Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman’s Hour: Helena Bonham Carter, Three-person DNA babies, Claire Waxman, Black Girl Gamers, Louise Candlish

Episode Date: July 19, 2025

For over 40 years, Helena Bonham Carter has delighted us with roles including Lucy Honeychurch in Room with a View, Princess Margaret in The Crown and Harry Potter's much-loved villain, Bellatrix Lestrange. She joined Nuala McGovern to discuss her latest role in new film, Four Letters of Love, based on the bestselling book of the same name. Eight babies have been born in the UK using genetic material from three people to prevent devastating and often fatal conditions. The method, pioneered by UK scientists, combines the egg and sperm from a mum and dad with a second egg from a donor woman. The technique has been legal in the UK for a decade but this is the first proof it is leading to children born free of incurable mitochondrial disease, which is normally passed from mother to child. Anita Rani was joined by Kat Kitto who has two daughters, one of whom has mitochondrial disease, and Louise Hyslop, consultant embryologist at the Newcastle Fertility Centre to discuss.A new report by London’s Victims’ Commissioner, Claire Waxman, says that victims are being forced to quit the criminal justice system in huge numbers amid record court delays and traumatic process. She joined Nuala to explain why they are saying 'there is a near total failure in seeing offenders brought to justice', especially when it comes to female victims of violence. In the second part of our series about women and gaming, we find out more about the impact gaming can have on women’s lives. Nuala heads to the Virgin Media Gamepad at the O2 to meet some of the women from the Black Girl Gamers community, who have over 10,000 members around the world. The bestselling author Louise Candlish joined Anita to talk about her latest novel - A Neighbour's Guide to Murder - which explores the practice of sex for rent and a trial by social media. The American jazz singer Samara Joy has five Grammy awards to her name and is quickly gaining superstar status in the jazz world. She is making her debut at the BBC Proms tonight, where she will be backed by the BBC Concert Orchestra, in a special tribute to the Great American Songbook. The Prom will be also be live on Radio 3, on BBC Four and iPlayer.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Annette Wells Editor: Deiniol Buxton

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. deal ratings and price history. So you know a great deal when you see one. That's cargurus.ca. BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Just to say that for rights reasons, the music in the original radio broadcast has been removed for this podcast. Hello and welcome. Coming up, some highlights from the week just gone. Helena Bonham Carter on her new film Four Letters of Love, based on the bestselling novel set in 1970s Ireland. London's independent victims commissioner Claire Waxman on her new report which cites a near total failure in seeing offenders brought to justice. We look at how this impacts women and girls.

Women and gaming. We'll hear from the group Black Girl Gamers on why gaming is such an important part of their lives and how it's helped them through tough times. Author Louise Candlish on her new book A Neighbour's Guide to Murder in which two women become friends who are from very different worlds and different generations and music from classical jazz singer Samara Joy who at only 25 has won five Grammys. She'll be performing at the Proms tonight. So let's begin. First welcome back to Helena Bonham Carter, one of our best known actors. For over 40 years, we've watched her as Lucy Honeychurch in Room with a View, Princess

Margaret in The Crown, and Harry Potter's much-loved villain, Bellatrix Lestrange. Her latest role is in Four Letters of Love, based on Niall Williams' novel. Helena plays Margaret Gore, the wife of a poet living on a remote island in the west of Ireland in the 1970s. She joined Nuala this week and they began by discussing the Irish accent. Good morning. Oh, I love it. You're back in your Irish accent again. I don't know how it's going to last because I'm actually, I mean, I did it because I wanted

to indulge and pretend to be Irish. Why not? You know, when you were going out the door the last time you were here, you were asking me, where are you from exactly? That was because I wanted to poach yours. Well, you know, I thought you did a great... I'm Dublin. So I'm North Dublin. And she is actually was from and then she moves to the West. To the beautiful West, the mythical West as it's called.

The mythical West. I watched the film yesterday, I thought it was so beautiful. Oh you loved the film thank God for that. Now that was very Irish. Yes. I mean I did this, you do different jobs for different reasons and this is just for the love of the book. It's one of those books that I envy anybody who hasn't read it and they're about to start. Well, I was thinking, because I've just actually come back of holidays, that I should have been reading it over the past week when I watched the film last night and started looking at how enamored you were with this book, because you got it. How long ago was it?

It was about 25 years ago I read it. That's how long the love lasts. It's like it's one of those magical magical enchanting books and the spell of it. And it's all, it's indescribable. I mean, it's not for those who are not romantic. It's not for those who are cynical. It's for those, it's a love story, but it's also about a lot, all kinds of loves, not just romantic love. And it's a mystical and lyrical and romantical. It's about, it's sort of, there is that in the face of sorrow and alongside sorrow there can exist a lot of magic. And that if one listens to the patterns in the universe or what it's trying to say

and not control it, there can be a lot of good that can come to it. But I think romantic and whether you're a romantic or a realist is definitely one of those lines that I saw going through. There's two families that are in different sides of the island, the East and the West Coast, and their lives become intertwined romantically at times. You have the character of William, gives up his office job to become a painter. That's Pierce Brosnan for people following along, followed by his son Nicholas.

We also have Gabriel Byrne, who you are married to, who's the master, who's the poet on the West Side. But I want to play a little clip because you talk about love. This is Margaret speaking to her daughter, Isabel. When I met him, when he fell for me, your father, I met him when he fell for me, your father. He said the poems, wrote themself. They poured out of him. And I took that as a sign. But when they stopped, that would have to be a sign too. I thought that love was poetry and moonlight.

It's not. Falling in love, well that's the easy part. The hard part is what follows. You have to make a marriage. Are you a romantic or a realist? I'm a total romantic but I have a realistic side to me. But yeah, I'm obviously on the fence. Margaret is somebody who started off life as a romantic, married this man, this poet who ended up not unable to write. And she had to do all that, as a lot of wives of geniuses do. They run, do the hard work of running the household while the geniuses can go off and imagine, giving them the freedom. And it's been a hard life. She doesn't regret marrying the master, but it's a hard life. And it's a

war within her, the heart versus the head. And in the end she does some questionable things, but it's all about trying to protect the daughter from the harshness of her own life. Which I thought was a great line from the Master who talks about Margaret as a mother. He says, worry, that's what you do. That's how you love her. Do you think worrying always has to be part of motherhood? I think sadly it is. As soon as, you know, as soon as a little person is born, you start, your life's hijacked and suddenly the potential for something going wrong, which is, let's face it, huge, can take over. But worry is, you know, it's a thing that you can go to town on and you can also keep

yourself in check. And something horrendous happens in this family. A disaster happens with their young son. And Margaret will not be defeated by it. She keeps the world going, the domestic world going. The domestic atlas. She is the domestic atlas. Do you know this poem by U.A. Fanthalp, atlas?

Oh, it's a great poem. If I knew it by heart, I'd do it in an Irish accent. Let's talk about doing the accent though. Were you at all daunted by taking it? I was completely daunted because I was surrounded by heart. Let's talk about doing the accent though. Were you at all daunted by doing that? I was completely daunted because I was surrounded by Irish. Gabriel Byrne I mentioned and Pierce Brosnan who are Irish. And then Anne Skelly and Donal, everyone was Irish.

And I was I'm from North London and you know posh. So it's like oh God I got to be. But I had a really good voice coach and I've always felt very home, even if I didn't sound lightly in Ireland. And there's something about, you know, what it makes you feel like, an accent changing the way you sound can bring out all bits of yourself that you never, you know, aren't adornment until you actually make the sound. So it made

me feel all delicious. And you've said before that you do a lot of preparation for a role because you find acting terrifying. Yeah. Do you still find it terrifying? Oh, of course. It's utterly traumatic and it's a stupid way of earning a living. It's completely stupid but at the time, and it's a fantastic way of earning a living, I mean, they're paying you to pretend, but because they're paying you, you know, you've got to be really good. And there's so much made of it. So there's a lot of pressure. So yeah. So how did you do it for the accent, for example? What's the preparation?

Oh, you get an accent coach. Yeah. And just daily or? Oh, you break down the sounds or the 26 different vowel sounds, you practice them, or particularly the ones that don't come naturally to you, you listen, usually pick somebody in particular, because there's Irish, you don't just do a general Irish, you also specify. The more precise, the better. Everything is about precision.

I think of every precise choice you make, the more particular and the greater hope it is to be real, rather than a generalized thing. And with her, she's Dublin, then she moved over. She's an outsider on the island. And then you have somebody listening to you. But you know, Gabriel Byrne, he said it was okay. So if he thought it was OK, then. You had the master, so to speak, telling you that.

But with the film as well, I did find it's so beautiful that it's almost like the scenery is another character. I know a lot of it was filmed in Dunnegal, which is in the northwest and Antrim in the northeast as well. What was it like to be on that set? Oh you know that was part of the gift of that. None of it was on a set. It was all real. So including the inside of a cottage, usually you have a built interior, so you'll do all the exteriors and then three weeks later you'll pick up on the interiors. But this was just, you walk straight out of the tiny cottage in which you filmed the kitchen shot,

out into, you know, onto the cliffside of Merlot Bay. Extraordinary landscapes and seascapes and air. There are moments on which life turns, is a line in the film. I was reading about when you met your partner, it was a totally random thing. So do you believe on that? The moments when life... It's that thing, the book is about predestiny

and is it destined? And well, definitely, I think there was, you know, there was a moment, but we both discussed that it could so easily not have happened. We went to a wedding that we almost, we might not have, either of us might have for different reasons. So it was a sliding door thing, yeah.

Helena Bonham Carter there and Four Letters of Love is in cinemas now. Now eight babies have been born in the UK using genetic material from three people to prevent devastating and often fatal conditions. The method, pioneered by UK scientists, combines the egg and sperm from a mum and dad with a second egg from a donor woman. The technique has been legal in the UK for a decade, but this is the first proof it's leading to children born free of incurable mitochondrial disease. These conditions are normally passed from mother to child. Well, I was joined by Kat Kitto, who has two daughters, one of whom has mitochondrial

disease, and Louise Hislop, consultant embryologist at the Newcastle Fertility Centre, who performed the technique for all the patients, as well as doing the preclinical research. I started by asking Louise to explain what mitochondrial disease is. Good question. So inside of our cells are little structures called mitochondria. And inside those, there's also a very, very small piece of DNA called mitochondrial DNA.

And our mitochondria are responsible for making the energy that our cells require to function. Now, if that little piece of DNA inside the mitochondria are responsible for making the energy that our cells require to function. Now, if that little piece of DNA inside the mitochondria contains a mutation, what can happen is it means that the mitochondria don't function very well and they don't produce all the energy that the cells require to function. That specifically really affects tissues that have a really high energy requirement such as our heart. You know, you imagine the heart beating, it needs lots of energy. And if these mitochondria aren't producing enough energy, it can, you know, affect those sorts of tissues.

So can you now explain what this new technique is that you've been developing for 10 years, but we are now hearing about? Yes, so we actually inherit our mitochondrial DNA from our mums. So this disease is passed from mother to child and at this present time there is no cure. So what we've been doing is developing a technique to try and reduce the risk for these women passing on this disease to their children. to try and reduce the risk for these women passing on this disease to their children. So basically what we do is we take fertilized eggs from mum, which have been created using her partner's sperm and we create fertilized eggs from a donor as well.

So a donor who we know is healthy, we know that she hasn't got mitochondrial DNA disease, that's really important. And what we do is we take the nuclear DNA out of the fertilized egg from the mum and put that nuclear DNA into the donor's fertilized egg that's had its DNA removed. So what you end up with is an embryo that has the nuclear DNA that you know is responsible for all our characteristics, eye colour, hair colour, those sorts of things. So the nuclear DNA is from mum and dad and it has lovely healthy mitochondria from the donor. Incredible to sort of get your

head around really, especially those of us who don't really, I've seen lots of diagrams to understand it And it really is remarkable science cats. I'm going to bring you in here. What does this development mean to you and your family? Why is it so important for you? My husband? I we have two daughters Who in our 16 and 14 the youngest of whom has mitochondrial disease? She was diagnosed at about 18 months so she was seemingly a healthy baby hitting all her milestones and at 18 months kind of things started you know looking a little bit you know not

typical and actually she is now significantly affected by mitochondrial disease. It's a progressive disease as Louise said there's no no cure and there's no treatment so she has lost the ability to speak, to walk. She could never quite walk, she was nearly there but she's completely in the wheelchair. Now she's tube-fed, has epilepsy, lots of complications. So it's, you know, she's great, she's brilliant, but it's a life-limiting condition. We were involved alongside the Lilly Foundation, that's a charity that supports mitochondrial disease and the families affected by it, ten years ago when this bill was passed through Parliament to introduce legislation to

make this technique possible and I guess at that point it gave a glimmer of hope that my eldest daughter who is not affected may at some point in the future be able to use this technique to have babies free of the disease, so essentially breaking that chain of mitochondrial disease. Do you know that does she have that is it is it something that your daughter carries is that how this works? She has not been tested right so I didn't know until I had until Poppy was diagnosed I didn't know I carried it I carry it at very very low levels and at those levels you you know it's it's completely

asymptomatic there's no no noticeable effect on my life, possibly very similar for my daughter. But as Louise said again, it's the eggs that carry the mutant mitochondrial DNA and if it's an egg with a high load that is passed, then that child may be severely affected as is the case with Poppy. So it may or may not be a technique that our families use, but I think the fact that it is there and is available and now eight babies have been born and healthy and tracked over a number of years, this gives real, real hope that in the future if this technique is needed for our family and many other families,

then it's there as it gives options which weren't there before. Have you had a conversation with your daughter? Very recently. How old is she? She's a teenager? Yeah, she's 16 and bless her. I suppose it's something she's grown up with. Her sister is disabled and has a life-limiting genetic condition.

She hadn't previously considered it to those depths, but it's a conversation that we would have had at some point. It's come to the fore because this is at the fore. Louise, who would qualify for this procedure? Yeah, due to the regulation, there's only a small proportion of women that are actually eligible. So to be able to undergo their treatment, we have to apply to the HFEA, which are regulators, the Human Fertilisation Embryology Authority. We have to demonstrate that the women are at high risk of passing on severe disease to their children and only once they're approved by the HFEA can we then perform the treatment for them. I suppose it's like for you and

your daughter you'd have to go and get tested first? Yeah so interestingly I have sort of lived a previous version of this before this treatment was available. We were considering possibly more children but knew we then at this point that we had that risk and that's a really difficult decision at that point to make. We underwent a treatment called PGT that I might let Louise explain where it's you test the egg before it's re-implanted to know what that mutant load of that particular egg is. Now that was not successful in our case at that time but you know could have

been a different story if this treatment was available at that point. Does it always work Louise? No it's just like you know an IVF cycle as an embryologist in it's in some respects frustrating because you see these good quality blastocysts, so they're the embryos that can implant and form a pregnancy, but that doesn't guarantee a pregnancy, you know. So it's a saying, you know, at best you could maybe say an IVF treatment works in about 30% of cases. So you know, it definitely isn't successful in every case. And eight babies have been born using this mitochondrial donation technique.

And can you tell us about those eight, how many of them have now are children who don't have it? So when the eight children were born, they were obviously tested to look at what their levels were. In five of those eight children, the abnormal mitochondria was undetectable, which is great, which is really what we're aiming for. In three of the children, there was some detectable mitochondria from mum, but at levels that were low, meaning that they were at very low risk of developing the disease in their lifetime. So this really is a risk reduction strategy. We're not at the point yet that we can say it's a prevention, it's a guarantee prevention. And we talk to the patients about that when they embark on the treatment that, you know,

there's no guarantee, it's impossible when you move that nuclear DNA, you're always going to be carrying over some of those abnormal mitochondria from mum, you can't stop that at the moment anyway. As an embryologist, what does this mean to you? It's amazing. It's another option for these couples. You know, there was this, like I say, a small group of women that pre-implantation genetic testing just wasn't suitable for them because when you look at their eggs, every single egg they produced had such high levels that PGT as we call it just wasn't an option. So now this is another treatment that we can add

that it opens up more options for women to have genetically related children. I mean the technique has been legal in the UK for a decade now but as I'm sure you're aware there's been some controversy around the approach and people are raising concerns about so-called designer babies. And this process is not legal in all countries. What do you say to that? Before it was legalized, there was a lot of debate and obviously there are ethical concerns that by allowing mitochondrial donation, it would be this slippery slope towards designer babies. But in the UK, it's very well regulated. As I explained, it can only be used for this group of women who are at high risk of passing on severe disease. And we're not picking specific

traits to make designer babies. we're replacing those defective mitochondria that would mean that the children would have severe disease. What are the possible implications Louise for other genetic conditions? Well in terms of other conditions we're only replacing the mitochondria so that that little piece of DNA only encodes a small number of proteins which are responsible for energy production. So really this technique is only for mitochondrial disease. If the condition is encoded by the nucleus, nuclear DNA, that's not going to help those

conditions at all. Louise Hislop and Kat Kitto there. Now there's been a fair amount of coverage recently discussing the large number of people currently facing record court delays and what can be done to address the situation, such as the suggestion Sir Brian Levinson made last week to have judge-only trials for certain cases such as fraud and bribery. Well earlier this week, a new report published by London's Independent Victims Commissioner Claire Waxman OBE and the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime describes what they're

calling a near total failure in seeing offenders brought to justice. Focusing on the impact on victims of these delays, the research found a 40% dropout of the process after reporting, with many feeling forced out and more victims withdrawing post-charge, withdrawal being higher in cases of violence against women and girls. Well to unpick these findings, Nuala was joined by Claire Waxman to discuss the failings highlighted in the report. Firstly, I mean nationally you only have to look at the crime survey to see that only four in ten crimes are actually reported to the police. Then if you look at the research, we looked at over 270,000 cases reported to the Met

Police over a period between 21 and 22, and on average 40% of those victims were withdrawing from the process before a charging decision. We then see about 52% of those cases being closed for other reasons, might be evidential difficulties or maybe suspect hasn't been identified. So you can see how very few people, how very few victims are actually still in the system. And then post-charge, we were able to look at CPS, Crown Prosecution Service data over the last five years. And that victim attrition data sort of fluctuated between 18 and 33 percent. So it is a near total failure to deliver justice for victims, not just in London, but in this country.

In your summary, you say, despite the seemingly obvious nature of why victims are withdrawing, and we can talk about that, it became evident there was a disconnect between what you were hearing from justice agencies and what victims had to say. What is that disconnect? So it was very interesting, very early on in this role I did a big piece of research around rape and looking at the poor investigation, prosecution and support for rape victims. And what we were often hearing is the victims chose not to support, the police would say

to us they chose to withdraw and not support. What we then heard from victims and support agencies that were working with victims was a very different story. Some saying I would support if I was given the right information, the right support, if I felt safe. Others were saying they weren't even aware that they were no longer supporting the investigation. They thought the case was still ongoing. So it really, there was a disconnect between what the police were telling me and criminal justice agencies

and what we were hearing from victims, survivors, and those supporting them. That's why I chose to do this research, to really understand are victims withdrawing, why are they withdrawing, and when. You say also that withdrawal, for example, it's higher in cases of violence against women and girls with 59% of victims of domestic abuse

withdrawing from the justice system and in cases of rape in domestic abuse the withdrawal rate is as high as 74%. How do you understand those statistics particularly with those cases, those types of cases? Yeah so the research really gave us insight into why and I think this is the really important bit for not just the Met but policing across this country and for the wider criminal justice system. Domestic abuse victims, it takes a huge amount of courage to come forward and report. Many are withdrawing very early on, sometimes on the same day or within the first few weeks.

That's because they are not feeling safe and secure in the process. The key thing for domestic abuse victims is to be able to feel safe and protected. And what we were hearing is they weren't getting the right or swift enough response from the police, protection orders weren't being put in place quick enough and they just felt that being in the justice process

put them at more risk. Earlier this morning, I spoke to a woman who we are calling Barbara and she talked about her experience with the Metropolitan Police in London. I do want to let you know you may find her experience distressing. I began by asking Barbara why she went to the police. I was controlled and raped by my ex-partner on multiple occasions for a couple of years. It took me a really long time to kind of realise what had happened. It was actually a BBC news piece that I saw around coercive control that kind of made me realise what was happening to me and that is when I reported it to the police. And how did the police respond? So when I first reported it the police attended

my house kind of out of the blue. They just rocked up, fully suited and booted, which was quite scary. But they investigated and they charged him with coercive control. Rape was dropped at that point and we went to magistrate's court for coercive control where he was found not guilty. After the trial, I then had a few complaints about how the police handled my case. They were not very communicative. They didn't give me the rights that a victim of rape or course of control are allowed to have.

So it came actually out within that complaint that they did not investigate my rape properly, and they offered to reinvestigate it. So they had organized for someone to ring me at a given time in the day, and we would discuss how they would start to reinvestigate the rape. They never called me at that time,

and instead a police officer rang me randomly a couple of days later when I was in the middle of work and started kind of fully delving into the questions that they of course need to ask. But I was in the middle of meetings. I had not prepared anything. He then completely pressured me to find evidence for him at that point whilst I was on the phone with him. So a lot of the

rapes for me happened in hotel rooms, so he wanted receipts. And so I was very kind of panicked and stressed looking for those receipts on that phone call with him at that stage. I just kind of froze. I did what he asked me to do. I finished the phone call in the end and I said, you know, I'll try and find these afterwards and I'll send them to you. But after kind of the way that he behaved, I decided that I did not want to to go ahead with this again. Was that difficult to make that decision? Yeah, so having been through the system once, I had the benefit of knowing how terrible it is. I had the benefit of knowing how terrible it is. It is soul destroying. It's not a process that you as a human want to go through. So thinking around that I'd have to go through that again, I had clearly realized at this point that the police had not learned from any of the failures

that were made in my original case. And also knowing that the prosecution rate is, you know, what, 1% at the moment. So if I put myself through an awful investigation again, if I were to get to court, I knew that the chances of a conviction would be incredibly low, but it was mainly just understanding how panicked and how distressed I felt with just one phone call and just reminding myself that it was gonna be like that again and again and again for

however many years it took them to investigate this again. So you needed to make that decision for you? I needed to make that decision for my mental health, but also just knowing that he was going to walk free and whilst that was already going to be a huge chance that he would be walking free anyway, knowing our system, knowing that I haven't done everything that I could have done, really was hard. It feels like I've left a stone unturned. Thanks very much to the woman we're calling Barbara for her account there. I realize some of you may find her experience distressing.

If you are affected by anything you're hearing, you can go to the BBC Action Line page where you will find links to support. I know The Met are keen to highlight for anyone who wants to approach them to report that they've made drastic improvements since the report was commissioned. Claire, they say they've driven up charges to get justice for victims, worked in an earnest way on many recommendations already, and they say ultimately they need the criminal justice system to work faster and better for victims. But your response to Barbara's experience?

I know it'll be shocking to viewers. Sadly, it's not shocking to me. These are the cases I hear day in, day out. It's what drives my work. It gives me the insight into where the failings are, why I commission these sorts of big pieces of research. I know Barbara. I've worked with her. So I saw directly the failings on her case. And I think she's eloquently expressed what this research has captured really. It's just that lack of, firstly, sensitivity and understanding trauma and what's in front of you with a victim and how much courage it takes for anyone to come forward and report, but in particular when you're trying to report a partner or an ex-partner, when it's a violence

against women, a girl offence or a male rape, for example. We spoke to male victims as part of this research. So it takes a huge amount of courage for someone to come forward. And then if the person that you've come to, the police, are not giving you the reassurance and the confidence you need and the security you need to stay in the process, and it's all very chaotic and nobody updates you and nobody gives you access to support or the right information, the very basics that should be provided to victims in this country. There's no surprise why so many just choose to quit and leave because as Barbara rightly said she needed to make

a decision to prioritize her mental health because too many victims I speak to and survivors say the same. The criminal justice system breaks them and that's devastating and we as a country, this government, we have to improve that. Some of the responses for example the Metropolitan Police, the Assistant Commissioner Pippa Mills said that the Met is relentlessly bearing down on perpetrators to secure justice for victims. They said to improve victims experience that they are driving up charges for serious offenses including rape and serious sexual assault, developing a new victim strategy, rolling

out more training, have launched a new online service, leaflets, dedicated phone lines to increase the frequency and quality of communication. They do say there is more cases proceeding through courts. London has over a hundred trials scheduled for 2029 and they understand the delays are intolerable for victims waiting for closure from these experiences and they talk about a collective effort from government partners and the criminal justice system. They say to reform and reverse years of decline. Your response to some of those initiatives? So I work very closely with the Met, so I'm very aware of all those initiatives. They're

in progress, they're not final, they've still got quite a lot of work, I'd say they're at the start of it. Yes, they've got a new victim focus test that we helped bring in a couple of years ago. Is it working well enough for victims? No, that training needs to be rolled out, but the initiative is there. They are absolutely trying to push through more rape charges and there they do face a battle. The failings and the delays in the wider criminal justice system, we do have cases being listed in 2029 in London. That is deterring victims from staying

in the process so the police do have to have those very difficult early conversations to advise victims how long it's going to take and that does deter them. Well you know you remind me of one thing in your report that victims say they were dissuaded by the police at times from entering the justice process. Yes. So that is sometimes the officers are giving far too much information, far too early on when someone's just decided to come forward and report. If you're then told at that point when you're the most vulnerable, you're in shock, you've got trauma, you're not quite sure what lies ahead of you, do you want to do this?

And they say, it's very difficult, it takes a long time to get a charging decision. We heard stories of them saying, I've got worse cases that didn't get a conviction and I had more evidence than this. So very negative. Now, some are doing it, I think police officers, from a place of potential care, but others I suspect are doing it from a place of managing caseloads. And you know, if I say all this, this case is gone and I can move on to the next. And that talks about the stretch resources of policing. Alex Davies Jones, the Minister for Victims of Violence Against Women and Girls, has said, We inherited a court system on its knees with a record and rising backlog of cases, victims and survivors of sexual abuse have been paying the price for too long, enduring

unimaginable waits, they say, for the day in court. This is no less than a national emergency, they say. Now, the proposal, I mentioned this at the top, Sir Brian Levinson put forward his proposals, Alex Davies Jones says, for a once in a generation reform of our courts to deliver swifter justice for victims and help us on our mission to have violence against women and girls. They say they'll respond in the autumn. They also thank you for the research that has been done. But I'm wondering on that point, Sir Brian Levinson put forward judge-only trials for certain cases such as fraud and bribery and that would potentially reduce the backlog

of cases in criminal courts. Something you're in favor of? I work very closely with Sir Brian Leveson on this court reform. I very much welcomed it. We need to look at radical reforms in order to reduce this ever-increasing record Crown Court backlog. I have got victims, rape victims, waiting seven years. It's unacceptable from time reporting to getting into court.

We can't do that to people. It's inhumane. So I will very much support government I think looking at some of the ideas he's put forward we need to be taking some of the cases out of the Crown Court that don't need to be in there and making sure that we're dealing with the most serious cases far swifter and that we're getting swifter justice outcomes. But what I would say to government is that that's going to take time to make those changes and we have an emergency crisis, especially in London here and now, and we need some changes now. London's independent victim commissioner there, Claire Waxman, OBE.

And if you've been affected by anything you've heard on the programme today, you can go to the BBC Action Line page where you'll find links to support. to the BBC Action Line page where you'll find links to support. Still to come on the programme, music from jazz musician and prom debutante Samara Joy. I'm very excited to tell you that Listener Week is fast approaching. This is where we dedicate the entire programme from Monday to Friday to you. Your stories, your suggestions, the things that matter to you most. You never know, maybe it will be you sharing your story. It doesn't matter how weird, how wonderful, how strange, how rare, how hilarious it is, we would like to hear from you.

Get in touch in the usual way, email us via our website, or contact us via social media, it's at BBC Woman's Hour. You never know, that thing you've been thinking about for ages, we might be talking about it on Woman's Hour. You never know, that thing you've been thinking about for ages, we might be talking about it on Woman's Hour. And remember, you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10am during the week, all you need to do is subscribe to the daily podcast. It's free via BBC Sounds. Now all this week we've been taking a deep dive into the world of gaming, discussing

what gaming means to women, speaking to those working in the industry and hearing more about the impact it can have on women's lives. One group bringing women together in the gaming world is Black Girl Gamers. They started out as a small Facebook group in 2015, but this community group is now made up of over 10,000 black women around the world. Nuala headed down to the Virgin Media gamepad at the O2 to meet some of the women involved. I'm making my way upstairs surrounded by neon lights. Let me see, it says it's the stairway to gaming heaven. It also says rise to the challenge. If you think of a gaming space, yep, this is it.

There's a huge screen to play games and I've planned to meet a group of women here to find out more about why gaming is such a big part of their lives. Let's go find them. Thank you for telling me we were right behind you. Too much! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! OK, OK. I can even tell from outside that it's quite raucous in there. Let's go in and meet part of the Black Girl gamers community. Hello everyone. I am sorry, I'm going to have to interrupt your game. Is that alright?

Of course, we're going to have to. What are you playing? We're playing, what are we playing? Crash team racing? I almost forgot, I was about to call it Mario Kart. Yeah we're playing Crash team racing. Why am I so bad at this game? No, no I cannot help you. Is there really a skill issue? Thank you, sir. I'm glad. I'm grateful.

Sitting here, I have with me... Aisha, aka 14toast2. Deanne, aka IndyD. And Adobe, aka Adobe's2. I'm going to start with you, Aisha. How would you describe the impact that gaming's had on your life? I would say gaming has had quite a big impact on me in the sense that it is... When I was younger, I didn't really...

Gaming communities, I gamed very much solo, so I remember like the first time I ever found any friends online I remember playing Call of Duty Black Ops and I always remember I had a friend online shout out trout fish out wherever you are that was like one of my first online gaming friends he was like a grown man who had a family and now as an, community has been like such a big thing. Black Girl Gamers has like introduced me to so many people. I didn't know there was other black female gamers like me. I thought I was a bit of an anomaly, I'm not gonna lie. I like that fact that I'm not. But yeah there was a point where I thought maybe it's just me. There

aren't other people who play these games. Everyone I talk to is a grown man with a family, or a young boy. Yeah, so Black Girl Game has really opened my eyes to the people that are out there that you can connect with. And I think gaming has allowed me to connect. Some of my closest friends are people I've met in the gaming space. And I've known them maybe for only like up to like four or five years

but some of them are some of my closest friends even though I'm what and I'm three decades and some old That is young But with that those people that you consider close friends. Have you met them in real life? Yes Okay, let me turn over to my right. Diane's hand has just gone up. So what was that like meeting in person for the first time? In a way it just felt normal because you know when you're streaming, when you're live streaming, you talk to people all the time. You get to know people's character, you get to know you know people's mindset and how they feel about certain things. When you do meet people in person, it's very much like, oh hey, you alright? I just spoke to

you yesterday, how's everything going? It didn't feel like it was a nerve-racking experience at all. It sounds to me like you get to know them before you meet them in real life. Yeah, it's almost like a try before you buy situation, isn't it? Honestly it's really nice because they can see you but you can't see them but you still have the idea in your mind, this is the kind of person, I can't wait to meet them because we just get it. And have those shared interests of course as well. But you, even Diana, you'd go as far as to say that gaming changed your life. Why?

Because, you know, growing up, especially for young black women, to us it was really hard. You know, a lot of things were a struggle and gaming is something that just allows you to escape, you know, when times are tough and things are rough and you get to meet people that are just like you, that look like you, that, you know that feel the same way that you do. And gaming is just a whole universe of people who just get it. Everybody understands, everybody wants to escape, and it just gives you a more chill, calmer mindset. Let me come over to you, Adobe. What would you say has been the impact on your life of gaming when you, I suppose, look back on from that first game to where you are now?

When I'm feeling, if I'm feeling stressed or not feeling really good, I just pop in and pop out into a video game. I might not go online because going online might stress you a bit more because people, people. Well, this is the thing I was thinking of just as you were speaking there, Adobe. We often talk about online abuse. How would you describe it in the gaming world for women, Adobe? Or even let me be specific, black women? We know that there are certain things that we experience when we're online.

I know if I turn on my mic and I open my mouth, somebody's going to not be happy with it. As a black woman? Yep. And if I'm speaking, especially right now, I know, yes, I'm speaking more with an English accent now, but if I go down and I start speaking with a more Nigerian accent, am I getting, oh, God, it gets into something else entirely.

The first thing you're always going to go, go make me a sandwich. They're never original. Do they? Is that really what I'm..., I kid you not I wish I was kidding go make me a sandwich Go, you know go wash the clothes go it is very stupid But that becomes it becomes so stupid because you hear it all the time that you it really goes like seriously You guys could do better and there are times. I really generally go do better How has it been for you, Deanne? It's kind of been up and down.

But there's a nice little mode called mute. So I just don't listen. I just turn it off. I don't listen to them. I'm just like, the scoreboard will just tell everything. Give me an example. How much time do you have? Can we get a time check, please?

So basically, everybody has their own character. Their own character has certain powers. And you can have certain legendary weapons that are very overly powered. Now, if people overuse them, there's a lot of abuse. People go, oh, why are you using that? You're being cheap. You're being dirty.

Why are you playing like that? Mute. Mute? I don't want to hear it. Don't want to hear it. If you're losing to a weapon that you know how it works, avoid it. I can't stop you from losing points and I can't stop myself from winning if you keep running into the weapon.

I can't do anything for you. So you know, it's just very much like, yeah, you're doing this to yourself and you have like five other teammates to help you and you're still doing it. So when the leaderboard comes up, I'm at the top of the leaderboard and you're doing this to yourself and you have like five other teammates to help you, you're still doing it. So when the leaderboard comes up, I'm at the top of the leaderboard and you're at the bottom. Don't cry. It's not my fault. Going to a group of members that also experience that kind of same thing, even just going to the venting section on Discord is really lovely. Okay, let's stop there. There is a venting section on Discord and Discord is another

social media platform. There is a venting section and sometimes just me just reading, not just me providing, just me reading. I'm like, thank you. And what do you vent about there? Some people's personal, some people's professional, some people just need to let it out. The whole point is like it's a no judgment free zone. You can just do what you need to do.

Some people might think that people venting online in whatever format or forum can be something negative or hate-filled, but it's not that. I don't think what I'm hearing. I think it's really important to also note that this isn't just like an open forum where anyone can go and rant. This is specifically, so within Discord, you create communities.

So it's not just like any Tom, Dick and Harry coming in and being like, I am so angry. This is a genuinely safe space that has been curated by the people who are hosting these communities. It does provide us a space to discuss with people who experience very similar situations to us and be able to express it in a way without feeling like we're being judged or we're being too too much or being aggressive. We're just frustrated and maybe the way we express it isn't the

way that someone else would appreciate it. So this provides us a space to express that safely. You know I'm struck by two things you say there. If you're being accused of being too much or aggressive. They're stereotypes, aren't they really? And I think as a black woman it is very easy to be riled up by these things. So having a space where you can go and share your feelings about being like, oh, you're just being aggressive or you're just overreacting. People actually being like, do you know what? I'm not gonna lie. If that was me, I would have been a bit upset too. So then responses and then things, it's just like a validation of your feelings.

I think that does matter in these spaces. It doesn't matter who you are. Having your feelings validated, especially when you have been wrong done by, it matters no matter who you are. Personally, I've only ever experienced it in small dribs and drabs, but that's because of how I play online.

I don't care about hearing my team. I don't care about hearing you. And if I'm playing with people I know, it's always mute. For me, like, it's been a hard few years. It's been hard, but you know what? Gaming allows us to be ourselves when we can't be ourselves and allows us to really like draw in on those things and work through things. Streaming is the same thing, being able to know people in real life and knowing that they're going through stuff, I'm going through stuff, but we can get through

it. You know, that's gaming. Gaming is just, it means a lot. Thank you to Aisha, Adobe and Deanne for letting Nuala have a go at gaming with them. Now, A Neighbour's Guide to Murder is the title of the latest psychological thriller by the author Louise Candlish. She helped launch the property noir genre with her books Our House and Those People and now she's back with the story of Gwen, a 70-year-old woman who lives in an upmarket block of flats called Columbia Mansions in South London. She sparks a friendship with Pixie, her new much younger neighbour, renting a room in Alex's flat. But a scandal around sex for rent rocks the foundations of those that live in the block, one that then turns to murder.

Well Louise Candlish has spent the last two decades writing and this is her 18th book. She's a resident of South London herself and has had one of her books, Our House, turned into a four-part TV series on ITV. Well Louise joined me this week and she began by reading an extract from her book. Louise Her hands are pleasingly steady as she makes the call. Not that she's completely without nerves. In all her decades she's never had to dial 999 and she hopes she never will again, but it's important to remain level headed in an

emergency. The last thing the authorities need is a hysterical female, especially one of a certain age. Police please. She glances at the still silent figure by the window and it strikes her that she'll be interrogated about their interaction, not only by the police but also by the media. After everything that's gone on in the building this last year, they'll all want to know how it came to this, this awfulness. She gets a grip of herself, returns her attention to the question being repeated in her ear with some insistence. What's the nature of the emergency? It's my neighbor, she says. He's been murdered by his tenant. I'm gonna read one of the

quotes off the back of your book by Cara Hunt who said psychological suspense has a new adjective pure candlish. Oh my god. How good is that? Yeah that's an amazing quote thank you Cara. Yeah that was pure candlish and best known for your domestic noir thrillers. your books feature some of those really standout houses but this book sets in an iconic block of flats. Why flats? What was the reasoning behind this one? Well, it's a mansion block, one of those sort of beautiful iconic old Edwardian mansion

blocks which I have always loved and kind of fantasized about living in. And I was down in Richmond walking my dog probably about 18 months ago when I saw this absolutely stunning building on the river. And I thought, I have to set a book in a building like that. I've transplanted it to a lesser area of South London, but the visuals and the layout of that building are Columbia mansions, right down to the various

spells and whistles on the architecture and the doors. And also the formalities of living in a mansion block. I really wanted to explore that kind of world within a world. And they do have quite strict rules and regulations that appeal to a certain kind of resident. And so I wanted to have that as a backdrop to what is actually quite an unsettling crime or set of crimes. So tell us about some of the characters. Tell us about Gwen and her relationship with Pixie.

Well, Gwen is 70, and she's been living alone. She's not rich, even though she's in this kind of swanky block. She's living quite frugally on her pension. And she was quite happy living alone, but recently her son has bounced back following the breakdown of his marriage and he has regressed totally to his teenage self. And you know, I'm finding this resonates with a lot of readers. He is, you know, taking epic showers and he's, you know, then he's sort of strolling in and saying, what's for breakfast? And you know, taking epic showers and he's, you know, then he's sort of strolling in and saying what's for breakfast and, you know, he's a real pain and she's not that pleased

to have him back. She also has a daughter who has recently set herself up as a sort of trad wife and Gwen is this kind of first generation feminist so she's really, really embarrassed and ashamed by her daughter's career choice. She doesn't understand, you know, what an influencer is. And against this backdrop, she meets this lovely girl who's just moved in next door as Alex Lodger in the government rent-a-room scheme. And they just feel like kindred spirits. They just have this really lovely connection, you know, sort of shared sense of humor, shared values, all of which lasts for about five minutes before things start to go awry and Gwen becomes far too involved in Pixie's life.

Why did you want to explore that intergenerational friendship? I think it's not really sort of covered that much in fiction and we don't really talk about it that much but I find it just really enriching. I've got an older friend myself, in fact my first boss. So I'm now in my 50s and we've been friends since I was 21 and she's now in her 80s. And I just get so much from our interaction. I find it just, you know, the wisdom

an older person can give you. And then, you know, as you age yourself, you hope that you can pass that on in the other direction. But yeah, I also think, you know, I write about neighborhoods and I write about, you know, neighbors' relationships. And I think these friendships do occur out of convenience and the fact that, you know, in the UK we're very scattered from our family. So not only has Gwen got a gap to be filled by Pixie in terms of a nourishing sort of mother-daughter or even granddaughter relationship, Pixie's mother has died many years ago,

her father's not in her life, and she's very ruthless and she's very vulnerable. And so, you know, Gwen is very appealing to her. And so they kind of just filling each other's gaps, I think it's quite, in a way, it's quite heartbreaking. Yeah. You've mentioned it, you also took the pickup on the fact that it's pretty much unaffordable to

live in London and it's becoming much of a bigger issue today. Why? Why did you want to look at that? Well, my readers will know that I do love to write about property, but I've tended to focus on home owning and all of the pitfalls that come with that and the various sort of envious interactions that can come with owning a beautiful property. But I've never really thought about renting. And maybe because my daughter is now in her 20s,

she's 22 and starting to think about where she'll live. I started to think, hang on a minute, it's not that easy for Gen Z at all. You know, I remember being in London at 21 and I just found a flat. You know, it wasn't great. You know, there was mold on the walls and I slept on a bit of sponge in the corner. But I found a flat in a nice area very easily. And it

seems like it's almost an impossible dream, like a fantasy now. So I thought, right, I'm going to explore, you know, how it feels to be looking for a roof over your head in your twenties and the various sort of compromises that need to be made sometimes. It's just not that easy. And that led me into this sort of murky world of Sex for Rent, which Pixie is embroiled in. Louise Candlish there and her book, A Neighbor's Guide to Murder is out now.

The American jazz singer Samara Joy has won five Grammy Awards, including Best Jazz Vocal Album. She's been described as the next jazz sensation, a legend in the making and is regularly compared with the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. She tours internationally with her own band, headlining festivals and performing a mix of timeless jazz standards and her own original songs. Well, she's making her debut at the BBC Proms tonight and she joined me in the

Woman's Hour studio on Thursday and I started by asking her what people can expect to hear. So there will be standards familiar to most like Misty and like Stardust, but there are also songs that I kind of want to use to expand my repertoire and expand other people's understanding of what jazz can be and what it can sound like. So there's a song by Billie Holiday that we're going to do that she never got the chance to record. But it's a beautiful song. There's Thelonious Monk, there's Duke Ellington, songs that I think will overall capture my

experience as a vocalist and as a musician so far, but also a balanced set of music for people to enjoy. Singing a Billie Holiday song that she didn't get to record, what was that like? It's so beautiful because you hear all the other songs that she does and you can hear the power, you can hear the pain that she went through in her life and how she kind of sort of maybe evokes emotion in others when she sings, but to hear the lyrics and to hear how powerful that is and to try to interpret it basically from scratch, you know, without any sort of reference to imitate, is it makes me want to be a better writer and a better lyricist, to be able to really tell a story

about love and about heartbreak and about something personal and being able to say it in words without even having the chance to kind of record it is a beautiful thing. The very talented Samara Joy there performing You Stepped Out of a Dream. And you can catch her at the BBC Proms tonight, which will be broadcast on BBC4 and BBC iPlayer. And her latest album Portrait is out now. That's it from me. Join Nula on Monday when she'll be talking to Harriet Webb, best known for her roles as Theo in the BBC series I May Destroy You and cousin Shannon in Channel 4's Big Boys. She's going to be discussing series two of Mr Big Stuff and her character, Kirsty. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.