Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman’s Hour: Zeinab Badawi, Fisherman Ashley Mullenger, Stalking, Singing and periods

Episode Date: April 27, 2024

The deaths of 21-year-old Diane Jones and her two young children, in a house fire in October 1995 shocked the community of Merthyr Tydfil. The police originally thought it was an accident - but in the days following the fire launched a triple murder investigation after petrol was found on the carpet. Just months later, Annette was charged with triple murder, manslaughter and arson with intent to endanger life. She was found guilty with the charge of arson and sentenced to 13 years. After two-and-a-half years, her conviction was overturned - but it troubled Annette until her death in 2017. Annette’s daughter, Nicole Jacob, is delving into her mum’s story in a new podcast, Wrongly Accused: The Annette Hewins Story. We hear from the journalist and broadcaster Zeinab Badawi to discuss her first book, An African History of Africa: From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence. The book has taken her seven years to research, travelling across 30 countries. She explains how the female African leaders that shaped their countries have often been written out of history.Ashley Mullenger's life changed unexpectedly when she signed up for a fishing trip on the coast of Norfolk. In her memoir, My Fishing Life, it follows her journey from a 9-5 office job, into the overwhelmingly male fishing industry to becoming Fisherman of the Year in 2022. Rhianon Bragg spoke to Woman’s Hour back in February about her concerns for her safety regarding the imminent release of her ex-boyfriend from prison, despite the fact that a Parole Board ruled a few months earlier that such a move would not be safe. In February 2020, Gareth Wynn Jones was given an extended determinate sentence of 4.5 years in prison, with an extended licence period of five years for the crimes of stalking, false imprisonment, making threats to kill and possession of a firearm. Now two months since his release and coinciding with National Stalking Awareness Week, we hear from Rhianon and also Emily Lingley Clark of the Suzy Lamplugh Trust.At the start of the year, acclaimed opera singer Sophie Bevan MBE took to Twitter to ask if other female singers also had voice struggles around the time of their periods. This led to her discovery of premenstrual vocal syndrome, which is when hormone changes cause vocal issues. She talks about the impact this has had on her career, alongside Dr Alan Watson, specialist in the biology of performance at the University of Cardiff.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Annette Wells

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. In a moment, we'll hear from Nicole Jacob, whose new podcast, Wrongly Accused, tells the tragic story of her mum, Annette Hewings, who was wrongly convicted of murder. And singing while on your period, what happens to our voice when hormone changes take place? Opera singer Sophie Bevan explains how her voice has been affected. I was standing in front of an audience, feeling terrified,

feeling as though I had no control. What was going to come out of my mouth? Was everyone there going to think, oh, Sophie can't sing anymore? The journalist and broadcaster Zaina Badawi on her new book, An African History of Africa. And have you ever thought about totally changing your life? Well, Ashley Mullinger did just that. She quit her nine-to-5 office job and went on to become Fisherman of the Year.

So no disruptions for the next hour, just you and the radio. But first, the deaths of 21-year-old Diane Jones and her two young children in a house fire on the 10th of October 1995, shocked the community of Merthyr Tydfil. The police originally thought it was an accident, but in the days following the fire, launched a triple murder investigation after petrol was found on the carpet. That same night, mother of three, Annette Hewings,

had taken her niece to buy an electricity token at a petrol station, a night that would change their lives forever. Just months later, Annette was charged with triple murder, manslaughter and arson with intent to endanger life. She was found guilty with the charge of arson and sentenced to 13 years. After two and a half years, Annette's conviction was overturned at the Court of Appeal and she was released. She pleaded to the world to find the real killers, something that had not yet happened. She died in 2017 at the age of 51. Well, Annette's daughter, Nicole Jacob, has been delving into her mum's story in a new podcast, Wrongly Accused, The Annette Hewing Story. She joined me from our Cardiff studio on Thursday,

and I started by asking her why she wanted to make the podcast. I think I've spent my whole life hiding from what happened to us and my siblings and I trying to protect ourselves from opening that vulnerability and scrutiny. You know, we face lots of judgment, especially, you know, my mum faced lots of judgment. And I feel I've reached a stage in my life where I need to be heard. This is my identity. This was my life.

And I always felt that nobody cared about us and nobody cared that this happened and that my childhood was taken from me and my mum was taken from me. And ultimately she died in the most awful way and when she died I felt that she was let down the way she had been let down in her life this had also happened in her death and it was completely brushed under the carpet and we were expected to move on and forget about it but now I feel that I need to speak I need to share her story and I wanted to give her the platform and the opportunity to do that. And so we've been able to do that via this podcast.

The other reason I think that I felt able to do this was that we were given audio tapes, recordings of my mum after she was released from prison. And they were a real insight into my mum's mind, her thoughts and her feelings at the time which was amazing for me and it just gave me that confidence that this would be her sharing her experience and this was a way of getting her voice heard. It is a gripping listen and particularly because it's you telling your mum's story and you can feel the sense that you want to have her story told. And it's the sense, it's heartbreaking, the huge sense of injustice that took place.

And there's a moment where you talk to your other siblings, but you explain, well, it's not all of them. And not all of them were as open to telling the story as you. So I just wonder how that conversation went about and what made you different? What made you the one who really felt this sense that you needed this story to be heard? I think, you know, I'm 31. My younger sister, she's still only 21. We're all at different stages of grief and processing. And our life has been one traumatic event after another. You know, after my mum's release, it would be easy to imagine that

life went on and everything was okay. But that wasn't the case. You know, my mum had a drug addiction and she really suffered mentally and the support just wasn't there. Along with that, my dad had a really horrific accident. and then my mum lost that support network, that person that really understood her. We went into foster care and then eventually my mum died. So all of this has been really, really difficult for us and we've just been trying to hold one another up. We're extremely close and we just didn't want to crumble.

We wanted a better life and we wanted a brighter future. We didn't want to be consumed the way that my mum was. So we've been very protective of one another and our stories. And yeah, I think I'm older now. I'm a mum myself. I think I'm a lot more confident in my identity and who I am. So I feel in a position that I'm able to speak and that I need to, you know, in order to be able to process and move forward with my life, I need to accept who I am. This is very much a huge part of me. And my whole life, I've been the strong one, the big sister, the protector. And I've always put everybody else first and their well-being and what they wanted but I've come to the realization that I have to

think of myself and what I need and this is so important for me and it's been a real healing process and it's been an opportunity to connect with my mum I feel that yeah you know I feel so much closer to her now after her death I was really traumatised. It was a very dark time. My older brother Nathan and I felt so responsible for her death. How old were you when she was 51? How old were you? I was about 26, yeah, or 25. So it was really hard. We kind of encouraged her to go to the hospital when we felt that this was going to be a turning point. She was going to get the support she needed, psychiatric help. And we were almost really excited that finally we were in the position that she was going to be understood and supported. And within 24 hours, she was dead. So we were devastated and all of our hopes and dreams and

everything that we thought would happen in our future didn't. I feel like their life was sucked from me and part of my heart was taken that day. It was just awful. And it took a long time to be able to accept that and move on from it. I couldn't even think about my mum. I didn't have photographs of her around the house. Any memories I had were just those really traumatic ones they were always at the forefront so this process has allowed me to remember the fighting spirit that she had and the strength that she had and the love that she had for all of us

and it's been great to hear the audios of her advocating for herself and showing that she was innocent and she would tell the world and she would fight. And it's really sad that it didn't end the way that she hoped that it did. But hearing so many positive stories and I've heard from friends and people that were in prison with her and things like that. It's been really nice to know that there were people that cared. There were people that supported her and there were people that knew the strength that she had so I now have a picture of her in my kitchen and I am able to think of her and remember the positive times. We can actually play a clip of your mum in an interview she gave with this program in 1999 after being released this is

where she talks about giving birth because she was pregnant when she was arrested, and the presenter was Martha Kearney. You were actually pregnant when you were awaiting trial. How did you give birth to Joshua? They just about got me out of the prison. I remember all I was saying was, just get me out of this prison. I don't want my baby born in this prison. I said, OK, as long as they get me out the gates.

I don't think we was far from the gates. They had to stop on a roundabout. And I give birth to Joshua on the roundabout then. Were you able to keep him with you? No, while I was in the hospital. I had six hours. I was going back at six in the morning. I had to leave to go back at six in the morning

to go back to the prison. So they'd be telling me to try and get some sleep. And I thought, how could they expect me to sleep? Only these hours I had with leave to go back at six in the morning to go back to the prison. So they'd be telling me to try and get some sleep. And I thought, oh, can they expect me to sleep? Only these hours I had with my baby, I wanted to spend every minute I could. And in a way, I couldn't wait for six o'clock to come because I knew that I'd have to leave him and I just wanted to get it over with if I had to do it. You know, just get it over with because it was just too painful.

That was presenter Martha Carney speaking to your mum in 1999 on Woman's Hour. What was it like hearing that? It's really hard. You know, one of the most difficult things of this whole case and the experience for my mum was giving birth to my brother Josh and having him taken away from her. That was something she could never get over. She was so deeply traumatised by that. And she always felt that she needed to try and compensate with Josh and she she had another child afterwards my sister Sophia and I think my mum hoped that that would

sort of help the healing process and she would be able to relive the the experience that she missed with him and unfortunately that didn't take away the hurt that she had felt and she couldn't move on from that I think knowing that she was innocent and then having her baby taken away from her so unfairly was something that she just couldn't accept and just to know that she had six hours such a short amount of time not only for her you know to physically heal but also for my brother's well-being and formative time with his his mother you know and Josh still struggles with that now and and this podcast he's found it really difficult to hear how the prison officer suggested that my mum would seriously consider an abortion because he would be

taken away from her regardless and he says you know they didn't want me to be alive if it was up to them I wouldn't be here today and and that's been really hard he still finds extremely difficult to talk about and he was always a reserved child and to an extent he still holds a lot of that pain inside. Is there a part of you that thinks of the if only in terms of your mum going to the garage that night? Yeah definitely I always think if only and throughout this process I have considered I always thought that there must have been more evidence or that the defence were just absolutely awful, that no witnesses came forward. But I've learned that that's not necessarily the case. And I feel so frustrated that the people that were there to safeguard and protect my mum didn't do that.

What do you hope the outcome of this podcast will be? I think our goal was to have my mum's voice heard and to be able to actually share the details and the extent of the story with the general public and do that for ourselves too, which I feel that we have done. But ultimately now I just hear my mum over and over in my head, now find the real killers, now find the real killers. And that's what I want. I want the conclusion. I want to be able to find those answers. I want South Wales Police to take accountability. And last question, Nicole.

How are you and your siblings at the end of this process? We're OK. We've always been strong and we've always strived for a better future. We've been really fortunate to have one another, you know, and I think my mum would be pleased to look down and know that we are all doing OK. A really powerful conversation with Nicole Jacob there. Nicole's podcast, Wrongly Accused, the Annette Hewing story, is available now on BBC Sounds.

We contacted South Wales Police for a statement and a spokesperson told us, nationalising investigative practice and have become a leading force in major crime investigation review. For example, our learning around the challenges of disclosure in the criminal justice system have led to recognised good practice that has been shared nationally. The way in which major crime investigations, suspect interviews and family liaison are carried out have been transformed since the practices referred to. Zaina Badawi, the journalist and broadcaster and president of the School of Oriental and African Studies, also known as SOAS, in London, an expert in her field, has written her first book. It's called An African History of Africa from the Dawn of Humanity to Independence. It's taken over seven years to write and research, travelling across

more than 30 countries. But what did she discover particularly about the parts African women played in their history? Zainab joined Krupa on Wednesday to find out more about these women and why they haven't been given the prominence they deserve. It was the wonderful Congolese scholar in Brazzaville, Scholastic Dian Zinger, who said to me, look, we always talk about the fathers of the independence movement in Africa. And I felt that we take the HIS in history a bit too seriously and look at his story. So where I could, I tried to feminize history. And indeed, I begin with Lucy or

Dinkanesh, which means you're marvelous in the Amharic language. She lived 3.2 million years ago. And of course, she's a superstar in the field of paleontology. She's a real icon. I was privileged to touch her bones, which are kept under lock and key in at the National Museum in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. And although strictly speaking speaking we modern humans did not descend directly from Lucy but she is part of the lineage that forms our early story and so I gave a bit of a pen portrait about what she would have been like you know she stands a meter tall she weighed about 30 kilograms she would have walked on two legs for most of the time. And that bipedalism was very important because it freed her hands to sharpen twigs that she could, you know, go into kill small animals or go into

reptile nests and that kind of thing. She would have slept in trees. So it's ironic that actually she probably died when falling from a tree. Interesting. There was one period that you focused on, the slavery, the period of slavery. You talk about the transatlantic trade and you also talk about the Arab trade almost, that is the Indian Ocean slave trade, which isn't spoken about as extensively.

That has really stayed with me, the way in which women were used as slaves in a different way. Absolutely. So I do look at what is sometimes referred to as the Eastern trade, which is the Arabs and their partners, when they enslaved African people across the Indian Ocean predominantly, but also across the Red Sea and Trans-Sahara trade from Africa going up to Arab families who lived in North Africa. And in the transatlantic slave trade, men really

outnumbered women greatly because they were preferred to women because obviously they did the backbreaking work on the plantations. In the eastern trade, women were preferred because they were often used as concubines, sex slaves, essentially. But there were vital differences. So for example, if an Arab man had a child with his enslaved African woman, that child would be born free and could indeed rise to occupy a high position in society by dint of the fact that he had Arab blood in him because very patriarchal society. In the transatlantic slave trade, if a white man sired a child with his enslaved woman, then that child would be born a slave trade lasted much longer, accounted for probably about 14 million people, the transatlantic slave trade about 12 and a half

million. And then there were these women in Senegal in a small village in Senegal. And again, that story stood out to me, they refused to accept enslavement. Yes, this was a story that was told to me by various historians, Professor Essie Sutherland in Ghana at the University of Accra there. In 1819, in the small wallow village of Nder, which is now in present-day Senegal, a number of women heard that there were enslavers coming to take them to work in North Africa

as concubines and, you know, sex slaves. And they managed to fight the Arabs off. Actually, the men had been working in the field at the time, only a small number had come. But then a larger number came, the women knew that they would not be able to defeat them. So under the guidance of one woman, they decided to go into a hut and set fire to the hut so that they would die as free women rather than live as slaves. But there was one heavily pregnant woman who was gasping for air and she made a bolt for it. And they were going to stop her and then they thought, you know what, let her go. so at least our heroism as they saw it can be known about by our you know progeny by our great grandchildren and our grandchildren

and indeed that story has persisted and to this day at this village in Senegal every one Tuesday in November everybody stops working out of respect for the women of Vendare. That is so powerful. We have to talk about the queens as well, the many queens of Africa. Queen Idia of Benin in West Africa. 90% of Benin bronzes are of men. But here we have Queen Idia. Queen Idia, of course, the very famous Benin bronze the bust is in

the British Museum here in London and she lived around the late 1400s and she was the first woman in the Benin kingdom which is in Nigeria not the country Benin and she was first woman to have a Benin bronze made for her by the cast of the bronze casters, the guild of the bronze casters. And the reason why is her son, Esigi, who was the king or the oba, as the people of Benin call it, was so grateful to his mother. get to the throne and she really was a key source of support for him during his long reign which began in 1504 and lasted until 1550. You know she kept an eye on his health, she preserved a small regiment in the army to help keep him secure, she helped him with the day-to-day process of running government. He created the position of Ioba for her, which means queen mother. And when she died, he was so grief stricken that he had for the first time a bronze head made

for a woman. And that's why that tradition started. And it's ironic that today actually Queen Edea has eclipsed the fame of her son, Esigiji, for whom she worked so assiduously. Just before we wrap up, I want to talk about something that will be personal to you, because you talk a great deal in the book about the overthrowing of Omar al-Bashir in Sudan back in 2019. I remember covering it, young people at the forefront, women, especially, as you rightly highlight. Now, five years on, Sudan is in a very different place. Civil war. Women, children are bearing the brunt of hunger, displacement and violence. And I know this is personal for you because your own grandfather championed the well-being, the education of girls in Sudan.

I wonder how you reflect on what's happening there. I mean, it's absolutely awful. Yes, indeed, it was my great-grandfather who was the pioneer of female education in Sudan at the turn of the last century. So you could say that female education is the kind of family business. I mean, he'd be turning in his grave to see just what has happened. I mean, my whole family who live in Sudan, my extended family, have all taken flight mostly to Cairo, to Egypt, some in Port Sudan.

And it is always, as you say, the women and the children who bear the brunt because women in sudan in this awful conflict have been subjected to the most um awful you know sexual violence mass rape people performing it with impunity and um it really we're all at a loss as to why this conflict has now persisted for a year. It broke out in April, on April the 15th and it was such a glorious revolution five years ago in April when Amr al-Bashir was toppled and women were very much in the vanguard and they were referred to as Kandakaz, which is an ancient northern Sudanese name for the queens and queen mothers.

And so, you know, therefore you have that continuity of history again, whereby the women who were leading the marches were referred to as the queen mothers, the Kandikaz. So I really had to loss Krupa as to say, you know, when we will find some kind of end to this madness. Zaina Badawi, her book, An African History of Africa from the Dawn of Humanity to Independence is out now. Every so often I hear an interview on Woman's Hour and think, oh, that's a good one. But it's OK, because I get my fair share of brilliant interviews, too, like this next one. In 2012, Ashley Mullinger signed up for a fishing trip on the coast of Norfolk. She didn't know though, it would change the course of

her life. Her memoir, My Fishing Life, follows her journey from a nine-to-five office job into the overwhelmingly male fishing industry to become Fisherman of the Year 2022. The book includes stories of stormy weather, new boats and old boats and friendship on the water but it also is a tale of self-discovery and acceptance. Ashley Mullinger joined me yesterday and I started by asking her, is she really a fisherman? I choose to say fisherman purely because it's respect for the predominantly male catching sector that's gone before me and worked hard and in some cases given their lives for putting fish on tables.

And I'm not about to breeze in and take that away from them. Ultimately, I love what I do. You could call me anything you wanted. And as long as I'm doing the job, it wouldn't matter. We need to go back to what I opened with that you this is not something you grew up with it was not on the agenda it was never your dream as a child you were office job nine to five what happened I went out on a charter angling trip and just being out there I fell in love I fell in love with the environment and I

think a lot of that was because I'd come from an office where I was constantly getting phone calls emails people saying oh Ash can you do this can you do that or can you solve this problem for me and then I went out to sea and all of that just goes and you're completely isolated. And I think having that calmness and the environment being the only thing that's really important just resonated with me and then the skipper just couldn't get rid of me. So what was it about it that made you fall in love with it? Because I have been on a few fishing expeditions in my other line of work Sunday night

and it's extreme. It is extreme. It's not for the faint hearted. It's a certain lifestyle. It's lonely. It's cold. Yet extreme weather. So what was it that made you fall in love? I think when I sat in an office, I think I relied quite a lot on my own mind just to propel me through the day whereas now not only am I relying on my mind but every muscle in my body is important and I feel like I'm truly living in all of me rather than just existing in my head um to solve problems and I think I think it's really quite grounding to be out in the environment where all that matters is the real here and now in the moment. It's one of those things that I find really hard to describe because it's a feeling.

You're doing a good job at describing it. I'm looking at you now, quite glamorous, lovely outfit on, hair, makeup, you know. This is the opposite of that it really is so um when i get the opportunity to actually brush my hair or put a face on i do use it so let's talk through your day-to-day then what does it consist of well day-to-days can change because we work from a tidal harbour so sometimes the day will start at nine o'clock in the morning and we'll be in at seven o'clock at night um sometimes the day might start at nine o'clock in the morning and we'll be in at seven o'clock at night. Sometimes the day might start at two o'clock in the morning and then you'll be in at about three o'clock.

So we're restricted by the tide. We can't get in and out all the time. So once we're out, we're out until the next time. I mean, you've got to love it to be getting up that in the middle of the night, haven't you? I mean, if you're getting out of bed at 1am, this is a passion. It is a passion. But then in the winter, okay, not so nice. You know, the car's iced up and it's cold. But you have to do it. But you have to do it.

Because if it's your chosen profession and it's your livelihood, you just have to do it. You just have to go. But then in the summer, when you're getting up at sort of two in the morning and the sunrise is starting and you see all these different colours in the sky and you feel like it's just for you because there's nobody else out there. And you see the seagulls waking up. They're normally trying to steal your bait. It's very solitary. Really massively solitary.

Would you consider yourself a solitary person? In fact, last week we talked about solitude on the programme. Did you know that you were a solitary person? I don't think I am a solitary person right um i don't think i could work on a boat that went out for weeks at a time um and come back so we're a day boat we're back pretty much you know every day um but i think having that solitude just for 10 12 hours is just wonderful and i'm not entirely on my own. I've got Nige, the skipper.

We need to talk about Nige. I'm glad you brought up Nige because I was about to ask you about Nige. He's a huge part of your life. I mean, he's the reason you do what you do. Talk to us about, tell us about Nige. Nige is at sea today. Is he listening?

I hope so. If he's managed to work out how to use his phone to connect up to the bluetooth on the boat um Nigel's been a massive part of empowering me to feel the confidence in myself to be able to do the job um there's never ever been any ceremony or any kind of pep pep talks it's just a case of okay Ash you're gonna do this didn't he spot it in you though didn't he say you should do it wasn't he the first person that he was yeah he said i asked him i said did you not think it was weird like i just kept coming back and booking fishing trips and then you know a friendship formed and um he was like he goes i did but then i could see in you that you really loved

being out there at sea and i wasn't about to hold you back from that. So he took a chance on a girl with no experience. And I mean, would Nige describe himself as a feminist? I mean, he's definitely an ally, isn't he? He is an ally to women, yeah. I don't think he would describe himself as a feminist. And I think he's been asked this question before and he said, Nige, are you a feminist?

He said, I like women. That's all you'll get from him. He's a man few words so he changed your life he really did yeah really did how the other characters apart from Nigel are the boats themselves yes um tell me about the bond that you develop with the vessels it's such a special relationship and boats aren't just a tool for a job. They become part of you. They need you. You have to look after them. And the deal is you look after them and they look after you. You take them out into a potentially what can be a really dangerous environment and you put your trust into them. they're better at sea than any human being um and we you know i explore in my fishing life the relationships between all the boats that

feature um they do play up and i sometimes have to go and sit and get below deck and talk to them and say come on you're being you're being a bit of a madam. I need you to get on side here. Ashley, the way you're talking to me about how you feel about fishing, I can see it in your eyes. Your eyes are sparkling. I'm sure everyone listening can hear it, the passion in your voice. If I was talking to Ashley 15 years ago, would you believe that this is you now? No, absolutely not. I've changed as a person

because of the job definitely I'm like how much like we're talking a u-turn are we talking 90 degrees like how much have you changed um I don't know it's hard to put uh how much you've changed on it but I see differences in myself I feel more. I feel more empowered to make choices and decisions that I perhaps didn't before. Are you happier? Yes, absolutely. I couldn't go back to a nine to five now. It's like I've opened Pandora's box and it's an exciting world where every day is different and every day challenges you. And I couldn't go back. There might be someone listening on their headphones at their desk right now. I hope itching i hope so were their trainers ready to run out the door would you encourage them to go for it i would i would definitely encourage them to look into it um and especially women because

in the last six years i mean when i first started i knew of two other women active on boats and now that number's like definitely over 20 and I received a message the other day from a 14 year old girl in Scotland and she said thank you for basically just showing up because it's made me feel like it's something that I could do and I'm in a she was in a fishing family anyway and it's those young women that need to see women in roles like this in order to think yeah I could see myself doing that correct um and I think it's just so important that we're here and we're accepted by the industry and taking up space and in 2022 as I mentioned you were awarded Fisher man of the year the first

woman to ever hold the title yeah how did that feel and did you ruffle any feathers um it felt amazing just to be nominated in the first instance to be recognized by the industry um to actually win it was really quite something i had to hold back tears um when they read my name out for the award um and did i ruffle any feathers not within the industry the industry was really welcoming and accepting um I think some people were like it should be fisherwoman or fisher or not fisherman but I have my reasons for wanting to say fisherman um but yeah generally the industry was really really welcoming and it was really lovely to have that acceptance for a fish and chip loving nation I think she's right.

What an inspiring interview. Ashley Mullinger, her book My Fishing Life is out now. Still to come on the programme, singing and your periods. What happens to our voice when hormone changes take place? And remember, you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10am during the week, all you need to do is subscribe to the daily podcast for free via BBC Sounds. The government has announced it's making it easier for police to apply for stalking protection orders with the aim of addressing perpetrator

behaviour sooner. Those who breach the order could end up with five years in prison. This comes as a report from the Susie Lamplew Trust finds several police forces applying for fewer than 10 orders in a year, highlighting a conviction rate of just 1.7% of all cases reported to the police. The charity is calling for increased accountability in the criminal justice system. More from their interim CEO Emma Lingley-Clark in a moment, but first we'll hear from Rhiannon Bragg. Rhiannon spoke to us in February about her fears for her safety regarding her ex-boyfriend's imminent release from prison, despite a parole board hearing deeming it unsafe he was released. She'd previously been stalked and threatened by

him after ending the relationship. He was arrested three times, but no further action was taken. Later, he held her hostage at gunpoint for eight hours. In February 2020, Gareth Wynne-Jones was given an extended determinate sentence of four and a half years in prison with an extended licence period of five years for stalking, false imprisonment, threats to kill and possession of a firearm to which he pleaded guilty. There are strict licensing conditions in place which Rhiannon is not able to discuss.

Krupa asked her how she was doing following his release from prison two months ago. Well, obviously it's a challenging time. What we try and do is we try to lead life as normally as possible. Speaking as a mother of children, living on a small holding, we're just coming to the end of lambing and a lot of that sort of that but if you if we're not able to do that then it would be absolutely devastating and part of being stalked part of one of the very normal reactions is that

you actually make your world much much smaller and that in itself is a is a hugely devastating thing to happen to anybody so as you you said, we're totally reliant on the authorities through the robust license conditions that have been put in place to safely manage the offender throughout this next part of the sentence. But it's, yeah, we try our best, but it's not easy. I think it's fair to say, I know at times I hope I appear fairly normal, but actually there's quite a thin facade. And I've had a number of sharp reminders about how raw the trauma that was caused really is. Those sharp reminders. Can you talk us through them? So part of what I've been left with essentially is PTSD and there'll be triggers.

I won't specify what sort of triggers, but you can feel absolutely fine. You're carrying on life in whatever way you normally can. And then it can be something and it'll be a bolt from the blue and it takes you right back. And it's an incredible reminder about how really vulnerable you can feel in these situations. And one of the things that I have always maintained, although I do appreciate I've been told legally it's not the case, is that the worst of the offences that I experienced for me was the stalking, and that a behaviour where someone else can behave in a way towards another person that actually leads them to feel that they would consider taking their own life as a way out. And part of that,

again, it was to do with the response that I had from the authorities when I approached them, because by that time I had engaged with police, matters had gone to the CPS, and things hadn't moved further forward. So this is why I think it's really important to be having these conversations and to look at the report that the Susie Lamptey Trust have published, which paints a horrific picture, but also to welcome the changes on how stalking protection orders will be implemented. Although there's, in my opinion, an awful lot that needs to change alongside that to make it effective. You mentioned your children in your opening answer. How are they?

They can be perfectly normal children a lot of the time. Getting homework done isn't always easy. They've all been significantly affected by what we've experienced. They all show behaviours that are, there's a range of behaviours, classically controlling, there is support in place for them. It's been an incredibly damaging and difficult time, which I hope we now move forward from. And one of the things I'm often asked about, and you hear this a lot with domestic abuse for stalking people, what actually happened? For me, with the children, I think the easiest way to perhaps describe it to an audience is to think that if you forget about any specifics and just imagine that as their mother,

as the single parent who's looking after them, I'm essentially removed from that picture, from that role, and that they were then a rudderless shit for so long at such a formative time of life. So I'm incredibly proud of how they are and how they carry on with their lives. Listening to Rhiannon is Emma Lingley-Clark, Interim Chief Executive of the Susie Lamplew Trust, which runs the National Stalking Helpline

and has supported over 75,000 victims to date. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Emma, what do you make of what Rhiannon has just said? We completely agree with everything that Rhiannon says in terms of her experiences as a victim and the way that the system is responding to it currently is not sufficient. And it is a full system response that's needed. We often, you know, are free of information focused on particularly the police and the CPS. But every agency has a responsibility to deal with stalking. Well let's talk in a bit more depth about that freedom of information request that you put in that was a request to police forces what did you find?

So unfortunately we were disappointed with everything that we found in some ways because it really showed that there is a lack of accountability across the system in terms of us being actually able to identify how what happens to victims as they go through the system so we asked about forces that might have a dedicated stalking specialist officer so someone whose job is to is to deal with stalking and actually only seven police forces had one of those within their force and actually 12 didn't have one at all and we didn't actually even ask the question in terms of what a what a specialist officer would you know how much training would they have and one of the things that we know from our experience is that often stalking specialist officers don't

have any more training than another officer it might come come as part of their job, but it's not from that day one. But we also found, I think, as you've talked about in terms of the SPOs, the stalking protection orders, the numbers are still shockingly low. They were introduced to try and provide immediate protection for victims, recognising the danger that victims of stalking are in, and yet that's not working. And I think we're also seeing, unfortunately, some decreases in the number of reports of stalking

in some police forces, which for us is just not acceptable. Rhiannon, you've told us how you felt that you were let down by the way that the North Wales police dealt with your case. And since then, you've been working with them and others to make things better for victims. Do you think the issue of stalking has been taken seriously enough by police now, at least by police and others? Yes, I work closely with North Wales Police. And just as an example, at the time, the stalking wasn't recognised, there wasn't a stalking specialist officer. Although I know recently, more recently, since Chief Constable Amanda Blayton has come on

board, there is now a specialist stalking officer in North Wales. And it just shows that change, it is possible and it is achievable. And I absolutely, as Emma said, to have a specialist stalking officer in each force would be an absolute minimum in order to manage this. But there needs to be alongside this mandatory training for all involved in all authorities with stalking, with stalking cases, with stalking victims. Because if the professionals involved don't know what to look for, if they're not aware of the range of stalking behaviours, if they're not aware of all the tools that could be used to manage these behaviours and for intervention,

and if they're not aware of, if there isn't intervention, where this behaviour can lead, then things like the stalking protection order will never be used in the numbers that they should be. On this, the National Police Chiefs Council lead for stalking and harassment, Deputy Chief Constable Paul Mills, has said, over the last number of years, we have improved training, rolled out the use of stalking protection orders and launched a new assessment tool to assist officers to identify and better act upon the signs of stalking. In addition, we have introduced embedding dedicated officers and forces to better support and safeguard victims. However, we know that there is more to do to improve criminal justice system outcomes of victims in these cases. Emma, can you outline to us just how prevalent stalking is? That's really

important for us to better understand the degree on which this is happening. So it's estimated that there's about 1.6 million victims of stalking every year. It's about one in five women and one in 10 men in their lifetime will be a victim. So it's hugely prevalent in society. But then when we compare that to the number of reports, if you think 1.6 million cases of stalking, there's only 116,000 police reports. So there's a huge discrepancy in terms of the number of people that are actually reporting.

There's a lot of talk about the role of stalking advocates. Can you just explain what their role would be? So stalking advocates are basically there to support the victim with kind of whatever they need, in a sense. One of the things they really do is provide emotional support, but they're also, a key part is to safety plan, so to help advise the victim on things that they might be able to do to work around some of the stalker's, you know, behaviours, risk management, so identifying the level of risk. But then one of the other key things they do is actually will advocate on behalf of the victim to agencies. So they will

go to the police and they will, in a sense, demand the service that the victim is entitled to on behalf of that victim or working with the victim themselves. Yeah. In terms of the role, therefore, of stalking advocates, I wonder, Rhiannon, whether you feel like this would have been useful in your case? I mean, if I'm honest, I learned about stalking the hard way, and it was a horrific, nearly fatal experience. But I strongly suspect that if there had been a independent stalking advocate to support me in my situation of what was happening, then actually the cost that would have been saved, or the cost that was spent on my situation of what was happening, then actually the cost that would have been saved, or to put it the other way, the cost that was spent on my situation would have actually funded a few advocates for a few years.

On that law of Ferris, Minister for Victims and Safeguarding has said, we must continue to treat stalking with the utmost gravity, having doubled the maximum sentence and introduced a new civil order to protect victims. We know that there is more to be done. Lowering the standard of proof that must be met to grant these orders will make a big difference to how easily victims can access protection

and that she will continue to work closely with the police to improve how they can support victims of this disturbing crime. Which leads me to an important question to you, Emma. Can you explain the numbers of stalking victims there are in comparison to the number of convictions? So when obviously in terms of 1.6 million cases and then we have 116,000 reports that was up to March 2023 and then we're looking at about 1,955 of those reported that were actually convicted so it is that 1.7 percent it's shockingly low. It is important to highlight some forces are working well on this. Yep so we've

worked with a number of forces Cheshire, London, Hampshire and Cambridgeshire around the development of multi-agency stalking intervention programs which is where we bring together a team of police, probation, psychologists and advocates to work to actually start from that very first moment that the report comes in to really identify risk and put in place risk management options, but also starting to make sure that the perpetrator is going to go in the right, you know, the right direction, get the right outcome in court, but making sure the victim stays at the centre of it. And what more do you think needs to be done? So we would like there to be a multi-entry stalking intervention programmes in every single police force area. That would be our ideal solution. We'd also like to see every

force rolling out mandatory training. And we've also put out a request for 243 million of ring fence funding for stalking advocates. That would allow us to provide really comprehensive support to as many victims as we can. It still wouldn't allow us to support every one of those 1.6, but it would help us to get to those that need it. Rhiannon, reflecting on your own experiences and what happened afterwards, what would you say to someone who thinks that they are at risk or are being stalked? It's very much a case of reaching out in whatever way you're able to and you will remain safe in doing so. And to keep a record of the behaviour. One of the massive issues with stalking, I feel, is how the behaviour, the stalking behaviours are minimalised.

People can be very dismissive about it. Well, it's not actually that bad. They're only doing this or they're only doing that. So to reach out, to get in contact, whether it's through the National Stalking Helpline, whether it's to the police directly, whether it's to the GP, but to contact somebody and the process then of keeping the victim safe and managing the behaviour of the perpetrator can begin. Krupa speaking with Rhiannon Bragg and Emma Linley-Clark. Now, for some of us, periods can be a real hindrance to your daily life. But what's it like when your time of the month alters something key to your job?

Your voice. Sophie Bevan is an acclaimed opera singer who spends her life performing in some of the world's most prestigious venues. Well, she took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to ask fellow female singers if they also struggled with their voice when their period was due. This led to her discovery of something called premenstrual vocal syndrome, when our hormones impact our vocal cords. Well, Krupa was joined by Dr Alan Watson from the University of Cardiff, who specialises in the biology of performance. And she also spoke to Sophie about her experiences of her period and singing. All my life, I've sort of known that when I'm on my period that my voice is somewhat different and this is something that we amongst ourselves as singers might talk about but it's not anything that we were taught about when we were studying at conservatoire for most of us

studied for between five and seven years but this was never discussed and it's something that we I think as singers have always felt rather embarrassed to talk about we operate in quite a small competitive pond and so therefore I think we're reluctant to admit when we're struggling because we're terrified that any admission of weakness might be held against us and then will therefore be overlooked for a job. Even though it's incredible that this might be seen as a weakness, it is because, you know, we are judged on our voices. And when you say, Sophie, that your voice is different, how? What happens to it? So basically, I mean, most people don't really know anything about this because they don't use their voices in the extreme way that opera singers do so our vocal folds um which lie inside our larynx mimic exactly the glands inside our cervix which was which is incredible to me i had no idea about this um at the time of menstruation our

hormones fluctuate as we know but this also means that our vocal cords thicken and swell and this can lead to hoarseness and a breathy tone a loss of range we use we have a huge range as opera singers um especially you know we have to amplify our voices over whole orchestras into huge auditoriums without any amplification at all tiredness feeling unsure about tuning and loss of stamina. I mean, this is very different for different women. So this isn't the same for everyone. But I found as I got older and after having children that it's become worse. And when I start my period, as I did on that particular day, when I wrote on Twitter, I suddenly found that I had nowhere near the normal amount of control that I do over my voice. And I was standing in front of an audience, feeling like, feeling terrified,

feeling as though I had no control. What was going to come out of my mouth? Was everyone there going to think, oh, Sophie can't sing anymore. And therefore my career would be over and just struggling, sweating to kind of do what was normally completely easy for me. Dr. Alan Watson, let me bring you in there. Sophie's touched on an introduction as to what it is, but just explain it to us more scientifically, how premenstrual vocal syndrome happens and why? Well, what Sophia said provides the essence of it. And that is that there are lots of hormone receptors in the larynx, as of course we appreciate, because we see changes in the voice at the time of puberty. And this causes at least the symptoms that Sophia describes, because the vocal folds which vibrate very rapidly during singing if you're singing middle C the folds are vibrating 250 times a second and double that if you go an octave above then anything that changes the properties of the

folds is going to have a very dramatic effect and of course if you're a singer whose use of the voice is highly trained and the use is very subtle, then even small changes, and many of these are not particularly small, is going to disturb the voice. So the retention of fluid, for example, by the vocal folds, that's like retention of fluid you might see elsewhere, and the body bloating, I suppose, might be the symptom elsewhere, is something which makes it much harder for the folds to vibrate because they have more mass. On top of that, the surface may become dry. So you have this paradox of a swelling and fluid in the fold, but a dryness, maybe a thickness of mucus on the surface of the fold. And that just makes it harder. And there are some other factors. I don't know whether some of Sophie's colleagues

might have experienced this. And that is you get an enlargement of some of the blood vessels within the vocal folds as well. And these are more likely to rupture at that point. So this is vocal fold hemorrhage, something which produces a very rapid effect in the singer. And effectively, as a result, you get bruising, which, of course, can take quite a long time to resolve and occasionally leads to the formation of polyps and that sort of thing subsequently. In the 18th and 19th century, it was known, particularly in European opera houses, that female singers needed to be nurtured. I guess it's because they were the team who were in the local opera house and they had grace days which they were allowed not to sing. Now, of course, the life of a singer involves booking venues and being booked for performance months and months,

even years in advance. It's very difficult to manage that. And then we have this problem of, I think, perhaps singing teachers, even as they do know, maybe being embarrassed about talking on these matters, which are absolutely central to female singers. Well, one person who wasn't afraid to speak out about it was you, Sophie. You took to Twitter and you put that message out there.

Give us a sense of the responses that you got. Well, it was incredible, really. I had a huge response both on and off social media. Many people emailed me and sent me private messages as well and said, this is exactly what happens to me. Thank you for talking about it. Somebody said, I'm at a concert right now about to go on. Thank you so much.

I felt like bursting into tears when I read this because this is what I'm going through right now. And it gives me strength knowing that I'm not the only one and that maybe we can start talking about it and people might understand a bit more. And what helps you? What would help would be speaking to the conductor beforehand and saying, I might not be my best today.

Somehow getting it out there, maybe by writing it on Twitter or your social media so that if people there are thinking, why is she not singing her best? Why is he or she not singing their best? They might be able to look us up and then we've written a little statement saying, today I've started my period or I'm not feeling well.

The transparency, essentially, that space to be honest. Yeah. Yeah. And I wonder from a medical perspective, Alan, are there any solutions to this? Well, not if you are undergoing regular menstrual cycles. It can help. Things can be stabilised if people are taking contraception. But again, that varies in terms of how acceptable it is to singers in terms

of the vocal effects, apart from anything else. There have been some studies, obviously, it's very difficult to have a study where you have high level singers. So when this has been done in non-singers, there are indications that for some at least, it can increase voice stability. The thing about any form of medication is it's exceptionally important to discuss this with a clinician, because in the past there have been some pill formulations

which had components that were like male hormones. Now that's not generally true now. But it does raise another really important issue. And that is that there are some medications which do use androgens, these male hormones, and they're used for things like perhaps endometriosis or after hysterectomy. And those can have dramatic and sometimes irreversible effects. So there are many things which I think it's very important that singers know about in terms of the effects of hormones in the voice. Sophie, I'm hoping that your conductor or conductors are listening.

It would be wonderful. Also, my husband is a conductor and he thought it was incredibly interesting that this phenomenon that we don't really talk about either, that women who work together often become in tune, as it were, with each other. And so we all are on our periods at the same time. He conducts, you know, orchestras with a huge number of women in them and choruses, opera choruses. And, you know, maybe it's useful for them to know that there might be a certain day, a certain few days where half of the people that they're working with started their periods and they might be a certain day, a certain few days where half of the people that they're working with started their periods and they might be feeling incredible pain, incredible tiredness. Sophie Bevan and Dr. Alan Watson from the University of Cardiff.

It's also important to stress that this also affects women going through the menopause as well. That's all from me. Do join Claire MacDonald on Monday. She'll be speaking to the author of a new study into maternal suicide. If this is something that has affected you, please feel free to get in touch with the programme. In fact, you can do so about any subject you'd like us to discuss on the programme in the future by emailing our website. Do 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 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.