studios and of course that meant that people were available

with zoom being introduced and all these things. It sort of opened this amazing series of possibilities which was, well, you can work with anybody, anywhere and there's loads of great musicians that are around. So we sort of, you know, I sort of contacted various people and I was able to get some fantastic musicians to perform. Mika Miller speaking to me there and if you want to hear her sing, and I highly recommend it,

she'll be performing at the London Jazz Festival in November and her new album Heaven Knows is out now now the online safety bill will very shortly get royal assent that's the final stage in becoming law as the online safety act it will make social media firms responsible for users safety on their platforms and will force firms to remove illegal content and to protect children from some legal but harmful content. But will it work? And how effective will it be? Well, Emma had a conversation to look at just those questions. To start with, she got a recap about the background to this law

from Radio 4's Law in Action presenter, Joshua Rosenberg. This goes back as much as six years, exactly six years. There was a green paper, a consultation on internet safety in October 2017. The government responded in May the following year. Further consultation called the Online Harms White Paper in the spring of 2019. Response from the government in 2020. Draft Bill 2021, considered by MPs. The bill itself was published in March last year. Final text running to nearly 300 pages, debated for 18 months in Parliament, finally agreed by MPs and peers last month, waiting for Royal Assent, which is a formality. But even that is only the beginning. The new Act won't take effect until sometime next year.

Okay, so it's quite a journey. Quite a journey. You truncated it well for us, thank you. And what's, of course, unique about perhaps what it's trying to legislate about and what it's trying to change is how fast-moving that world is and how long this has taken. And there are concerns around what will have changed, perhaps, in that time. Yes, the Bill has been modified even while it's been going through Parliament.

New offences have been created. But obviously this is intended to be flexible and it relies on codes which are going to be drafted by the regulator Ofcom, which will be running the whole show. And obviously those codes can be updated. And why was it felt that the need for this legislation was there? We all use the internet, don't we? The government says that 99% of 12 to 15 year olds are online, but the internet can be used to spread terrorist or other illegal or harmful content. It can be

used to undermine democratic values and abuse or bully people, particularly vulnerable people. Sometimes it can lead to self-harm. So the challenge is to support freedom of expression online while protecting those of us who may be vulnerable. Now, in the past, that's been left to the providers, the tech companies. There is some law that's going to be revised once this new legislation takes effect. But in general, they've been left to get on with it. And the government says that self-regulation is not good enough. And what's needed is this new regulatory framework. You talked about harmful but legal content. And that's what's also spoken

about. There's illegal as well, and there's harmful but legal. Can you give us some examples of what's illegal or what will be or what could be and then what's harmful but legal. Illegal content that platforms will have to remove includes child sexual abuse, controlling or coercive behaviour, extreme sexual violence, fraud, hate crime, inciting violence, promoting suicide, promoting self-harm, revenge porn, selling illegal drugs or weapons, sexual exploitation, terrorism and the government says this isn't just about removing existing illegal content, it's also about stopping it from appearing in the first place. Platforms will need to think how they design their sites to reduce the likelihood

of them being used for criminal activity in the first place. Then you also referred to content that may be lawful for adults, but may be harmful for children. And so the tech companies will have to protect children from encountering things like pornographic content, content that doesn't meet a criminal threshold, but perhaps encourages or provides instructions for suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, anything that encourages serious violence, bullying content. And there's also some content that internet providers will have to be careful of, quite modern. This is a content which depicts real or serious violence against a person or an animal or even a fictional creature, content

that encourages a challenge or a stunt, which is highly likely to result in serious injury, and content that might encourage a person to take poison that's radio 4's law and action presenter joshua rosenberg doing i suppose some of the heavy lifting of what this will contain and listening to that baroness beban kidron at the crossbench pier and the film producer who got this with others through to this stage and rashik palmer who is chief executive, I believe, of the BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, as well as I'm sure other roles that he'll bring to bear in this conversation. Beavan, let me come to you. How do you feel at this point? And do you think

the companies that are now going to have new rules imposed upon them, if I could put it like that, are up to the job? Well, I think the good news is they've got to be up to the job. And that's the point about law and regulation is actually society saying, you know what, this exceptionality narrative that you've had, that you are different, has allowed that phenomenal list that Joshua gave just now of completely illegal activity in their business model and to spread it very widely. And it's saying, no, no, you can't do that. You actually cannot be the purveyors of that kind of material. So that's an argument that you have won in the law. But do you think in reality,

those in charge of implementing it, so we've heard about Ofcom's role, the media regulator, will perhaps, as Joshua says, get things wrong at first as this sort of beds in. But do you think they will be able to enforce it? I think they will. And I think the way to think about it is this, that in the 19th century, we had no less than 17 factory acts to sort out how factories should be. And I think people should expect not only more legislation on the digital companies, but also sector specific legislation coming in. For example, you know, the battles that we see about Hollywood writers on AI or actors on AI. There will be moves made to live alongside and with technology.

But the one thing I wanted to pick up that Joshua said was he talked about vulnerable users and he talked about, you know, women and children specifically as vulnerable users. What he didn't mention, and I think this is the big important thing about the bill, is the way in which these services make women and children vulnerable. That it isn't the case that every little boy is out there looking for porn. It's that they're pushing it into the hands of children. It isn't the case that all of us women are seeking a political fight. It's that we are bombarded by violence when we speak out. And what the bill does is it says, hang on a minute, you are businesses, you are making money from your products.

And what you have to do is take a risk assessment against these sorts of outcomes and show the regulator how you're going to make it better. Roshig, is the technology there in place? And do you think that to be able to make these modifications and do you think it will actually happen? So a lot of the technology that government are assuming is there is quite frankly not there. And there's a lot of work to be done to both develop that technology and make it reliable and dependable. So when people say it's 99.5% accurate, that's nowhere near good enough when you've got millions of users because that means there's 50 000 people who who will be either false positive or false negative under some of these things which which is a very difficult problem to to try and tackle what are you talking about specifically with with what technology to do what and so technology that

that can do things like age verification technology that that can do things like identify the harmful content. You can't just let technology do that. There's great examples of where people are sending images legitimately across the internet. There's a great example, in fact, of a father during the pandemic who sent an email to his doctor because his four-year-old son had um an inflammation in the groin that email was picked up by the email provider um and seen as child pornography and his email account was shut down so not only did they

stop him sending emails he they shut down all of his email. So for a six-month period where he battled with email providers to try and get his email back, he was locked out of that. All his communications during the pandemic was stopped because of that. So assuming that technology can judge what is illegal or inappropriate and what is not is a big challenge. And we need to find effective, efficient, effective ways of doing that. It's not just technology. It needs to be a combination of education. And it's got to be a learning process. And Ofcom's going to learn that as we go forward.

What do you make of that? I think it's a slightly false argument. I mean, there are always grey areas and there will be accidents. And one of the things that the bill says is that they've got to have better reporting processes. That's what we heard already. And I think that they've got to, they will make mistakes, but they're going to put them, they've got to not take six months to put that guy's emails back in loops. But the idea that the technology is not there is actually sort of,'s a slightly false note because a lot of what we're asking for is for them to turn off and stop pushing algorithmically material that they are pushing because it's public. What do you make of that just on that?

Because you both, you know, you're both making several points and then you kind of move away from one. I want to give you the chance. Rashid, what do you make of that? Yeah, no. So I think the point on algorithmic behavior is an important one. Ultimately, the platform providers have got to take that risk assessment, as Baroness said, and they've got to use their risk assessment to figure out which is the right way of driving the content for both societal value and commercial benefit.

Remember from the BCS, I don't represent the technology. I represent 70,000 technical professionals. And my focus is how do we make sure... But are you expecting, sorry, on that point, are you expecting that technical professionals will now, if I'm just going to make this up, but let's say in one of these big businesses, be saying, listen, this new app's come in, we're going to get a massive fine if we keep algorithmically pushing this content that's going to make this girl feel terrible about her body,

but was getting us some quite nice ad revenue in the way that we've set this up. Will people in your world be told, can you now do it the other way? Can you rewrite the algorithm? So the professionals absolutely want to do that. So the conversation that we have with our professionals, they want to keep children and women safe on the internet. They want to do everything they can. And they are trying to develop those algorithms and those technologies that can help do that. But they have to be

commissioned, don't they, by the bosses and incentivized financially? Correct. And I think having Ofcom encourage or even enforce that is really helpful. So we absolutely welcome Ofcom supporting the professionals in this journey. Rashik, Parma and Baroness Bibin Kidron talking to Emma there. And at the start, we heard from Radio 4's Joshua Rosenberg. And we did approach the government on this. A spokesperson said,

the online safety bill is a world-leading piece of legislation that will make the UK the safest place in the world to be online. by protecting our children and empowering adults to have more choice over what they see online. It's designed to be tech neutral to ensure it keeps pace with emerging technologies. And an Ofcom spokesperson told us tackling violence against women and girls online is a priority for us. Our research shows that women are less confident about their personal online safety and feel the negative effects of harmful content like trolling more deeply. We're ready to start implementing

the UK's new online safety laws. Now then, how often do you talk to people on the phone? When your phone rings, do you panic? Or do you love getting a phone call? A recent survey suggests half of 18 to 24 year olds don't answer the phone to their parents and a third of them feel awkward speaking generally on the phone. It's also suggested 60% of parents of kids aged 13 to 25 believe the younger generation are scared of answering calls and only hear from their children via WhatsApp and text. But is it just young people?

To talk about this, Emma was joined by Helen Thorne, a writer, podcaster and comedian with two teenage children, and Iona Cook-McIntosh, a 17-year-old who says she never answers the phone. Iona explained to Emma what it is she doesn't like about phone calls. I mean, I always say I don't feel like my phone is the real world. Like it's so intangible compared to my real life that I'm like, what am I doing answering the phone? Like, what am I doing texting people? And texting as well?

Yeah, I'm not a fan of either. Okay, well, maybe you're slightly different then than a lot of people who talk about texting. If I could stick with the phone call bit for a minute. What's your reaction when you get a phone call? If I haven't been told that someone's gonna call me I'm shocked because I'm like oh having access to my phone 24 7 why do you have access to me 24 7 but I I'm shocked and then I'll have to consider but then I answer yes sometimes I ask my, but I won't necessarily answer other people.

Okay, again, maybe bucking the trend. Do you answer your mum first time or does she have to call a couple of times? First, first. What would happen if you didn't? I don't want to know. I don't know. I don't want to know. Most of the time if my mum calls me, it's like to find out where I am or what I'm doing.

But I'd rather text her first and be like, oh, here I am. So then she doesn't have to call me. So it done just eliminate or or like all chance of getting a phone call so yeah you know it's it's such a it's such an interesting thing Helen let's bring you in at this point where do you come to this well yeah because I've got a daughter who's nearly 15 and and it feels like talking on the phone is the worst thing like there's such anxiety around it and she said like her friends don't like talking on the phone there's such thing. There's such anxiety around it. And she said her friends don't like talking on the phone. There's such a disconnect. And yet they're so available for text and they communicate, yes, but talking, absolute minimum.

And I think it's so different to me. I'm 44. Getting a phone call was the most exciting thing. I'm one of five children. We used to elbow each other in the hall to get there. And then, you know, you would talk on the phone all night to friends and it was delicious. You know, you talk about gossip, what happened at school. And now it's like the dreaded phone call. It's really funny. And I think it's really funny. The word, can we talk, is so loaded now because

beforehand it's like, can we talk? That's a great thing. But now it's associated with like, I don't know, breaking up a relationship or that you're going to get fired. It has been completely switched around. But just even the word talk and people, I'm sure there's listeners getting a bristle now because, you know, a text feels there is emotional disconnect from it. And you can kind of think about it. You can send an emoji.

But you hear so much from a voice. There's an honesty. There's an authenticity in a voice you can't hide how you're feeling but you can send a whole lot of emojis to let people know you're kind of okay i mean i i think i was so busy on the on the landline as a 16 year old it was like i was running a call center and i did used to work in a call center and and the thrill of not knowing who was calling was actually a big part of it you know that thing and I think what's interesting to bring you back in Iona is the idea of you know now needing to have that warning of the conversation because that's quite old-fashioned weirdly in a way if you think back to I don't know

why I watched this but a few months ago I saw it's to do with the anniversary of technology in our homes and we saw a footage it was BBC archive of a woman saying well it can that thing in the corner it was when the landline was first introduced it can just call whenever it wants and i have to pick it up and it was an intrusion so maybe we're going full circle i don't know what you think about that no i agree i do feel like i do feel taken aback when people are trying to contact me when i'm in my house i'm like oh but i'm at home like i'm kind of i've logged off it's like it's not time for me to chat anymore and I do think when I do think like the phrase oh can we talk it's way more loaded I feel I do feel very anxious and I was like can we can we talk or can we call specifically I feel like I'm about to have a big

moment like something something's about to happen yeah it does feel like a doom thing yeah exactly like why why do they want to talk to me just send it just send a funny emoji or a meme to say what you mean yeah it is it is it's really interesting and but i know people my generation like um i'm a comedian and you know organizing tours and things like that and so many people would prefer an email or like can we just talk and then we'll get this sort of sorted in five minutes you can solve so much that's why so many things quick i know but also can we can we just quickly talk about the voice note and the endless long voice note when when someone sends a six minute voice note you have to take notes you've got it i'm like all right i need to slot in time in my

day to get back to my friend and the 28 points that they've just made if we had a phone call for like two minutes we could go back and forth drives. Drives me mad. Drives me mad. The voice note is an interesting development here. As you know, obviously we had the voicemail, but the voice note being there and then there being, you know, I have friends where they load on, you know, there's three or four, they keep going,

they've thought of something else, they've walked past, a siren's gone off. I mean, it's a whole like, again, in my line of work as a live broadcaster, I think, wow, this is like a dispatch. You could be a correspondent on the radio. It's a podcast.

It's there, but what's interesting about it, i'm i don't love if i'm honest although i do like hearing my friends voices and people i care about is it's one way right so so there is no way of just immediately going well hang on what do you mean by that or if they they're feeling sad or something's wrong you can't go no no i don't think that that is right i mean i don't know what you make of that i know yeah I am someone who does send 20 voice notes each a minute long 20 minute podcast you have to listen to the whole episode you have to take notes you have to really set yourself up to listen and answer but like I do agree there is this thing where I can't you can't really respond like it's not a back and forth I can't interject and be like wait but are you sure about this or how do you feel here or I'll. I can't interject and be like, wait, but are you sure about this?

Or how do you feel here? Or I'll forget stuff and then I'll be like, okay, this is pointless. And I don't want to respond anymore because I'm lost and you're lost and we're both lost. Yeah. What do you do, Helen, to bring it back to where some of this started,

which is if children don't pick up to you. Iona's not found out about that because she's always answering the phone. But have you got a strategy? Oh, yeah, because I start with a phone call because especially when I'm away and as a single parent, I want to hear my children's voices. But it's so monosyllabic and so like, how are you? How was your date?

Good. How was school? Okay. I'm like, I want to hear how you feel. I want to, but no. So I'll send a couple of texts. I'll try different ways. I've now joined Snapchat just so I can communicate

with my daughter because I know I can see her online I'm like I know I know where she is the snap maps I can see where she is so I've tried different strategies in which I can communicate with them but it's a it's not the same like when they want me they'll send me like 18 texts like mom mom mom you're online you're online bing bing bing bing bing but if I want to contact them in a minute I was being present with my friend so it's it's slightly it's slightly insane but um they'll get there but it's such a an art is a good conversation like you know you don't want to be on the phone for six hours but I think listening to people properly listening not a voice note but listening and responding is really important do I mean, there is concern about losing that art. There are people writing in about that and then what that will mean in the workplace

and how you move forward. What do you think about that, Iona? I'm not sure. I think it's difficult because a lot of the reason why I think I prefer to text or not call is because I'd rather have a conversation in person so I don't know if that maybe that is development of the art of conversation because I'd rather be able to read your body language and like see your facial expression and really understand your tone but I think having a phone and I think being able to see like I can see my friends

snapchat stories or their instagram stories so I think me not having to engage all the time with people's lives might actually be taking it back and maybe maybe lose the art of community of conversation do you think you'll keep talking to your mum on the phone especially as you get older move away yeah you've got that link because people's chats you know we are women's are with their mums there's a bit of a theme as well of how important those relationships via phone are yeah I think I that I mean I know that I definitely will I talk to my I don't need to call my mum because I live with her but if I'm not with her then I do like I'm like okay we'll be on FaceTime for half an hour or something I don't really I don't know if I want to call but I want to see her face and hear her voice. So I'll FaceTime her

for like, for a while. And my cousin just went to uni and now all of a sudden I suddenly want to FaceTime. He suddenly wants to see my face. So I think that that link with my mum will still stay.

No, no, I don't need to call anyone else but my mum, yeah. Iona, Cook, McIntosh and Helen Thorne there. And we asked you how you feel about phone calls. And you definitely let us know.

Here are just a few of your messages. Pat said, I'm a widow and wish people would call me instead of sending messages. When you live alone, contact by voice is so important. I find it quite selfish that people send messages rather than take time to speak to friends and family on the telephone. But Julia feels a little bit differently. She says, Texting came as a godsend to me as telephone conversations make me nervous.

Texting, I love it! Two exclamation marks. Helen says, My kids are happier to have Find My Friends turned on so I can know where they are and they don't have to talk to tell me where they are. Thanks as always to all of you who got in touch via text. That's all from me this

afternoon. Emma will be back on Monday from 10am. She'll be speaking to the three times great granddaughter of Fanny Mendelssohn, the sister to the very well known composer Felix. But Fanny, who you may not know, was also a composer too. We'll hear from some of her music and find out all about her. Until then, from me, have a great weekend. 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.