Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: The award-winning composer Shirley J Thompson, Domestic Violence Prevention & Managing our data

Episode Date: June 19, 2021

Composer Shirley J. Thompson is the first woman in Europe to have composed and conducted a symphony within the last 40 years. She tells us about her new work Emanation, which she’s written for the disabled-led ensemble BSO.Dame Darcey Bussell Former Principal of The Royal Ballet & Strictly Judge, President of the RAD & creator of Diversity Dance Mix, Dame Darcey Bussell tells us about her mission to rescue Britain’s ballet dancers and raise spirits and money for struggling dance companies by creating the British Ballet Charity Gala at the Royal Albert Hall in London bringing together eight ballet companies in one evening of dance.We discuss the results of a BBC Freedom of Information request which asked police forces in the UK how many police had been accused of sexual misconduct. We hear from our reporter Melanie Abbott, from Ruth a former officer who found herself being sexually assaulted by a colleague and Harriet Wistrich from the Centre for Women’s Justice.This year the government has announced an extra 19 million pounds for domestic abuse schemes in England and Wales the majority of which will go to towards perpetrator programmes. . But just how effective are they? We hear from John who has just completed a 20 week domestic violence prevention programme at the Hampton Trust and to Vicky Gilroy who is a facilitator on those prevention programmes at the Trust.In today’s online digital world everything we do now on our phones or our computers—everything we look at, click on or say online—becomes “data”. Companies and governments increasingly share and use this information to make decisions about our lives. A small UK based team of experts called Foxglove is challenging how our data’s used and they’ve had some remarkable successes over the last year. It’s director Cori Crider tells us how the group successfully challenged the A Level grading algorithm last year.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed Editor: Siobhann Tighe

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour. This week we discuss the findings of a Freedom of Information request made by this programme into the number of police officers accused of sexual misconduct. We'll also talk about the importance of keeping our data safe and private with the tech campaigner Corrie Crider, and we'll hear how effective domestic abuse prevention programmes are

from John, who's recently completed a 20-week course. I realised straight away that I needed to be on that course because I was abusive verbally most of the time and I was very toxic. I would literally just open my mouth before I engaged my brain and I would just let it go, just using dog-triff words. And how the creative juices can even dry up for the most talented of composers, including Shirley J Thompson, the first woman in Europe to have composed and conducted a symphony within the last 40 years. I can remember one month I needed to write something for a Queen Elizabeth Hall premiere and nothing came to me for a whole month.

I'd get to the piano and try to get something out. In the end, I wrote the piece in about a week. And it's probably the fact that it was spinning around in my mind for a month. All to come. But first, Dame Darcy Bussell, former principal of the Royal Ballet and Strictly Judge, president of the Royal Academy of Dance and creator of Diversity Dance Mix,

has now come to the rescue of Britain's ballet dancers. On a mission to raise spirits and money for struggling dance companies, she's created the British Ballet Charity Gala at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The event is pay-per-view, streamed from 7pm on Friday and available on demand until the 18th of July.

She told me why she created the gala. There was just a great need for it. You know, a lot of these companies haven't performed for over a year and the unsureness of the area and the arts. And these are young artists, you know, at the beginning of their careers. And it is a young person's career as well, like an athlete, the arts. And dancers, they were desperate. They were really desperate.

And I thought, gosh, if we can create a noise, the only way we can do it is getting all probably of the eight leading companies together. And, of course, that's a challenge in normal times because obviously they were all looking after themselves and looking after their dancers and keeping them in training and hoping to perform and everything. But with all the restrictions to get eight companies at the Royal Albert Hall was extraordinary, but everybody was behind it.

And it was so exciting because we had 65 dancers I'd never even believe we could get that many um because normal galas usually are just the you know the starring couple of the of the companies um but we were able to get big groups of the companies onto that stage and the energy and their enthusiasm and the excitement, it was just beautiful. And so powerful to appreciate that performing arts, you know, has this strength to connect people and to uplift them. And it was just a need. It was a big need. And I was so thrilled that it worked out. And the funds raised go towards the ballet companies and each of them has nominated a community dance company to share the money raised. How vital is this? Yes, so important. I

really wanted to create awareness that dance has a much bigger reach. You know, it's wonderful that we have this highly skilled art and this beauty that we can go and see, you know, on stages across the country. But it was so important that we also realised that dance connects, you know, on stages across the country. But it was so important that we also realised that dance connects, you know, communities all around the country as well. And these people work incredibly hard with young kids and the elderly and all in different circumstances and helps their lives and their lifestyles so much.

So it was brilliant that each company could nominate a community dance company and we could then show just a little bit of what they do with footage. I mean, it was a difficult time because obviously a lot of these community dance companies weren't in practice. So to just to get any sort of footage of what they do and what they do so brilliantly was really important. And that really resonated actually with the audience. Sadly, in the streaming, we won't be able to show because we had to condense the show into 90 minutes. We won't be able to show all of the nominated

community dance companies, but they will be on a link on the website so that everybody can see who was nominated for those. And that was really, it's great that we can do that. Absolutely. And it's wonderful, Darcy, that you're doing this and celebrating dance and bringing us dance, bringing us dance.

We've all been craving it so much. And you're right, dance is universal. You know, every culture dances. But sometimes there is a concern that, you know, the amount it costs to be able to send your children to dance classes or in the past, ballet has been seen as quite elitist how do you make dance accessible to all and I know you're quite invested in this yeah no I'm really invested in that and it's so important that every kid gets the experience and and has a taster of dance because it is so

wonderful for your well-being and And yes, it is expensive. You go to private classes and if you want to go down the vocational route, you know, you have to get support and help if you can't afford it. But the support is there. And of course, highlighting what the community dance companies do is exactly that. They are there and these wonderful groups and directors of these community dance companies really invest so much time in making sure that millions of kids get an opportunity to

experience dance. I do a very small project myself for state schools as part of physical education to make dance a normal practice to engage with kids in activities because it as you said it's universal it connects with every culture and it's enjoyable it makes them smile it makes them you know they don't even appreciate they're even exercising you know the focus and attention on the moves and you can make it so inclusive and and and simple it doesn't have to be highly skilled to enjoy it but you're right it's got to be there for everybody and And we know dance became your life, your world, your amazing prima ballerina, but it empowered you as a child, didn't it? Let's talk about when you first started dancing and how it did that for you. Yeah, I probably, you know, I probably didn't recognize when I was young,

what it was doing to me. Only I was, I suffered really badly from dyslexia as a young child. And so sitting in a classroom and focusing on words and a piece of paper and numbers was, you know, just not easy for me at all. And I found that really difficult. And dance was that wonderful way of creating a great confidence within me uh something that I could achieve on something I could build on something that um I I had an

ability to understand how I could express myself you know without words uh yeah a way of connecting um and and understanding myself um and and then it was I was I felt good about myself you know and and I think we forget that the arts is has such an amazing tool for so many children you know if your vocabulary isn't as fluent as and as good as you want it at a certain age you know dance has that ability to help kids gain confidence to express themselves and and to feel good about themselves and and it definitely did that for me I've got to ask you Darcy because you know it's the buzz is happening I mean you have this amazing career as a ballet dancer and then you did something really surprising and became a judge on Strictly completely well I love the show I love the show I mean and seeing

you on there and seeing everybody go through these brilliant experiences being on it, you know, really stepping out of their comfort zone. It's, you know, it really just shows you what dance can do and inspire and to motivate people. You know, activities and being physical, obviously, is an incredible important part of our well-being in our everyday life. And people forget that dance has just that tool. It's just a brilliant tool to make you exercise and feel good, but not to an extreme and, but is doing the job well. And to see those people just enjoy every minute of it. Of course, the music, the professional dancers. I mean,

I loved being part of that show. It was, yeah, it was something I'd never even appreciated I'd ever get a chance to do. But I love that seven years I had on there. The wonderful Dame Darcy Bussell there, who incidentally didn't vote me into the final in 2015. But I won't hold it against you, Darcy. Now, most of us would think of the police as a safe space to turn in a time of need, but it's a belief that's been seriously questioned by a couple of incidents over the past year. The most worrying is the case of Sarah Everard, the woman who went missing near Clapham Common in London. Police Constable Wayne Cousins last week pleaded guilty to her rape and kidnap

and accepted responsibility for killing her, but didn't enter a plea as medical reports were being prepared. Last year, there was shock to hear that two police officers allegedly circulated photos to a WhatsApp group of two women's bodies they'd been sent to guard. Sisters Nicole Smallman and Bieber Henry were found dead in a country park in northwest London. The officers have been charged with misconduct in public office, but haven't yet entered a plea. Both these cases are ongoing, so we aren't discussing them. However, both have raised questions for many people

about whether there's a bigger problem within our police forces. Woman's Hour has carried out its own investigation. Jointly with BBC Newsnight, we asked police forces in the UK how many police had been accused of sexual misconduct. Of course, most police officers do their jobs with integrity and honesty. But campaigners say some of our results are worrying. Our reporter Melanie Abbott had been looking into this. We sent Freedom of Information requests to all 46 police forces in the UK.

32 of them replied. The others either didn't make the deadline or told us that it was too costly to provide these statistics. Now, the data we got suggests there have been just under 1,500 allegations of sexual misconduct against police officers in the last five years. Now, there are just over 86,000 officers working in the forces that sent us this data. So that is a relatively small number. From these allegations, 204 cases saw some form of disciplinary action taken against them. 7% were dismissed, another 7% were reprimanded. The data shows that 3% of the allegations, that's 52 cases, ended up in court. Now, just by way of context, and this isn't a direct comparison, because sexual misconduct allegations may not be actual sexual offences, but the prosecution rate for sexual

offences in England and Wales in the general population is 3.2%. Bear in mind, though, that this data isn't from all of the forces. Some of them, as I said, just didn't provide information. Campaigners do say then that it is worrying to find that over the last five years, there has been, as I said, almost 1,500 police officers accused of some kind of sexual misconduct. Now, we have also been doing our own separate investigations from Newsnight and an FOI request was made with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which asked about the last three years. And that request has revealed some of the detail of the kind of allegations that have been made against officers.

And what are we talking about when we say sexual misconduct? Yeah, our freedom of information request with the Bureau has shown that it is a whole range of things, including extramarital affairs, having sexual relations at work and making unwanted sexual advances. But the more concerning, I think people would agree, are allegations about criminal offences. And these include include 29 rapes including one of a child. Most of the allegations were about sexual assaults, 149 in total including some which happened during strip searches. Other allegations included stalking, indecent exposure, revenge porn. There were two allegations of attempting to converse with a child or possessing

or making indecent images of children. Interestingly, just over 40% of these allegations came from members of the police, so within the force itself. And one of those is a former police woman we're calling Ruth. Now, she said she was too scared to make a criminal complaint at first and regretted it when she did. Her words are spoken by an actor to protect her identity. I was a probationary officer and I'd worked with this male officer for several months. We had got on well, then on a works outing I got sexually assaulted by him.

He touched my chest multiple times, you touch mine I'll touch yours. No one else saw and he was my line manager so I felt like I couldn't say anything. I felt violated. I was really uncomfortable. I told my partner and he was fuming. What happened next? The next day I got a text from him saying hope you had a good time. I decided to reply saying he was inappropriate and if it happened again I would report him. He sent a text back apologising. Could you move on from that? No I didn't want to work

alongside him anymore but when I told my superiors they said I was duty bound to say why. When I did, they said I had to tell professional standards and make a complaint. I said no, I didn't want to risk my job. I was eventually persuaded to speak to professional standards and was interviewed as an assault victim. Only for professional standards, I didn't make a criminal complaint at that stage. What happened with professional standards. I didn't make a criminal complaint at that stage. What happened with professional standards? By the time the hearing was due, I had been transferred and found out that my new boss was a friend and colleague of the man who assaulted me. He issued me with a development plan to improve my performance. I was upset as I believed there was nothing to justify this.

They said if I didn't complete it, I would be marked as underperforming. In the same meeting, they told me I wasn't cut out to be a cop and they were extending my two-year probation period by four months. This felt to me more like a disciplinary than anything else. Sometime later in training, I was served with allegations about my honesty and integrity. This was a month before the misconduct hearing against my former line manager was due to be heard. I had to wait months to get full details. I got served with 19 other allegations including

that I'd lied about my health and that a back injury caused at work had actually happened in my own time. At the time, officers from the Professional Standards Department would turn up unannounced when I was working. I wasn't allowed to get my Police Federation representative along. The Federation was of course also supporting the man who assaulted me. I was pregnant at the time. All of this made me very ill. I got depression and anxiety.

I ended up going to hospital with stress at one time. What was going on with the investigation into the other officer at this time? His hearing was postponed four times. They were dealing with mine instead. I kept being told I was not entitled to legal advice. Eventually I got independent legal advice and I made a criminal complaint about the officer but after a 12-month wait I was told there would be no further action saying it didn't meet the evidential threshold to be sent to the Crown Prosecution Service. It was over a year later that the professional standards

hearing into the allegations about me took place and I was dismissed. I couldn't believe it. I wrote to the police and crime commissioner for backing but I never heard anything. I didn't know what to do. What happened to the officer you complained about? He resigned. But they still allowed him to give evidence at my hearing and make counter-allegations. Now he has no stain on his character

but I am on the policing bard list. I can never be an officer and it's all for something I didn't do. I can't believe it. I got assaulted. It was never dealt with and I lost my job. I'm now taking legal action. Mel Abbott, our reporter, is still with us. What have the police force in question said about that case? Yeah, we're not naming the

force to protect her anonymity, but the force told us that it can't comment because this case is subject to legal proceedings. Now, we have also asked in a separate Freedom of Information request how many police officers were accused of any kind of misconduct while they were investigating crimes where the victims were female. And over the last three years, at least 61 officers were accused of misconduct for a range of issues. It includes things like falsifying log entries, failing to protect vulnerable women. There may be some overlap with our overall figures because there were some allegations too, again, of sexual misconduct.

Now, eight officers have resigned over those allegations, some before disciplinary hearings could be brought. Now, the actual number could be higher still because 27 forces failed to provide us with any data. Well, thank you very much for that. Harriet Wistritt is also in the studio, director of the Centre for Women's Justice. The centre has made a super complaint against the police, which accuses them of institutionalised sexism, a case that we covered a few weeks ago here on Women's Hour. First of all, Harriet, your reaction to these figures that our Freedom of Information request has uncovered? They are shocking figures that there are these levels of

allegations against police and what we know for sure because we know in any event whoever is a perpetrator that women are very reluctant to report sexual assault and other forms of misconduct to the police. And that probably almost certainly is amplified where the alleged perpetrator is a police officer, because who are they reporting to? To the police. So they're likely to be, you know, very significant under estimate of the true scale of misconduct by the police. And that is, of course, extremely concerning, because the police are who you should be able to go to, to seek support and protection and investigation of allegations. Which is part of your complaint in the sense of who you want to investigate,

who polices the police? Absolutely. So we are awaiting an investigation into a super complaint that we launched last year, which looks at police perpetrated abuse, primarily domestic abuse, but obviously it involves often sexual misconduct. And one of our key recommendations is that there has to be an independent reporting channel so that women have confidence to come forward. And there has to be an independent reporting channel so that women have confidence to come forward and there has to be independent investigation because often the very same people who are investigating

know the officers concerned, they're in the same police force, particularly in the smaller police forces, and this is very undermining of confidence. We've had over 150 women come forward to us since we launched the complaint and we've seen some very alarming stories like the one we just heard. Harriet, our case and our investigation here does show the complexities of these investigations too. There were allegations also made about female police officers which were upheld. Some of these cases are just very difficult, aren't they?

Well, sexual misconduct generally, sexual assault and domestic abuse, you know, have complexity, but we have to grapple with them. And I think the question in relation to many of the sexual misconduct issues, you know, like officers who target women that are reporting rape or sexual assault or domestic violence. And we hear many of those sorts of cases where victims have reported and then suddenly the officer starts an inappropriate sexual contact. At the time, the woman may be confused.

She may think, oh, here's an officer coming to rescue me. What a marvellous man. And then realise he's abusing her position. So it may not amount to a criminal offence, but it is a form of police misconduct. And that should be absolutely, you know, a sackable offence. We wanted to interview Louisa Rolfe from the National Police Chiefs Council, which represents all police forces, but she wasn't available this morning. She has spoken to our colleagues on Newsnight.

Well, let's hear what Louisa has to say on that, about the police being a safe place for women. Policing on the whole has a very positive can-do culture. And I've experienced more misogyny and abuse outside of policing than I've ever seen within policing, because this is a very small minority of people. But we're also really alive to the fact that a very small number of people are attracted to roles like policing because of the power, the status it affords them. And we work incredibly hard to root that out and ensure that, you know, we are intolerant of this kind of behaviour and abuse in policing. And there are more and more women in senior positions in policing, like me, like others in police roles. And I think we take this incredibly seriously and will identify and address any poor behaviour that we see. Harriet, the idea that

she's experienced more misogyny outside the police forces as a form of kind of trying to calibrate this in some way, does that work for you with what you're seeing and saying? Well, all I can say is all the accounts that I've heard over the years and through this super complaint, which suggests that there is misogyny. It's not just in relation to perpetrators as well. So many women who report crimes of violence against them experience misogynistic attitudes from police officers. Now, I agree, of course, many police officers go in there with the aim to improve and protect women. And it's not all police officers by any chalk. Well, it would seem the majority fall into that camp, even if you think it's underreported. Absolutely. And there is no place whatsoever for misogyny within the police. And it needs to be

tackled much more robustly and rooted out and we we need to hear a zero tolerance uh response about all these allegations a final word from louisa or from the police side of things she does think it's being dealt with very robustly let's just hear that i'm horrified if i discover that there are police officers who who abuse and use their role in particular to abuse others as are are the vast, vast majority of my colleagues. So, you know, there's nothing we hate more in policing than a bad police officer. So, you know, I think our own investigators do a great job, but also the Independent Office for Police Conduct have a role here in overseeing what we do. But this is also an area of our

business that's inspected regularly by Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary to ensure that we are independent and appropriate in those investigations. We do take them incredibly seriously. But also, I think we are really keen to learn from work like yours. The FOI request, there will be things for us to learn from that, from great organisations like the Centre for Women's Justice, who will hold a light up to shine a light on this work so that we can be even better at responding for victims. Independent, impartial. And yet, Harriet, as we started this conversation, you think there needs to be a different process. And I'm also minded to mention here on Women's Hour a few weeks ago, again, Sue Fish, the former chief constable of Nottinghamshire Police Force, actually when I asked her,

would she report a crime against herself to the police? And she said no, which was quite a moment. So is it independent enough? Is it impartial enough? Well, we don't think it is. We think we have seen too many cases where the Department of Professional Standards, which is the investigators,

are too closely linked, are not robust and independent enough. And for that reason, in our super complaint, we have recommended a completely separate route for reporting and a separate route for investigating and for misconduct proceedings as well, so that there should be reassurance. Because clearly there are too many cases. I'm not saying all cases because sometimes we see very good investigations by Department of Professional Standards, but it's inconsistent and there's too many bad cases and something needs to be done. And if the police want to completely restore confidence for women reporting, they need to put in place measures to ensure that there's a greater degree of independence.

That was Harriet Wistrich and you heard from Louisa Rolfe and from our reporter Melanie Abbott. And we had an email from someone who wishes to remain anonymous saying, I just wanted to share my experiences with the police as a victim of rape. I feel that the police need much more training in dealing with trauma and shock and in fact when I finally got therapy for PTSD my experience with the police had formed part of my trauma. When I first went to the police I was told that they could smell alcohol on me. I was not given the help I needed. Later on I realised what happened to me was not right and I was able to speak to a police officer who specialised in sexual abuse. She was really helpful but it took

me five hours to make my statements and I was kept in a room that felt like an interrogation room with no opportunity to eat or drink whilst my humiliating and traumatic experience was picked over in great detail. The police just don't have enough training in dealing with trauma so they don't know how to help women who are in a post-traumatic state. If you'd like to get in touch with us about anything you hear on the programme, we would love to hear from you. You can email us by going to our website or contact us via our social media at BBC Woman's Hour. Still to come on the programme, we talk data and online privacy with tech challenger Corrie Crider and we discuss how effective domestic abuse prevention programs actually are.

We hear from John, who's just completed a 20-week course, and Vicky Gilroy from the Hampton Trust. 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. Just subscribe to the daily podcast for free, I'll repeat that, for free,

via the Woman's Hour website. Now, Shirley J. Thompson is an award-winning composer of scores for orchestra, opera, TV, film and ballet. She's the first woman in Europe to have composed and conducted a symphony within the last 40 years. New Nation Rising, a 21st century symphony, was performed and recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and originally commissioned for the Queen's Golden Jubilee in 2002. She's just composed Emanation, a new work she's written for the disabled-led ensemble BSO Resound, part of Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

It had its world premiere performance on Thursday night at the Lighthouse Cultural Venue in Poole in front of a socially distanced audience. so so Shirley. Hello, Emma. How are you? I'm OK. Lovely to be able to play emanation there. What is it about? I was commissioned by BSO Resound and Dougie Scarf,

who's the chief executive, to write a piece that commemorates 60 years of the independent living movement. Now, what surprised me when I was doing the research is to find that it came off the back of the civil rights movement and the second wave feminist movement in the 60s. So the tenets of both organisations are found in the tenets of the independent living movement. And these were about, we must do the things as persons, as disabled people, we need to promote the things that are important to us. We don't want to be dictated to. These are the things that we need to happen. But there's one thing understanding, I suppose, that those feelings and those very strong emotions. to us. We don't want to be dictated to. These are the things that we need to happen.

But there's one thing understanding, I suppose, that those feelings and those very strong emotions, and then there's another thing finding music to express that. How do you do that? How do you go about creating a sound to try and express such strong feelings? Well, I look up to the sky and ask for inspiration. Yeah, that really is a tricky bit. So I would say I was trying to create a piece that would show off the excellence of the musicianship of all the wonderful performers in the Resound ensemble. So I was thinking of being very virtuosic in my writing for the instruments, but at the same time I was trying to think of ways that I could bring the ensemble together

to create this idea of critical mass and the whole independent living movement coming together through the 60s to the dynamic force that it is today. So it was really the way the movement has grown that inspired me musically. And the sounds, the instruments we're hearing there, tell us a bit more. The actual sounds. Yes, well, we have the violin, the cello, the clarinet, the linn instrument, which I was writing for for the first time, the flute and the marimba and percussion. And so it was a way of really unifying all of those quite disparate instruments in an ensemble. I tried to make each section conversational. So you'll hear

conversations between the violin and the cello. You'll hear musical conversations between the flute and the clarinet. And then you'll hear them all coming together with the marimba and the lin instrument being a kind of unifier of all of the instruments. Well, from what we could hear, it certainly sounded very beautiful and very affecting. So congratulations for that. Thanks, from what we could hear, it certainly sounded very beautiful and very affecting. So congratulations for that. I know that you're from a Jamaican background. What music did you grow up with and how did that influence you?

Oh, hugely. So I was very fortunate to grow up with the sounds of blue beat and ska and reggae and soul, Aretha Franklin, Tchaikovsky. My mother's father was whistling Tchaikovsky. Because of course, in Jamaica, you have the whole range of music on radio. You have classical music, you have gospel music, you have soul music. In fact, reggae might be fifth on the list in terms of what you actually hear. You hear a lot of rock music.

So in the house, I was fortunate to listen to lots of jamaican music and very heavily influenced by jamaican music and scar and bluebeats and so on bunny whaler bob marley so on but at the same time in the house we had lots of classical music i grew up performing lots of orchestras and playing bach beethoven and so on but um at the same time I equally loved um the popular music that um I had um the vernacular at home yes do you feel pressure when you come to that blank page I was thinking how it must feel you know I did say about you having that amazing accolade of being the first woman in Europe to have composed and conducted a symphony within

the last 40 years is that pressure something that you you struggle with or can you can you handle it because once you've got the talent for it you start building it and it's layers I can remember one month I needed to write something for a Queen Elizabeth Hall premiere and nothing came to me for a whole month I'd get up at seven o'clock in the morning get to the piano and tried you know I was just trying to get something out nothing came for a whole month. I'd get up at seven o'clock in the morning, get to the piano and try to get something out. Nothing came for a whole month. So, you know, it's a difficult thing, this creativity. But in the end, I wrote the piece in about a week.

And it's probably the fact that it was spinning around in my mind for a month and then something came. Wonderful. Shirley J J Thompson talking to Emma there. She wrote it in a week. Is that the equivalent of leaving your homework to the last minute? She came up trumps though. Now on Woman's Hour, we hear many stories from survivors of domestic abuse. Very rarely do we hear from those who've been the perpetrators of that abuse. John, not his real name, has just completed a 20-week domestic violence prevention programme at the Hampton Trust. The Trust helps people who've been abusive towards

their partners or ex-partners to change their behaviour. John wanted to speak out to encourage other men to recognise their abusive behaviour and seek help. This year, the government announced an extra £19 million for domestic abuse schemes in England and Wales, the majority of which will go towards perpetrator programmes. Whilst funding for perpetrators is important, these programmes must never come at the expense of funding support for survivors, say some groups. But just how effective are these programmes in changing behaviour? Emma spoke to John, whose ex-partner knows about this interview, and to Vicky Gilroy, who's a facilitator on the prevention programme at the Hampton Trust,

and she started by asking John about his referral onto the course. I was adamant that I didn't belong on that course and I didn't need to be there. However, I did turn up to the first session and then I quickly realised after about 40 minutes into an hour that I absolutely belonged to be on that course uh the adapt course for my abusive behavior and what made you realize that I literally just opened up and then I started talking about my actual behavior the way the course the way they put it to you the way they stripped it down tore everything apart made you realize and whether you open up or not that's your prerogative at some point. But I realised straight away that I needed to be on that course because I was abusive verbally most of the time and I was very toxic. Can you tell us a bit more about that?

Without even thinking about the terms and the circumstances that I was in, I would literally just open my mouth before I engaged my brain and I would just let it go just using dog trip words you know like horrible words uh to a demean to women slag slut bitch all of those things without even thinking what I was doing and I was just so reactive all the time I think that was my biggest trigger was being reactive so you weren't physical it was all never physical but even so you know however you dress this abuser abuse is abuse at the end of the day. So it's still a horrible, nasty trait to have being that toxic all the time. Just to get that detail of what you were doing, you talked about name calling.

Were you also controlling finances? Yep, I was controlling finances as well. Yep. I guess I was using isolation as well in many ways and some coercion in many ways as well yeah um i guess i was used in isolation as well in many ways and some coercion in many ways as well um like i said it never resulted to violence under any way shape or form but yeah i mean that is violence but in a in a different it's not physical yeah when you when you say in a mental in a mental way i was i was violent with um you know with my stamping of the feet, with the cutting looks, with threats. You know, yeah, I was that way inclined. And how long did you do this for?

And do you know why you were doing it? Well, for the whole time we were in a relationship. So obviously the first couple of years are always like the honeymoon period, as you call it. But then after that, yeah, it just got worse instead of better. And no, I was completely oblivious to my actions, as you call it but then after that yeah it just got it just got worse instead of better and no I was completely oblivious to my actions in denial of my actions right then I minimized it I blamed everybody else it's not me it's you you know all of those certain things and oh it was only a joke

you know that that's that's what I was doing and that's obviously you know a combination of also gaslighting as well where you're just pushing it onto somebody else and it's um yeah evidently it was me all the time did your partner seek help she did eventually she was brave enough to go and get help and sadly for me my ex-partner and my children landed up in a refuge and it took her years to have the courage to do that but she finally did it and she you know absolutely got no regrets that she did that she did the right thing because you know who knows where this could have landed up it could have landed up in violence or I don't know I'm just saying it could have um so she absolutely did the right thing did you keep being in touch with her no not for a couple of years then um it

all then landed up in court for seeing the children and stuff. So, no, we were absolutely not in touch. She wasn't allowed to be in touch with me under any circumstances. They actually moved her to a different county to keep away. I was just completely in denial of my actions and my toxic behaviour. Just had no idea at all. But surely the reaction of your partner, and I don't know what that was, but she must have been scared. She must have had reactions. Did that never make you feel bad, feel ashamed

that you should stop doing what you were doing and abusing her? At the time, no, I had no remorse, no shame, no embarrassment whatsoever. Of course, now I am embarrassed, I am ashamed, and I'm completely devastated that I lost my family. I paid the ultimate penalty for it. Do people know around you what happened yeah i've had no shame in talking to people about what i've done i think it's a very brave thing that i've done but i also think at the same time some of

my friends and some of my work colleagues the way they talk to women have been quite derogatory so now you know i'm at the stage now where if I hear them or see them saying something, I pull them up on it because it's, yeah, it's out of order now. But I never saw that before. I was just used to roll with it, thinking it's fun and just a bit of banter. But, you know, it's not. Where did this come from in you? Is it something you'd learned?

Is it something you'd seen? Was it from your friends? Childhood, I guess. I had a very abusive upbringing. My parents, my auntie and uncle should I say who raised me my parents died when I was very young they were very toxic and abusive and very physical a lot of the time and I took a lot of the brunt for that so even if I saw my siblings doing anything wrong I would take the blame for it because I just became accustomed to it in the end with the hitting and the slapping and all the other things,

the horrible things they used to do to me. So I guess that's where I learnt it all from, really, which is sad in many ways. You went on this course and what did it open your eyes to? Just my toxic traits, my triggers, just how abusive I'd actually been and yeah it just made me realize you know that all i was doing over the years was being minimizing denying blaming controlling so yeah it was always you know they do the two wheels when the one i was always on was the power and control wheel and yet i never saw it and you know it's just embarrassing now when i look back because

of the fact that at my age i I should never have been like that. And I should have seen it. My ex-partner kept telling me I needed help. And still, I just was in denial about it the whole time. Do you think you can say that you would never do this again? Categorically, categorically. I just I feel like now in a state of equanimity where i'm more composed i'm more reflective i will think about a situation i'm not reactive anymore and you know all those traits is the way i put it is all those traits are in a box but that box is now sealed and it will never come

out again where before it was always like a jack in the box before where i'd be okay for a few months and then bang they would be back out again and I'd be off again and yeah you know since I've been on this course for the last six months no toxic traits have been released whatsoever and I've finally seen the light so to speak. Let me bring in Vicky at this point. Vicky I know you didn't work directly with John but you are a facilitator on these programs. What do you do on them to make people like John realise that they're domestic abusers? Well, we don't do anything to make them. We are inviting them to look at their own behaviour. So sometimes men come to us and they are not aware that their behaviour is abusive.

So we would explore that with them in helping them to identify behaviours that they've used within the relationship and then explore if that meets the category of abusive behaviour. If it does, what do you do next? We present that back to the participant. We want them to understand, if we can, that some of their behaviours have been abusive and we want to move them forward in terms of accountability. So even if it's just a couple of abusive behaviours that they're owning, we can work with that. And then when we get on to group, we look at a deeper understanding of what domestic abuse is. There's a misconception often that it is just

physical. And we then look at throughout the programme skills and strategies that men can use rather than using abuse. So they're often using an abuse for a reason and sometimes with intention. Sometimes it's not understanding the impact that it's having and we explore all of that on group. We really want to support the men in opening up a group and not feeling that they're being judged. There's a real fear sometimes for people to actually own that behaviour, to be accountable for it. A lot of the men we work with have children and obviously by default a lot of their children are girls or females or women and so it's helping to change that perspective. You know when somebody is abusive to a woman

that's a wife or a partner or a daughter, a sister. It's just supporting the men to shift that perspective, really, in terms of understanding that impact. To bring you back in at that point, the discussion of children, did you think about what you were doing to your children, John? No, shamefully, I didn't realise the impact it was having on my children at all. Not only on my children, but on my ex-partner as well. And when you realised or took them into account, what was your reaction to that on an emotional level?

Oh, just, yeah, in floods of tears, embarrassment, shame, you know, that I'd let them down. I wasn't being, you know, the father figure that they always needed and I wasn't supporting them, obviously, because of my behaviour. And they probably regretted me in many ways that I was being toxic. What were the other men like that you were with? Did you recognise yourself in them? We were all very different in many ways. But yeah, you know, at the end of the day, we were all domestic abusers. So the greatest thing I saw on that course was not only the change in my behaviour, but watching some of the other men who were very reluctant to open up, watch them start changing as well and being more reflective and then being more accountable and actually joining into the group and actually speaking about their toxic traits.

So, yeah, that's what the course does. Have you had a relationship since you've done the course? I haven't. How do you feel about going back into a relationship? I think I'm ready, but it's one step at a time. Even though the course is over, there's still work to do. I'm carrying on, I'm doing that work. Vicky, can you say with confidence, or what degree of confidence

could you say that men like John who come on this course are not going to offend again, are resolved in some ways? It's a really tricky one, that one, isn't it? Because it's hard to measure long term. So the information that we take and how we measure it is from the partner or ex-partner service that we have. So that's the confidential information that is shared between the ex-partner or current partner with our team of people that work directly with them in understanding what is really going on. So obviously there are occasions where we may have men on group who are telling us one thing and we may have a partner who is telling us something

completely different. And we also have information from children's services. That's our highest referrer. And we would have information from them as to how the plans may be reduced in terms of risk and things like that. I think for me, having done this for a long time and working with men in my experience, you get a really good indication as to whether that person has taken on that change. If they're implementing it into real life, you can see that shift.

Emma was talking to Vicky Gilroy and a man we're calling John. There are details on our website for help and support. And we had an email from Sarah who said, This was an interesting piece. However, it should be made clear to the partners and ex-partners of survivors of the abuse that just because their abuser Sarah who said, Jenny got in touch to say, from domestic abusers themselves in an attempt to understand the problem as an observer of the behavior of my daughter's ex-partner I could see that he truly didn't understand what was happening and why it was almost like a default position that he had no control over what a good thing that this is being addressed now in today's digital world everything we do now on our phones or our computers, everything we look at, click on or post online becomes data. Companies and governments increasingly share and use this

information to make decisions about our lives. A small UK-based team of experts called Foxglove is challenging how our data is being used and they've had some newsworthy successes over the last year. Their action stopped the algorithm used to determine grades in last year's A-level exams and their latest target is the government over what they're saying is the biggest grab of patient data in NHS history. The co-founder of Foxglove is Corrie Crider. We started by asking her why the name Foxglove? The scientific name is Digitalis so there's a kind of pun there but also we thought that the Foxglove? The scientific name is digitalis, so there's a kind of pun there, but also we thought that the foxglove kind of reflected

the double-edged nature of technology, which is that it's poisonous, it's a toxic plant, but it can also be used to make a heart pharmaceutical called digoxin. So killer cure, really, and that's exactly how technology can go sometimes. And before we get on to your causes, your fights, you are a majority female team. We are. We were all four women until recently. I'm proud to say we've got a diversity hire. We have a fifth person who is a man now. But yes, we are woman-led. Was that by design or

just happened? I think it's just how it happened. Although it would be fair to say that when we went through the world and observed the way that, let's say, large technology companies had quite a kind of macho tech bro way of organising society, that there was a sense that we thought that that needed taking on and correcting and making much more inclusive in a way. I mentioned the algorithm, the A-level algorithm last year. Can you tell us what happened with that? I imagine some of your listeners had family members who were affected by it. But essentially, because of COVID, students couldn't sit their exams. And so what the government decided to do was to distribute those grades by a computer program, by an algorithm.

And it just turned out that the way that the algorithm worked was unfair. It systematically disadvantaged a child who had gone to, for example, a large comprehensive school that hadn't done well historically, even if that child was very bright and would actually have done very well in their exams, basically because the school's performance is what determined their grade, they would get knocked down a couple of grades. Whereas if you were a bright student from a historically brilliant school, a small, perhaps private school, studying a small subject such as classics, you did fine and your teacher's assessment is what counted. So there was a huge uproar about it. I think it's probably the first time that the idea of an

algorithm being used to really determine people's futures punched through into the public consciousness. You had students with their placards saying F the algorithm and all this sort of thing. So we worked with a brilliant comprehensive student from Ealing to bring a judicial review, and the government capitulated in seven days. We never even got into court. So it didn't go to court, did it? No, actually all of the judicial reviews we've got through so far have involved the government capitulating before a judge can pass on it,

which I think says something really quite concerning about the lack of reflection and internal debate before these systems are built or bought. Because if the moment there's some kind of independent scrutiny, it happened with the visa algorithm as well, the government kind of falls over, then it suggests they could have reflected a bit more earlier, doesn't it? Perhaps we'll come back to that if we have time. But I'm keen to bring you on to your latest focus, which is NHS Digital. You're calling it a data grab by the government of all our records stored by GPs. It's officially known as the General Practice Data for Planning

and Research Data Collection. The legal action you started a couple of weeks ago. Has that been the reason that the plan has been put on hold till September? I actually asked the health minister about this last week and she said it wasn't her department. You'd have to ask them exactly why they decided. But I would like to think that, of course, it was partly the threat of the injunction, which is what we were going to do for a whole range of groups, to be clear, the National Pensioners Convention, the Doctors Association UK, the Citizens, David Davis MP, a huge range of groups who were incredibly worried about this. So they have agreed to pause and give more time. But it's important to say that

that's not the end of the road. We're hoping now that with this time, we can open up and actually have a proper reflective debate about what we all want done with our health data. Because you're not necessarily anti that you should be able to share your data for greater good. No, absolutely not. What we objected to was the idea that people would be bounced past this, that the vast majority of people hadn't heard of it. It was just bunged up on a rather obscure government website. And if you were, let's say, one of the 67% of pensioners in that association who aren't online, if you didn't speak English, you would never have heard of it and didn't have a chance to make a choice. So what we really want to see is a public discussion about the benefits and harms of using health data. And I have to say, in the government's communications, there's been a slightly regrettable tendency to bung two things together into one messy concept. One, they just say data saves lives.

Frankly, I'm slightly tired of being governed by slightly empty three-word slogans. I don't know about you. But anyway, there's this concept of using information for planning health services. You know, I don't see how any of us could be opposed to the idea of the NHS having data to plan better. But then there's a second idea, which is that the data may have commercial value. And actually, I think that people might have different opinions saying, well, are you happy to give your information to the NHS to plan? Most people would say yes. Are you happy to give it to academic researchers to do a study about various things? Quite a lot of people, I think, would say yes to that too. Am I happy for, let's say, the details of my fertility treatment to be given to Google to develop a product or service that they may then

sell back to the NHS at great profit? Then I think you get a few more people pausing about that question. Although if I was to put this to you from Simon Bolton, who's the chief executive of NHS Digital, in a statement, he says data saves lives. That point has huge potential, though, to rapidly improve care and outcomes as the responses to the pandemic has shown. The vaccine rollout could not have been delivered without effective use of data to ensure it reached the whole population. We're absolutely determined to take people with us on this mission. We take our responsibility to safeguard the data we hold incredibly seriously. We intend to use the next two months to speak with patients, doctors, health charities and others to strengthen the plan even further. That doesn't sound like the plan is going to change. And what would you say to people who say perhaps you're fear mongering by

saying it could be sold to Google? They do make data available on their own website. They say this at cost price to third party commercial companies such as pharmaceutical companies. So it's not about that. They always say, well, we don't sell your data, but that's actually slightly that's obscuring the real point, right? It's not about a USB stick going over to Google. That's not, of course, how it works, right? But actually, there already have been partnerships between things like DeepMind, the AI company that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Google, being able to access huge numbers of patient records to develop products and services that the NHS is now paying for, such as the Moorfields Eye Hospital trial. So it does happen. That's not scaremongering. And by the way, we are not even saying that there can be no relationship to companies necessarily.

What we're saying is that the government needs to be open with people, that actually it's got a few objectives here. One is centralized planning for health research. And another one is pretty different, right, which is AstraZeneca, which they kind of kicked around about nine different commercial models for access to NHS data. Now, it may well be that if you have that debate with the public, and you say, should the NHS have a share of the intellectual property from a product developed, or should the NHS always get whatever the product is that is developed for free, that all of that would garner public assent. But at the moment, you don't think that debate is happening at all? Well, no, there's just a kind of slogan, which says data saves lives. And actually, that doesn't get into any of the data can save lives. But it can also be used to make quite a

lot of people quite a lot of money. And, you know, can I can I actually say something personal about this? Because I think there's been a slight regrettable effort to paint this as kind of researchers versus privacy bros. And actually, I'm not a privacy bro. Probably my proudest moment as a young girl was watching my mother walk across the stage and get her PhD in pharmacology. So she's a scientific researcher. My father is a geneticist. Actually, we're not opposed to science. What we are opposed to is really consequential decisions about the future of the health service being made without telling people what you're doing. And saying, actually, you know, this is part of the post Brexit industrial strategy, we'd quite like to, you know, allow some companies in here to develop

a product and let people have a say about what the terms are that they want. And also, by the way, consent, right? At the moment, it was like if you've heard about it, then you might have the opportunity to opt out. People who are wondering how to do that, there's a website called MedConfidential. And if you look at MedConfidential, how to opt out, you can figure out how to exercise your choice in this regard.

But at the minute, it's a few people hearing about it, and it's an opt-out system. And people are worried about the anonymization. And if they can trust the government, I'm just seeing some of our messages coming in on that. What do you say, just finally, very short of time here, but to those who say, well, even when they do publicise and even if they do publicise better, a lot of people just will not engage. I guess the question is this, whose choice should it be this information came from us it came from a health service that we funded it is it came from our pain our health troubles uh and if the

government wants to monetize that asset it seems to me that there is a real question around can they do that without permission that was corrie crider talking to emma there and if you would like to get in touch with us via twitter even even after hearing that last item, then do so. We are at BBC Woman's Hour. And of course, you can email us via our website. Have a wonderful weekend and do join Emma on Monday at two minutes past 10. Stay dry.

I'm Sarah Treleaven. And for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth.

How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.