Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Paloma Faith, right wing women leaders in the EU, Emma Caldwell case, Chaka Khan

Episode Date: June 22, 2024

Paloma Faith is an award-winning singer, songwriter and actor. She has released six albums, including her most recent The Glorification of Sadness, received a BRIT Award, been a judge on The Voice UK as well as an actor in films such as St Trinian’s and TV’s series Pennyworth. She is also the mother of two daughters. She joins Clare to discuss her book – MILF - in which she delves into the issues that face women today from puberty and sexual awakenings, to battling through the expectations of patriarchy and the Supermum myth.Far-right parties across Europe made significant gains in the European elections, and women have been at the forefront of this right-wing shift in several countries. Right-wing groups which include those led by Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, France’s Marine Le Pen and Germany’s Alice Weidel are set to gain further seats in European parliament. To hear about the female leaders of Europe’s far-right and what this shift could mean for women, Anita is joined by the host of EU Confidential Politico's Sarah Wheaton and Shona Murray, Europe correspondent for Euronews.Nearly 300 rapes and sexual assaults reported by sex workers during the Emma Caldwell murder investigation were not dealt with by police at the time, the BBC has learned. 276 reports of sex crimes made by sex workers working in Glasgow during the murder inquiry were filed away and not acted upon. Investigate journalist Sam Poling, whose work was pivotal in bringing Emma Caldwell’s killer, Iain Packer, to justice in February of this year, joins Clare McDonnell to discuss, along with former Detective Sergeant Willie Mason.The American singer-songwriter, Chaka Khan, known as the Queen of Funk, is celebrating her 50th anniversary in music this year. With hits such as Ain't Nobody, I Feel for You and the anthem I'm Every Woman her music has sold an estimated 70 million records, winning her 10 Grammy Awards. She is curating Meltdown 2024 at the Royal Festival Hall, and opens the festival tomorrow night. She shares her plans and discusses her favourite songs.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Annette Wells Editor: Rebecca Myatt

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. Just to say that for rights reasons, the music in the original radio broadcast has been removed for this podcast. Hello and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour with me, Anita Rani. Award-winning singer-songwriter Paloma Faith joined us this week to chat about her new book, A Lot of Ground Gets Covered, Motherhood, Love and Relationships, and the legendary stateswoman of funk, Shaka Khan, is in town,

curating the Meltdown Festival at the Southbank Centre in London this weekend. My mother and father sang around the house as we did housecle cleaning and things like that. And my little sister and I, we used to join in and we thought everybody did that. I didn't really think of it as a way of life until I was in a talent show

and people started throwing money on the stage. So that's when I equated, oh, I can make a living doing this. And thank goodness she did. And we turn our attention to European politics as the far right makes gains in the European elections. Many of those parties are led by women. We'll be hearing all about them. So no disruptions for the next 45 minutes, just you, the radio and a cup of what you fancy. But first, Paloma Faith is an award-winning singer, songwriter and actor. She has won a Brit Award, released six albums,

including her most recent, The Glorification of Sadness. Well, Paloma is also the mother of two daughters, and she has a new book, MILF, about motherhood, love and relationships, in which she delves into the issues that face women today, from puberty, sexual awakening, IVF, to battling through the expectations of patriarchy and the super mum myth. She joined Claire MacDonald earlier this week, and Claire began by asking her why she'd decided to write this book now.

I didn't ever really think of myself as a writer, but obviously I am a writer because I've written all these songs. But it was just really the response that I had from when I started to write longer form posts on social media about my experiences. Having babies, being pregnant, postpartum depression. And the reaction of women was so kind of like massive. It felt like people were crying out for the truth and honesty and felt really disarmed by the fact that I was saying stuff and saying, thank you for saying this. And then I just thought, oh, it feels like women feel very silenced and alone.

And what I've essentially written is kind of a hug for women and hopefully an eye opener for men. And I do really hope that both genders read it. Oh, you're so honest. And the openness of it is quite something. You talk about experiences women, many women euphemize. You talk about miscarrying whilst you're on a film set. But you talk about it frankly. You talk about what actually happens to your body. The trips to the toilet, what you physically went through and you do that on many many stages whether it's IVF

whether it's you know childbirth this situation with miscarrying why did you decide your hemorrhoids that's a good one why did you decide to do that because many people don't many people just kind of say this happened and move on quickly you detail it yeah i detail it because i think it's really important because i felt quite isolated going through those things and it wasn't until i started to speak to other women about them that they were like yeah that happened to me yeah that happened to me and i feel like it just felt it feel you feel less alone when you're having these frank conversations. And it is, unfortunately, it's very British not to discuss these things. And it leads to isolation, which I think made my postpartum depression worse.

And I think the moment you normalize them, you feel better. Like I speak in the book about how I had a kind of short-term postpartum psychosis because of lack of sleep and the person who was my hero in that situation was the midwife that normalized what I was feeling and was like it's okay to feel like that it's okay that you're in despair and you are worried and you think maybe you'll have to give your child up for adoption if this goes on and all these things that I was panicking about rather than say no you're an unfit mother and made me feel really increasingly isolated what she did was say I'm going to help you out tonight you're going to have a sleep and if you feel like that in the morning we'll discuss it but and it

just pacified me and I feel like it's really important that we we don't just feel that we have to be this kind of social media worthy presentation of what a parent or mother should be. Tell us about the story about the roast dinner when you'd had your first child and you'd come home and you've really read it haven't you? Really read it, great book and you've physically home and you've really read it haven't you really read it great book and you've physically gone through the mill and um it doesn't go according to plan you feel able to make a roast dinner for you and your partner just tell us the story yeah i i mean i'd gone through the mill i'd had a terrible birth and been in labor for a long time because i had premature rupture of membranes and I had like a week long labor resulting in emergency cesarean after 21 hours. And both me and the baby were in hospital for a week.

And then because of the way it was, I had several infections and I essentially remained horizontal for the first three months after having the baby and was on antibiotics for that whole time and couldn't really stand I was sort of going to the toilet even at sort of a right angle and then I just like on after three months I kind of stood up and I was like I want to cook a meal because I used to love cooking so I made this meal and it felt really important to me and the baby started crying when the meal was ready and I just said I'll go and settle the baby and then I'll come back to eat and then I went upstairs and settled the baby but time kind of takes on a new meaning doesn't it in that sort of delirium of early motherhood. And I didn't know how long I was up there for,

but when I got back downstairs, there was a meal at the table set out on a plate facing the garden window by itself. And I asked my partner whether he was going to eat with me and he was like, no, I've already eaten. And I just felt so sad and I feel sad thinking about it and it was like, it was quite flippant and I don't think he realised how important and symbolic it was for me.

It was taken for granted and for, it was like a real achievement to have been able to do that and almost like tapping back into my identity, not because I'm like desperate to be a 50s housewife, but I just quite like cooking and that's fine. And actually, weirdly, in my life, all the men have been great cooks and all the women have been terrible cooks.

So it's not gendered. But I just wanted to make this meal. Anyway, I did something that I'm not proud of and I responded a bit violently and I think that there was a mixture of hormones and delirium and like lack of sleep and depression and I picked up a chair and sort of threw it and I've never before that or since done anything violent in my life and I don't feel good about it for many reasons also like during my childhood there was stuff around violence that made me feel you know just I just feel so I hate it I hate actually hate anger anger in itself is a thing for me. And I felt so terrible about it. But also, I kind of feel sorry for the person like me, that version of me, because it wasn't it's not who I am. And it's not. And I don't feel proud of it but it's it's sort of quite I guess is important to say and admit these things because

it shows to me how lost to myself that I was because it was so out of character and um yeah I don't know what do you think what do you think it says about um I mean he's your ex now you've got a good relationship with him He's got a great relationship with your girls. Kind, sensitive, artistic, progressive man. Yeah. But what do you think that one incident, the kind of, oh, no, I've eaten, there's yours, says about male and female expectations, do you think?

I just think that there's this kind of complacency and it's ingrained. And I don't think it's only perpetuated by men I think it's societal and I and I think it's really important at times that we don't just say oh the evil man because patriarchy is perpetuated by all genders and it's about just questioning what where this comes from and how and if I said if I sit down with him and explain these things you know appeal to his empathy and many men like him then it works but it's like how do we have how do we kind of reject these inbuilt generation after generation kind of complacency about a woman's

role to kind of suffer and give birth and make babies and it all be taken for granted it's about society kind of really acknowledging what a contribution it is it's a huge contribution society wouldn't exist without it but also this idea of like this over praising of men for their contribution now, it's not good enough. Like if two parents have a child, they should be taking responsibility for that child and acknowledging. And, you know, like I was so physically depleted that it was just so devastating for me not to be acknowledged that it was a huge thing for me to make that meal and it sort of summarized it became like a metaphor for everything the wonderful paloma faith talking to claire there her book milf is out now now the dust is starting to settle on

results after four days of voting in the eu elections the big headline we saw from sunday's results was that though the center-rights have held on to the largest grouping in the EU elections. The big headline we saw from Sunday's results was that though the centre-rights have held on to the largest grouping in the European Parliament, the far-right seem to have made significant gains in several countries. In France, the gains made by the far-right party National Rally prompted the French president Emmanuel Macron to call a snap election.

And notably, women have been at the forefront of that right-wing shift in countries including France, Italy and Germany. So who are these women? And what's next on the horizon for them in European politics? Well, earlier this week, I was joined by Shona Murray, Europe correspondent at Euronews, and Politico's Sarah Wheaton,

host of the EU Confidential podcast. I began by asking Shona, where does the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Maloney, who hosted the G7 summit this week, come from in Italian politics? Yes, so she comes from the brothers of Italy, which has its roots in post-war neo-fascism. She considers herself obviously not in that regard, but she is very proud of her conservative Catholic roots.

She's a person who is very much anti-abortion. And actually, speaking of the G7, last year when Japan held the presidency, there was a communique that the G7 would promote access to free, fair, health-based abortion rights. And that's something that was all agreed. And there is controversy at this g7 because italy is trying to water down that language um basically not promoting abortion as access to health care so there have been concerns at the start since she became prime minister that that's the type of thing she would try to introduce in italy and there are also concerns around um her support or

lack thereof for lgbt rights. She said things about surrogacy, which is that it should be criminalised, that it's essentially akin to renting a womb. And a lot of people see this as a sort of a route to attack the LGBT community because there's a lot of LGBT people who access surrogacy, but also women who can't have their own children too. So she is very right-wing, very conservative at home.

But on the European stage, she's credited with being more pragmatic because for lots of reasons, she's bringing her party somewhere towards the centre in order to ensure that she has much better power, I suppose, much better ability to forge deals,

but also because Italy gets over 100 billion euros in the EU's COVID, post-COVID recovery fund, which is something that the country really needs. I'm going to bring Sarah in on that as well. So she came up through quite an extreme political movement in Italy, as we've just been hearing from Shona, but let's talk about what she's been like on the European political stage recently. Indeed, she's really stood out for also being kind of authentically, I wouldn't say authentically feminine, but like owning the fact that she's a woman, she kind of cut a, she once cut a press conference short because she said her high heels were bothering her. And then on the European level, she has actually been very successful at reassuring kind of the mainstream.

She can be a bridge between other kind of difficult players in the EU sphere. So, for example, Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, was holding up Ukraine funding earlier this year. She was able to kind of broker a deal with him to get him to drop that objection. So she's more moderate on the European stage? Certainly on the European stage. And we've seen Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who will need Maloney's support if she's going to win a second mandate as Commission President, really reaching out to her, trying to build a personal relationship

as well as a political relationship. But at the same time, people, you know, in the centre-right and especially the centre-left and further left remain very wary, very sceptical of Maloney and have been putting a lot of pressure on Fondre Lyon saying, look, if you're really going to forge a formal alliance with Maloney, then that might rule out a relationship with us. OK, good overview of Maloney there. I think we're going to leave Italy now and head to France because she's been connected and compared to Marine Le Pen from the French National Rally Party. So, Sarah, who is Le Pen and what's the comparison with Maloney? The Marine Le Pen is the somewhat longtime leader of the national rally movement. It used to be known as the National Front, which was founded by her father. And it's known for being a very, you know, hardcore nationalist traditional party.

But they have been making successive electoral gains. And just in this past election, they performed twice as well as Emmanuel Macron's allies. And Macron has now called a snap election, said, look, you really want the far right to govern? You know, you're going to have your chance to make that decision in the next few weeks. And so we're seeing her seeing her campaign for that. She's not running. She's not running to be potentially prime minister, but she is seen as wanting to and potentially winning an election to be French president in the coming years. But unlike Maloney, she has not been as successful as presenting herself as sort of a mainstream figure. But she clearly sees a model. She clearly wants to be governing and not

just in the opposition. And so a lot of people are watching to see if she's able to make the transformation the way Maloney has. Shona, how does she fit in politically and how would she describe herself? Well, that's really interesting because she has been trying to erase the more extreme past of her father's leadership of the National Front. In fact, she expelled him from the party because he's a known Holocaust denier and he says extremely anti-Semitic things, which is something that is a no-no in mainstream politics, for obvious reasons. So she's trying to sort of move the National Rally to the centre slightly, but not in the way that Maloney has, because Marine Le Pen for a long time would have been not someone who actually wants to engage in the policies of the European Union, but someone who just actually wants France to leave the EU.

So not coming at it from a pragmatic perspective at all. But Le Pen is sort of an obstructive force, a combative, a belligerent force, a person who has no regard for the EU, for what the EU was founded for in the aftermath of the Second World War, or what it brings to the table in terms of economies, economics, but also around dignity, human rights and so on. And so that's why she's been out in the cold for so many years. Remember, Maloney was only elected a year ago. And here she is, I think, arguably the strongest leader in the European Union, because, you know, the German and the French leaders are both pretty weakened after this election. Maloney's strong. Le Pen is still regarded as a fringe personality. Who's voting for them

well the young people in France I mean they look if you look at the French election is 30 over 30 percent of the people voted for Le Pen's party which is twice Macron's vote but what we've seen is the young vote actually voting for the AFD in Germany and also for Marine Le Pen's party because remember her star performer her lead candidate for the European Parliament was a 28-year-old TikTok superstar called Jordan Bardella, like number one MEP in the European Parliament for likes and so on and engagements on TikTok. This is all where it gets very fascinating. So, Sarah, tell us a bit about these strategies for targeting younger voters, but particularly young female voters. Yeah, it's been really interesting to see the far right broadly has been using housing and cost of living as a strong argument to attract the youth vote. One of my colleagues actually went to the Netherlands where we've seen here builders, possibly even more far right than some of these other figures that we've been discussing performing extremely well among women and young voters by making this argument

that look there are these huge housing shortages we're letting in all these migrants and if you just do the math there isn't enough to go around and very quickly we need to mention another key figure in these eu elections ursula von der leyen the european commission president what does that role mean and how does she fit into the equation shona in a minute well she's what she's the most probably going to be president of the commission again by the looks of things and also there was a thought or a belief that maybe her position will be thwarted by emmanuel macron at the european council because remember it's the member states that make all the decisions in the european union not the parliament not the commission and there was concerns that he might try to remove her because she's a little bit too close to Maloney, a little bit too to the right. But he has his own problems at the moment.

So Ursula von der Leyen was sort of plucked out from obscurity for the rest of us. She was a former German defense minister, not without controversy. And she was brought to the position of President of the European Commission, voted for by the parliament, has superpowers. But I mean, I think you can say she pretty much won this election because I'm not saying everybody would have voted for the EPP

because of Ursula von der Leyen, but she's probably the most recognisable president of the European Commission because the EU has been very much in our lives over the past five years with the coronavirus pandemic, with her support for Ukraine and so on, and ultimately powerful.

And you know what? This is really important because the question is, is she going to move towards Georgia Maloney and therefore be really harsh when it comes to migration and maybe potentially

diminish the Green Deal? Or will she try to stick with the centre and her traditional allies in the Greens, the socialists and the centre. Shona, leave us with the cliffhanger, because when we find out, we will come back and discuss it again,

because there's so much more to talk about. But we've run out of time. I think she's going to try to go with the centre, but I think it's going to be far too flexible. There's going to be compromise all the way. It's yet to be seen. Shona Murray, Europe correspondent at Euronews, and Politico's Sarah Wheaton,

host of the EU Confidential podcast, talking to me this week. Now, with only three weeks until the general election, coverage here on Women's Hour is hotting up as we discuss the issues that matter most to women. Our series, speaking to the leaders of all the seven main parties, is now underway. So far, we've talked to Reen Apiorweth, leader of Plaid Cymru,

or the Party of Wales, as it's also known, and Carla Denyer, co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales. And you can go to BBC Sounds to hear both of those interviews in full. Next Tuesday, Woman's Hour will have a special extended 90-minute programme where Nuala will be putting your questions to senior women from the main political parties in our Woman's Hour election debate. You can get involved by telling us the issues you care about most. What are your priorities for future government policy? Where do you want your money to be spent?

And what are the issues you think are being ignored in the party manifestos? Let us know and we will put them to the politicians. Get in touch with us in the usual way. Text 84844, contact us via social media, it's at BBC Woman's Hour, or, and we would very much encourage this, why don't you leave us a voice note on 03700 100 444. Still to come on the programme, the legend that is Shaka Khan.

And remember, you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live during the week, just subscribe to The Daily Podcast for free on BBC Sounds. Now to the latest discovery from the investigation into the murder of Emma Caldwell. To remind you, Emma was a 27-year-old sex worker in Glasgow when in 2005 her body was found naked in a remote wood. The investigation into her murder became known as one of Scotland's most high-profile unsolved cases until a BBC investigation

paved the way for the arrest and eventual conviction of Ian Packer 19 years after Emma was murdered. Ian Packer was found guilty of the crime in February this year, as well as attacks on 22 women, including 11 rapes. And earlier this week, we brought you news that nearly 300 rapes and sexual assaults reported by sex workers during the Emma Caldwell murder investigation were not dealt with by police at the time. The BBC Scotland reporter who's been across this from the beginning and whose work was pivotal in bringing Ian Packer to justice is Sam Poling and she joined Claire in the studio. They were also joined by former detective Sergeant Willie Mason who worked on

the inquiry in 2005. Claire began by asking Sam who Emma was. Yeah, Emma, as you say, she was a 27-year-old woman. Her sister died of cancer and she was incredibly grief-stricken about this. She was struggling and her boyfriend at the time introduced her to heroin and she very quickly became addicted and moved up to Glasgow where she started working on the streets of Glasgow

as a sex worker to fund that addiction. And it was in 2005, April 2005, that she went missing and her body was found five weeks later in remote woods about an hour's drive from Glasgow. I mean, incredibly remote, so difficult to find. And it was a massively high profile case, as you say, not least because the original murder inquiry into Emma's murder, they wrongly arrested and charged four men with killing Emma. The inquiry team spent four million pounds. They spent two years on this police inquiry. In it, they launched one of the most

sophisticated surveillance operations in the country against these four men, only for the case to collapse in 2007, because the evidence that they got was just plain wrong. And the case went cold. When did Ian Packer then become a person of interest for the police? Immediately. I mean, within weeks of Emma's murder, he was spoken to. The police started to take statements from women and women were telling them about a violent man who had a van. They described the van. They

described the van. And one night, this man is stopped in the red light district and the van matches the description. And it's Ian Packer. And he's brought in to give a statement. His photograph is taken. And women start to pick him out of the police photo books. That's the man who's been violent. That's the man who's raped me. And they start to identify him as that's a man who raped Emma in the year before she went missing. So this man becomes central to this investigation. The women also start to identify him as being a man that's taken them to some remote woods about an hour's drive from Glasgow. You know where I'm going with this. It's the same woods where Emma's body was found, the same remote woods where Emma's body was found.

Ian Packer himself is asked by the police, show us where you take women. And he gets in the police car and he directs them and they end up an hour's drive from Glasgow down in these same remote woods. But the inquiry continued to focus on these four men who were arrested and charged until the case collapsed. And the case went cold, as I say, until 2015, when the Sunday Mail newspaper named Ian Packer as a potential suspect. Another investigation was launched. And again, nothing happened. Why did it take so long then, Sam, for justice to be served? I think it was largely down to attitudes at the time. These were prostitutes. They were drug addicts. They weren't believed. They were silenced very often.

You're going to hear in a minute from Willie Mason as to why they were silenced or how they were silenced. And, you know, Ian Packer was only really brought to light again because he came to me wanting his name cleared. I went to investigate and discovered that after many months of meeting this man, the killer that I'm looking for was him. I mean, it's incredible.

You can still see that interview on the BBC iPlayer. That must have been quite something, being in the same room as him. Well, yes, because I'd been meeting this man for months and I'm thinking, OK, you know, no smoke without fire. Maybe it was these Turkish men. Why did the case collapse? And all the while I'm investigating the case, not realising that he is the man that I'm looking for,

not just Emma's killer, but a serial rapist. I mean, multiple reports of attacks by this man. It's your dogged determination that has helped put him behind bars. But today we have the news that nearly 300 rapes and sexual assaults reported by sex workers you've just mentioned during that Emma Caldwell murder investigation were not dealt with by police at the time. Unsurprising given the attitudes that you've just described. But tell us more about what you've discovered. So as I was investigating Packer, I started to find statements that women were giving at the time to the police inquiry team.

And I kept reading the same thing over and over again. They would be asked, did you know Emma? Did you know any violent clients that she had? And typically they'd say, yes, I knew Emma. I didn't know her violent clients, but I have a violent client. I was raped a month ago. I was sexually assaulted six months ago. They'd give details of properties, addresses, details of cars in which these attacks happened. And I couldn't find anything happening to these reports. And the more I started to investigate, I discovered that 276 offences were reported at the time to the Merge Inquiry team, and nothing happened. You mentioned Willie Mason. Let's bring Willie in now. Former Detective Sergeant Willie Mason,

who worked on the inquiry in 2005. Good morning. Good morning. Thanks so much for joining us. I understand you were based on a bus run by a church group which, and we're very familiar with these buses, they park each week in certain areas of town to keep people safe. This bus parked in the Red Light

District. So what had you been asked to do? Well, first of all, let me defend the real detectives that were on this case, the guys who knew the truth. Not everyone was the same. This was the senior management team that were so bloody minded and

career driven that they just pushed everything to the side despite being told time and time again. And it cost a lot of us our careers and it cost a lot of us to end our time in the police very unhappy and unsettled. Yes, because you no longer work for the police.

I mean, I guess what you went through in this particular case maybe led to that, but tell us what happened. What were you told when you were on this bus and by whom? I went on to the Salt and Light bus, which was a church in Glasgow who looked after the sex workers in Glasgow at that time, provided them with a safe haven for cups of tea, soup on a winter's night church in Glasgow who looked after the sex workers in Glasgow at that time, provided them with a safe haven for cups of tea, soup on a winter's night, and an ear to be listened to, and sometimes the church workers would take them upstairs and say a wee prayer for them. They were basically trying to look after the girls. I went onto the bus many, many

nights. It was a Tuesday or a Thursday night every week for weeks and weeks. And I put in countless numbers of intelligence forms and reports from prostitutes that they had been assaulted. I even put in a handbag with about 200 registration numbers of a car on it. And I ended up buying the girl a new handbag to replace it. She used to take note of the car registration numbers when she saw one of her fellow sex workers getting in. And time and time again we asked at briefings what's happening to all these reports and we were told they'll be dealt with by another inquiry team

at another time. But we really all knew that that would never happen. And why do you think it never happened? Because the persons who were in charge of the investigation were determined to show the new Chief Constable, Stephen House, that they were the new kids on the block and that they were going to be career-driven and they would drive the CID to where it should be.

But they were really, they were incapable of doing that and they just lied their way through this whole inquiry and basically they just hid everything away from the chief constable and the powers to be and ploughed on forwarding their own careers. We're going to hear from Police Scotland in just a second because Sam has been speaking to somebody there but you're essentially saying that all the evidence you passed over just got boxed, just got shelved. That's absolutely what happened. We call it boxing in the police.

It was all boxed, put in a cupboard and forgotten about because there was just so much of it that they weren't able to deal with it. They had already ploughed all their money and resources into these four Turkish men and the ground staff on this inquiry, myself and the other people who have spoken to Sam Pollan, knew that Ian Packer was the main suspect. We knew Ian Packer killed Emma Caldwell all those years ago. And we were bullied, just bullied, into keeping quiet.

Sam, the reaction to this then, what you've uncovered today with the help of Willie? Yeah, well, you imagine being one of these women and hearing now that the report that you made was just disregarded. It wasn't an accident. It wasn't a slip up. As Willie says, you know, these reports were simply ignored. So the women are angry, understandably. They say it goes towards the way they were treated at the time by the police. They were disregarded because they were prostitutes, because they were drug addicts, and they would often find

themselves to be the focus of police attention rather than what they were reporting. One woman told me that when she tried to report an attack to police, they arrested her for prostitution instead. There was twice I went to report things and taken up there by uniformed officers in a car and then ended up myself for a section 46 because I was out in the streets working and they would do nothing else with the rest of the information. I would just be in a cell. I mean, what's even more shocking about this particular victim's story

is that the man she was trying to report is someone who had attacked her. Actually, it was two attacks she was reporting. It was, ironically, Ian Packer that she was trying to report. Not only was it not taken seriously, she was the one arrested. Let's just bring Willie back in for a second. You've kind of alluded to this, Willie. Is this indicative of the culture of the police at the time?

Not all, but some? Well, not all, but some, yeah. I mean, a lot of the time, what Sam has told you and what that victim has told you is correct. It was the easy way out for the police. You know, charge them with a Section 46 and lock them up, and that way it will go away. Nobody will believe them.

And I'm afraid that was a lot of the culture, and it was indicative at the time right through the police force but especially at senior officer level, you know, I mean it was this particular inquiry, not all senior officers, you know, were rotten but this particular inquiry they were.

Sam, you mentioned you've been speaking to Police Scotland, what have they had to say about this? Well I should say that the investigating force at the time into Emma's murder was Strathclyde Police. That no longer exists. We have a single national force, Police Scotland. They've already apologised publicly

for the police having let Emma and her family down as well as the victims of Packer because of the way the original merger inquiry was run. And I should say something that Willie said, which is not all officers, you all officers did a bad job. I've spoken to numerous officers who did the most incredible work, and they were named by the judge in the sentencing of Packer for the professional way that they operated. But the deputy chief constable for Police Scotland, Bec Smith,

has said now that a separate operation was launched into the offences that I'm talking about, which were ignored. She says a number of them are now going through the criminal courts and she encourages women to report crimes regardless of how long ago they occurred. Time is no barrier to justice and if women feel like they want to come forward and report now, then absolutely it's the time to do that. I think one of the sad things about this, Claire,

is that many of the women who made the reports back in 2005, they're now dead. So they won't ever see the justice that they deserve to see. Sam Poling and Willie Mason. Sam Poling's podcast, Who Killed Emma, is on BBC Sounds. And as you heard, Police Scotland has encouraged women to report crimes regardless of how long ago they occurred. And those investigations are ongoing. Now remember that you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10am during the week just subscribe to the daily podcast for free via BBC Sounds and if there is a topic or a

subject you would like us to discuss here on Woman's Hour we'd love to hear from you. Feel free to get in touch by emailing us through our website. Now, the American singer-songwriter known as the Queen of Funk, Chaka Khan, is celebrating her 50th anniversary in music this year. With hits such as Ain't Nobody, I Feel For You and the anthem I'm Every Woman, her music has sold an estimated 70 million records, winning her 10 Grammys. Now she's curating the Meltdown Festival 2024 at the Southbank Centre in London with acts such as Misha Parris, Lady Blackbird, Judy Jackson, Big Joanie and more chiba.

She is also performing and we caught up with her earlier this week in her dressing room and she started by telling us how she got involved with the Meltdown Festival. I think we got a call asking would I be interested in the Meltdown and then we came out here shortly after that afterwards for a meeting with Adam and the whole crew and we talked about what exactly we'd like to do. Oh he asked me well what I like to do because I'm the curator of this Meltdown I've never curated anything except my kids. So I thought about it, and I said,

well, you know, I think the most important thing right now on this planet are young people and community. So I said, let's just make this one, why don't we, about the youth who are going to be our future. So I think it would be a wise thing to have children involved. And I think children are so special. I love children more than anything. I'm going to perform with my band.

Of course, I'll be performing all the songs that, hopefully, all the songs that people want to hear. I've done so many in my career. So I picked the songs that I think that most of the younger people will have heard from their mothers growing up and the ones that since they become adults that they still love. So that's one of the criteria that I used in order to pick the songs. But I love them all for different reasons and in different ways. And some more than others, of course.

There's some that I've been singing for 50 years. I think Ain't Nobody is still probably my oldest favorite. It's really the beat that really grabs you first. And then the lyrics are lovely. You know, ain't nobody loves you better. And, you know, you can sing that to one of your children, to your husband, to a good friend. You could sing that to anybody. And that's another thing that I love about the song, you know. And it's just a fun song to do on stage, you know.

I've done quite a few anthems for women. I'm Every Woman, I think, has become the most popular one of them all. And I think that the women look forward to that. And you'd be surprised how many men do, too. Maybe not. But mostly women really love that song. And I have the women all sing along with me, and they all do.

It's a strong, powerful song written by Valerie Simpson. And was it my first hit as a solo artist? I believe it was. It was my first hit as a solo artist. So it's endearing, you know, for more than one reason. Sissy Houston sang background with me a lot when I lived in New York. That was during the 10 years time that I worked with Arif Martin, a great producer. And it would be mostly Sissy, a lot of times Luther Vandross,

and myself. I sang a lot of my backgrounds as well. But one evening we were in the studio and we were, you know, winding down and Sissy says to me that she has a daughter that who's a great singer and she's in her teens. I said, really? She says, oh, yeah, she sings at church. She blows a lot of the water. She's really amazing. I said, well, bring her down.

And so she brought her down, and she sang background with us on a few songs. And that was the first time I met Whitney Houston. She was like a little sister. As a child, as a young girl, my mother and father sang around the house on weekends as we did house cleaning and things like that. And my little sister and I, we used to join in on the songs that they were singing. A lot of them were jazz, opera, things like that. But we learned them and we sang them and we thought everybody did that. We thought every them and we sang them and we thought everybody did that. We thought every family could sing and every family sang on every

Saturday, you know, and they cleaned up and that. I didn't really think of it as a way of life for me or a life endeavor until I was in a talent show in a little girl group that we had. I was on stage singing, and people started throwing money on the stage. So that's when I equated, oh, I can make a living doing this. And I love it so much. So that's when I really knew that I had something special. I felt that I did anyway.

My family name is Stevens. Yvette Marie is what my parents named me. I became involved in, like, a way of life. It's really a religion in Africa. It's the Yoruba religion. And in that religion, you get a new name. And your names are given to you after spirits or orishas that are your spirits. By the way, an African priest or baba gave me all of these things. And so my entire spiritual name is Shaka Adune Adufe Yimoya Hodare Karifi.

Khan came from a previous husband. Shaka means fire, warrioress, and all those good things. I like. There is a rap about it that I had nothing to do with, mind. But in one of the songs, I Feel For You, I believe, Stevie Wonder wrote for me some years ago. Arif Martin had the bright idea to have a rapper come on and do this rap on the song. And I wasn't so keen on it at first because when I first heard this guy sing my name over and over again, let me rock you, let me love you, I was like, oh God, I have to live with this.

But little did I know that rap was going to be a really big art form. And that's over 50 years ago. So I said to our ref, do we have to do this? And he said, yes, my dear dear it would be a wonderful hit for the closing of the meltdown i'll be performing with the new civilization orchestra and i'm really looking forward to that because i get to sing songs that are very near and dear to me because these are songs i learned as a child with my father and mother singing as well like diamonds Diamonds Are Forever. I'm also singing, like, covering, like, To Serve With Love by Lulu. I love her. But mostly songs that back in the 50s, grown-ups listened to.

I mean, I love, absolutely adore singing with an orchestra. There's nothing more beautiful, more angelic besides children on earth, you know, for me. I don't see any end in sight. I love what I'm doing. And there's a lot left in me. Chaka Khan's Meltdown runs until Sunday, the 23rd of June, 2024. And another one of the acts performing, Les Amazons d'Afrique, a pan-African all-female

supergroup, joined me on Friday's programme. I implore you to catch up with it on BBC Sounds. It was pretty special. That's all from me. On Monday, Nuala will be joined by Debbie Wildman, the British singing sensation who captured worldwide attention during the pandemic when her uncanny impersonations of Judy Garland went viral. She's since performed at Carnegie Hall and now she'll be making her West End debut as Judy. But she still does her day job at an optician's. That's all from me. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's 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.