Woman's Hour - Wendy Joseph KC, Storm chasers, Remembering sex therapist Dr Ruth, Insta’s Fake Guru

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

Former Old Bailey judge, Her Honour Wendy Joseph KC, lifts the lid on our legal system. Having worked in criminal courts for almost half a century, she is still asking: what is justice? She tells Nuala McGovern some of the ways women and children struggle through the legal system - and why she wanted to highlight these issues in her latest book, Rough Justice.Twisters – the sequel to 1996 disaster-tornado film Twister – has been accused of playing into sexist tropes about storm chasers and meteorologists. But what’s it actually like being a female storm chaser? Nuala speaks to meteorologist Karen Kosiba from the Centre for Severe Weather Research in Colorado and to founder of the Midlands Storm Chasers group Vicky Royce-Pagett about the new film and why they find storm chasing so fascinating.Over the weekend, the sex therapist Ruth Westheimer died at the age of 96. In the 1980s, her ability to talk with good-natured candour about intimate sexual matters made her a big hit on American radio and TV and she was known to audiences as Dr. Ruth. We were lucky enough to speak to her in 2019.Last month, Kat Torres, a former model and wellness influencer, was sentenced to eight years in prison in Brazil after being found guilty of human trafficking and slave labour. Nuala talks to BBC Journalist Hannah Price who’s made a documentary about Kat’s story: Like, Follow, Trafficked: Insta’s Fake Guru.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Maryam Maruf Studio manager: Donald McDonald

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 Nuala McGovern 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 Woman's Hour. How are you feeling this morning? Perhaps a little bleary-eyed and disappointed with the result of the men's Euros with Spain beating England last night? Well, if so,

you are not alone. But how are you managing it? Any tips for those that are dejected? Maybe you're doing something to help you over the hump. Or maybe you were supporting Spain.

Or maybe you think it's high time to not hear mention of a football that you're so over it. Well, you can text the programme on all the fields. The number is 84844 on social media. We're at BBC Women's Hour.

Or you can email us through our website. For WhatsApp messages or voice notes, 03700100444. Here is a bright spot for England fans. The women's team, the Lionesses, are just one point away from qualifying for the Euros next year 2025 in Switzerland because they beat the Republic of Ireland on Friday so maybe you want to jump on that rollercoaster again.

Also today on the programme Wendy Joseph, one of the first female judges to preside in the Old Bailey, the most famous UK criminal court. We're going to discuss what is justice? And there's also a question of justice in a story we will bring you of Cat Torres, a Brazilian online influencer who has been convicted of human trafficking and slave labour. And we'll talk about the film Twisters. It's the sequel. It's about to be released, which focuses on storm chasers. And we're going to meet two women

who do that in real life and find out why. Plus remembering Dr Ruth, the groundbreaking sex therapist who has died at the age of 96. Now last week you might have seen the Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced that thousands of prisoners will be released after they have served only 40% of their sentences due to overcrowding. That is a crisis, they say, in jails. This has been called an emergency measure. But has justice been served by that? Joining me in the studio is the former judge, Her Honour Wendy Joseph Casey.

And she has spent almost half a century within the criminal courts. At one point, she was the only woman among 16 judges at the Old Bailey where the most serious crimes are tried. She retired in 2022. She spent her time writing her second book, that's called Rough Justice, which looks at the way that women and children struggle through the criminal justice system. And it's set through four fictional trials

and shows what can happen to those in the dock, the witness stand and also the jury. And through it all, she's asking this question, what is justice and do our legal courts dispense it? Welcome to Woman's Hour. It's a real pleasure to be here. So judges are the ones who give out the sentences. I'm curious of your opinion on prisoners potentially being released after only serving 40% of their time. Well, I suppose it depends

which prisoners are being released, Nuala, because there clearly are people in prison who 40% of the sentence will be a pretty large shock to them. And if they're not dangerous to the public, it may be in the public interest, given the overcrowding, to release them. It certainly wouldn't be to release someone who remains dangerous to the rest of us.

And they do say, the government, that there will be important safeguards and exemptions to keep the public safe, and there'll be clear release plans to manage them safely in the community. But even that headline that I gave, of course, brought up lots of questions about is that justice? What is justice? But I was so fascinated to read in your book, after all the years and experience that you have in the criminal courts as a lawyer and also as a judge, that you don't really know what justice is. And I was like, if you don't know, what hope do we have?

Yeah, I mean, I know what the justice system is. And I know that the justice system, at least ours, is supposed to deliver something called justice. And in a civil court, that's pretty straightforward. So if there's a breach of contract and somebody is £100, the worse off because someone else has breached the contract. The judge can say, pay the £100 plus costs and that'll teach you and justice is done. But you can't do that in a criminal court. You can't put things right. You can't undead a dead body. You can't unviolate a raped child. So the question of what really is justice is much more complex.

Yes, and it's something, of course, we speak about so often on this programme through various experiences that women and girls have had. And you look at four trials, I'll put that in inverted commas, in your book, which focuses on women and girls within the justice system.

But it's really interesting because what you do is not actual cases, but like an amalgamation of cases and also looking back at history as well. Why did you decide to focus this time on women and girls? I decided to focus on those who had a tough time accessing justice, because I was exploring the theme of what is justice. And you know, once I started to look at who has a tough time accessing justice, it so often comes down to women. what sort of victims they are of crime. So often they are the victims of crimes that take place where there aren't many witnesses, in a domestic situation, for example.

And so you end up with one person's word against another. And we know the complaints that are made about the result that that can lead to. One of the cases that you take a look at or create in a way from your experiences and what you've seen is the trial of an 11-year-old girl who has accused a family friend of rape. And you went and looked back at a similar case, a young girl of the same name, Susan, as you've put, from 1735. I mean, that's incredible to have parallels. Tell our listener a little bit what you found. So what I did was to, when you say I've created stories, I have.

These are not real trials. You can't go and look up these defendants with these names and these facts. But I went back to all the cases I'd done on particular subjects, pulled out things I thought were interesting, and wove them into the story. So they're not real cases, but everything in them is true. Yes, I understand. So I created that scenario with this little girl called Susan, where I was writing about all the things that we've now put in place which are supposed to make it easier for vulnerable victims to access justice. And there are a lot of them.

And then I just thought, I wonder if we're doing a lot better now than we were in the past. So I went on to the website for the Old Bailey Archives. They are a great resource and a great read for anyone who wants to look at them. And I simply put into the search engine there, rape and child. And then on a whim, I put in the word Susan, because that was the name of my protagonist. And up came this case. It's not as if I went searching for it. I don't know how many other cases there would be involving rapes and children historically. But up came this case. And when I looked at it, it was so extraordinary, because the sort of cross-examination I would see in court today, if it really happened, Susan, why didn't you tell your mum as soon as you got home?

If it really happened, Susan, why did you ever go back and speak to him again? Those very questions were recorded by the scribe who was keeping the record back in 1735. There they were, the same questions out of the mouths of barristers then, and the same struggle for a witness to find an answer. And so 300 years later, it's quite something. And there are things that have happened that you shield the witness, for example, a little girl in this case. There is pre-trial cross-examination as well

to try and save them some of the trauma of having to sit while that court trial is taking place. But still, as I read about it, it's brutal, I felt, for that vulnerable person being put in that situation. Yeah, I mean, it's not just children, it's anyone. Yes, anybody who has gone through something. It really is. But we shouldn't underestimate how much we've done.

The laws that have been brought in to physically shield the person in the witness box from the public gallery and from the dock, or to not bring them into court at all and have a video link from somewhere else in the building, or, and increasingly now, to both pre-record the evidence in chief, that is the account of what happened, and the cross-examination. All of these things are now in force and many other things, limits on the nature of cross-examination, the sort of questions that can be asked, the sort of language that can be used for a judge to ensure that a barrister isn't even inadvertently sounding bullying or intimidating. All of those things are in place and they do make it easier to get through the process. But whether that creates better justice at the end of the day is another question. There's also another trial, as I'll call it, that you write about

for the murder of a domestically abusive husband. And you compare that to a case in 1902. But I'm wondering how you think things have changed when it comes to situations of domestic violence? Well, there have been a lot of attempts to enact legislation that will put it into a different category. But the reality is that women have suffered domestic violence, men too sometimes, but predominantly women, as far back as the records go. And it hasn't changed and it hasn't got any better. face in leaving a domestic situation, particularly if they've got children, have become more and more complex. So nothing on that front has improved. Becoming more complex, why? Becoming more complex because, I suppose, because families have become less structured.

So in the past, an abused... Let me start again. In the past, say in my great-grandmother's generation, an abused woman might have been able to go with the children back to an extended family. We have so many vulnerable people these days who don't have an extended family, who just don't have support. There would have been local and village support that we don't have. There would have been state support not so very long ago that we really don't have anymore. And so I think that women can feel very, very isolated. And I really don't want to make men sound like monsters. Most of them are thoroughly decent. But if you get someone who is bullying and intimidating and sets about

isolating a victim, which is usually what happens, cutting them off from their support system, then it can become very, very difficult for a woman. And one of the great steps forward that we have made in domestic violence cases is we have got to the point where we recognise that exposure to that sort of level of constant violence and intimidation and bullying can cause mental states that engage defences if the woman then is driven or feels that she's driven or just finds that she has committed an act of violence. So we have reached the point where we can see that a killer, because make no doubt, a woman who kills is a killer, may be something less than a murderer. It may be manslaughter because of the things that she has been through. You know, I was interested to read, you talk about a Spanish example that has specialist courts for women. So these are specialist courts with judges trained in violence against women, measures to protect victims and also decent funding.

Do you think that could work here? It certainly could work if we had the funding for it. But like everything in the system, it's treasury driven. And I could make, you know, if I was given the brief, I could make a case for spending more money, a lot more money on the criminal justice system. But, you know, who am I to say that out of our limited resources, we should spend it on that rather than a, you know, cancer research or some other hospital treatment or social services. We will have those conversations here with the politicians of the new government, of course, on Women's Hour as well. Speaking about women who can be dangerous, there was the recent trials of the former neonatal nurse Lucy Letby. She has been convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others,

and she's serving 15 whole life terms. But you will have seen, no doubt, that some have raised questions about the convictions of Miss Letby, asking whether they were safe. How do you understand that term, a safe conviction? Can you explain it? So the judge will actually set about creating a situation in the courtroom where all parties can explore all relevant issues. Unlike a civil court, in a criminal court, the big decision, guilty or not guilty, is not made by a judge. Where the rights and wrongs lie,

not made by the judge. They're made by you, people like you, your listeners. Anyone who is on the electoral register can be called to be a member of a jury. And so the judge's task, certainly up to the point of conviction, when sentence is engaged, but up to the point of that, is really to control the trial, to make the rulings of law that will enable the jury to hear what they need to hear. And the judge will ensure that, judge should ensure, that everybody engaged in the case has a fair crack of the whip. But the Court of Appeal is there to review whether the judge got it right. And sometimes a judge can get it wrong because new evidence comes to light or because a decision was made in law which the Court of Appeal don't agree with. Everything happened properly in the lower court to make sure that when the jury returned that verdict and said, we are sure of guilt, it was a safe thing to do. A safe conviction. A safe conviction that there is no risk, real risk, that they've got it wrong because they were directed wrong in law or didn't get the right facts. And to reiterate, Lucy Lethby has been convicted by a jury

of her peers of the murders and attempted murders and her appeals have been rejected recently. Just very briefly, Sherlock Holmes, I heard, was a hero of yours. Yes. So this passion for law and criminal justice started early. I think it was rather a passion for the stories, for the writing and for the characters above all. And the truth is, I never really set out to be a lawyer. When I was tiny, I wanted to be a writer when I was tiny I wanted I wanted to be a writer that's what I wanted well now you are and when I was seven I wanted to be a writer and when I was

70 I ended up doing just extraordinary how lucky how lovely um I was also surprised to see that women were only on juries from 100 years ago. But how do you feel? I mentioned like how few women there are, like you that have made it to those upper echelons, the Old Bailey, for example, is it changing? Oh, gosh, yes. So women have come a very long way, very quickly. When I went to the Old Bailey, I was the third ever full-time female appointment there. And they haven't had a woman judge there full-time for a long time. So as you said at the beginning, I was one of six. I was the only woman amongst 16 men. When I left there 10 years later, the numbers on the bench were exactly even.

And now we actually have more women than men there. And I think that's a triumph. It's not true of other courts, but it is true of the most important criminal court in our country. And that's quite an achievement. And why do you think that there's so many women there then compared to the other courts? Well, these days to get appointed anywhere, you have to apply. You have to go through quite a complicated application process. And I think that for the women at the top of the criminal bar, and there are a lot of them now and they are brilliant. It is a real appeal to sit in the Old Bailey dealing with the most interesting cases in the country.

So I think that's where the best people apply. And you were one of them. Your Honour, Wendy Joseph Casey, Rough Justice is her book, Do We Have a Law We Deserve? It's released on the 18th of July. Thank you so much for spending some time with us. Thank you. Let us turn to the Euros, Sue. All talk about disappointment. Why is this? Why can we not celebrate the amazing achievement that the young men have done?

Would we be so disparaging of the Lionesses? How they reached the finals of the Euros twice, had they? Please take time to celebrate the efforts of all elite athletes working hard to give us their best. This is not good sportsmanship to project our disappointment onto the team without praising their achievements. Raise the standard of supporters. Critiques are fine, but must be

fair on the Euros result. Spain were the better team of the night, but England played with amazing technical brilliance and more importantly with heart. We should be proud of them and the way they represented our country

not just England but Great Britain and I'd support a knighthood for Gareth. Hope he'll stay on for the World Cup but would entirely understand if he's had enough

of the stress and the armchair critics. Keep them coming 8-4 8-4-4 Now a little football there. What about cricket?

Well, in two days' time, at this time, you will want to be listening to Women's Hour. Well, actually, you'll want to start about 23 minutes ago because I will be broadcasting to you live from the iconic Lord's Cricket Ground in the Test Match special box, nonetheless. And this is to coincide with the huge T20 match between England and New Zealand

and we will be discussing all things women's cricket. I'll be speaking to a leading cricket voice, Beth Barrett-Wilds, the woman who runs the women's game at the England and Wales Cricket Board. Also to a 16-year-old girl starting her own business after being fed up wearing boys' hand-me-downs when playing. So join me for what I know is going to be a fantastic programme. It's Wednesday, it's 10am. It's right here on Radio 4.

To Hollywood. We know that Hollywood likes a sequel, don't we? Maybe you remember the 1996 film Twister. It was like an American disaster thriller. Helen Hunt was playing the fearless scientist Joe Harding as deadly tornadoes swept across Oklahoma. Let me bring you a clip from the sequel.

This year's summer blockbuster, apparently. It's called Twisters. Once in a generation, tornado outbreak continues. You've got quite the reputation, city girl. You thought you could destroy a tornado. In theory, but I never had a chance to get close enough. You want one? Now, Variety, I saw, criticised the film for sexist tropes,

saying the female scientist character that's played by Daisy Edgar-Jones has become, and I quote, doleful and slightly recessive presence, compared, they say, to the macho daredevil male storm chasers. But what's it really like being a storm chaser, a female storm chaser? Well, that is me too. Meteorologist Karen Kasiba from the Centre for Severe Weather Research in Colorado. Yes, she has gotten up very early for us. And storm chaser Vicky Royce Padgett, who runs Midlands Storm Chasers Group online.

Welcome to you both. I mean, I'm using that term storm chasing, Vicky,ce-Paget who runs Midlands Storm Chasers Group online. Welcome to you both. I mean I'm using that term storm chasing Vicky but what is it exactly and welcome. Well in the United Kingdom if we're talking about storm chasing it really is a case of really sort of getting into a position and letting that storm come to you because we and like the fantastic storm chasers like Karen in the Great Plains of America we have an awful lot of hills and brooks and obstacles and cities to get around so we kind of sort of make sure that we're in a really good position and let the storm come to us so we can take measurements and readings and observations and of course keep people up to date because the weather in the United Kingdom is very very personal

at times so yeah yeah we sort of, instead of chasing, the storm kind of chases us, I think. Okay, but is that at the heart of it, trying to get information for other people? Because, you know, I read that you own a pair of ruby slippers. And yes, we probably all know The Wizard of Oz and Dorothy. Yes, I do, I do.

Because my first love in life was actually being an entertainer. I'm a singer and a musician. That's my first part of my life. And then meteorology has become the second. But yeah, there's a sort of a mix of the entertainment and the weather at the same time with me. So as soon as I see those glittery slippers, of course, I'm off down the yellow brick road singing. And wondering about a tornado.

And I will come back to you about exactly what big weather are you finding in the UK. But let me turn to Karen, because you're a, let me give this cool job description, a tornado scientist. Good morning. Thank you for getting up and tell us a little bit about what you do. Good morning. Sure. Yeah, I am a tornado scientist. So, yeah, what I do is I go out in the field with lots of different types of instrumentation, mobile radars and weather stations. And what we're trying to do is get in the path of the tornado and try to get measurements very low down and look at the winds inside the tornado and also look at the moisture and temperature and try to see how tornadoes intensify and form.

What is it like when you're in the eye of a storm? It's probably more boring than people think it is, at least from the science perspective. Yeah, I mean, because we're very, very concentrated on trying to get good data. So, yeah, so if you're flying on one of our research vehicles, you're probably like, gosh, this is really boring. Because what we're really doing is we're just trying to make sure we're safe, but we're really trying to get our instruments really close.

We're trying to get some of our instruments in the path of the tornado. So we're spending a lot of time monitoring where exactly we think the tornado is going to go and where exactly we should be placing stuff. It's a little bit what about your game or something that we're playing like a board game vicky is that how you describe it i mean have you had any close calls uh i have indeed actually i've had my car stripped by a positive strike as karen would probably go oh gosh that's not wise um no i mean there's there's huge adrenaline run and of course we do get tornadoes in the UK. We've had some humdingers over the years. It's just not as frequent as what they experience because of topographical and air flows in America.

I would love to be in the car with Karen. I've got to say, Karen, I'm coming over. I'll make the coffee. Because I was wondering about that, Vicky, whether you are tempted to go to places that are known for big weather. I mean, it's probably no coincidence that a lot of these are the movies that we're talking about.

You know, they're set in the plains of Oklahoma. Yes, I've been booked up to go twice in my life so far. The first time I discovered I was pregnant with twins. So you can imagine the insurance company was like, no, no, you're not doing that. And then, of course, second time's ago, we just happened to stumble into a global pandemic. But it is my 50th next year,

and I shall be taking the plane over to go and have and see these humbling systems that, despite our systems in the UK are smaller but to see those mesocyclonic supercells in the planes is yes it's a bucket list. Supercells is that what they're called? Absolutely yeah there's we do get them in the UK. My page and my group was founded in 2012 after two supercells came through which, which did produce a tornado or two, some baseball size hail, tennis ball size hail, and over 64,000 lightning strikes in one day recorded over the country. So we do have this weather. It just doesn't happen as frequently.

But there are... Unfortunate for me, but fortunate for the rest of us. Yeah, but there are a lot of people that follow your lead as well. I mean, this is, it was new to me, but once you get into it, you see the Facebook group and the people that are also very passionate about what you do.

Curious about the criticism that was levelled at that film, not specifically the film, but in a way that it's sometimes thought of as a macho thing to do to be a storm chaser. What do you think, Karen? Yeah, I mean, well, I haven't seen the film yet, but... No, but I'm talking about even in general.

Right, right, right. Yeah. No, I mean, in general, I mean, there's a whole variety of people who are out there chasing storms. And sure, maybe, you know, some of the more well-known people who are storm chasing happen to be male. But that doesn't mean that there's not a big female contingent of storm chasers and photographers and scientists out there, you know, trying to get in the path of the tornado. Have you come up against it, Vicky? People surprised, perhaps? Yeah, I've had a lot of mansplaining. I do get the comments occasionally. I mean, I must say that the page Midland Storm Chasers, I am so proud of everybody on there. They're so respectful, so much fun. And we always have a good giggle and a lot of sense of humour.

Occasionally, I do get the mansplaining and like, sort of, what would you know? And I'm like, well, 11 years of education, okay. But I look at the demographics of the page. And I can say that the majority of the people that are following and with that reach of getting up to sort of 3.4 million at times, everybody's female. And from the age of 30 to 60 is sort of the average demographic of the page, which I find incredible. And what is it for them, do you think? Both of you have described personally what drives you, but what do you feel it is, Vicky, from the people that you're in contact with? Those women in particular? I think everybody likes, there is a certain level of escapism when that comes to your

front door with a storm obviously there's always the worry there's always a worry about flooding or sort of power loss or the house being struck by lightning god forbid it but i think there is something in us as humans that we need to see the storm and we need to see mother nature and see mother nature giving these incredible displays um and it can come within 15 minutes and leave, and leave a trail of destruction, and the sun will come out and it will be, wow, that was a bit intense. And I think it has this thing that it resets the soul and it makes us feel a little bit small and insignificant at times.

And I think that's why so many people are passionate about wanting to see storms and wanting to see extreme weather. What about that, Karen? Yeah, I mean, I think people are fascinated by nature and tornadoes and other sort of rare phenomena. You know, people want to see that, want to see what nature can do. I mean, you know, storm chasing, too, in particular, I think some of the stuff people like a challenge. You want to be in the right place at the right time to either, you know, get the data set or get the picture. So there's a challenge there too to be, you know, to be in a good location, to be in the right storm.

How do you stay safe, Karen? Well, I mean, I chase with the mobile radar. So a lot of times, you know, we're getting more information than other people are getting. So we're going into a lot of these opaque storms where we can't actually see what's going on. But as I always tell people, I think the most dangerous part is the driving. It's, you know, it's a lot of driving and bad weather, a lot of low visibility. A lot of times there's people out there that aren't used to driving in that and they're scared. So there's a lot of driving concerns more so a lot of times than the actual weather concerns. And what is the feeling when you're going out? You're like, oh, another tornado. It's like, wow, another tornado.

No, definitely not another tornado. It's exciting. I mean, again, you know, same type of thing. You're trying to be in the right place to get the data. In some ways, every tornado is different. Every storm is a little bit different. I mean, sure, there's commonalities, but there's challenges kind of with every tornado or every storm that you're going after to be in the right place, whether it's the evolution of the tornado, how it's moving, what's going on on the road, where people are. So there's just always a lot going on and it's slightly different every time,

slightly a different challenge. And I'm wondering, you know, in the film, the new film, the storms are bolstered by global warming, which has this angry succession of tornadoes across Oklahoma. Have you noticed a difference, Vicky? Yes, I have. I mean, obviously there is a phenomenon with if everybody's got a camera in theiricky? Yes, I have. I mean, obviously, there is a phenomenon with if everybody's got a camera in their pocket these days, we can actually document things and things

appear to be more frequent. But there is the evidence to say that with a warming climate, there is more water vapor available in the atmosphere. And so when the conditions are right, particularly when it comes to sort of supercells and large thunderstorms, when we get the phenomenon known as the Spanish plume, which is sort of low pressure down towards the southwest of Ireland into Biscay. And that drags up this warm, volatile air from Iberia and over France. And we get those continental and then obviously cold air undercuts that and everything just explodes over the country. And the evidence for those sort of setups, particularly when we've got such a wavering jet stream it is getting more frequent and it is sort

of being linked to that uh continuous global temperature rise and i was asking karen what's it's like to be in the eye of the storm what about for you um oh it's uh i everything else disappears from my brain my brain you know all the worries of daily life and just to see that immense sort of system and seeing what Mother Nature can throw at you. Every storm is unique and we have our own little isms in this country. We have things like the urban heat island of suburbia and that can sort of interject a bit more energy. So we notice things like Nottingham's a little bit more prone to perhaps seeing some rotation in the sky and seeing some tornadoes. And what I love equally is being able to share my passion

and my education in meteorology and earth science and share it in such a way that other people get it. And I've always said, if I can do science, then everybody can. Let's all learn together and if people if their interest is peaked by listening to this this morning how do you get into it um well i would i'd say sort of pop up come on over to facebook and come and find the page because we are having an awful lot we we've just uh sort of obviously it's in swithin's day today so i've just written a post saying we've had the weather forecast in for the next 40-day trend. And tell me.

Yeah, just pop over to Facebook and come and join us. A lovely bunch of people all sharing the passion. Am I going to have to go over there to find out the forecast? Yeah, you are. I'm very clever. We do have a lot of rain coming through today, I've got to say that. There are a couple of storms towards the east, so there you go. Vicky Royce-Paget

runs Midland Storm Chasers Group online. We also had the meteorologist Karen Kasiba from Centre for Severe Weather Research in Colorado. Thank you. Get back to bed there

for a couple of hours before perhaps the day job starts. Really interesting. Thank you so much. She talked about Spanish plume. What about those Spaniards last night with the English? The men's Euros.

Okay, Fiona says, Yes, there are some very disappointed people this morning that a bunch of vastly overpaid young men didn't score enough goals to win a football match. Get over it, says she. And while the dream provided an escape from reality for those who believed it was coming home, the life lesson is that disappointment happens in life,

so resilience is key. 844-844 if you want to get in touch. Now, over the weekend, the broadcaster and sex therapist Dr. Ruth died at the age of 96. Ruth Westheimer was born in Germany, but as

a girl was sent abroad to escape the Nazis, eventually settling in the United States. Starting in the 1980s, her ability to talk with good-natured candor about intimate sexual matters made her a huge hit on American radio and TV and of course went global. We were lucky enough to speak to Dr. Ruth

back in 2019 on Woman's Hour. Here's a clip. She's in conversation with Jane Garvey. I could speak openly and without embarrassment and it's also because I was not on television. I wasn't sitting there, a young woman with a short skirt. I already was in my 50s. Yes, well, I was going to ask you about that.

Was your maturity what made it possible? I think it's the combination of being very well trained, of having the nerve to talk about orgasms and erections and issues of premature ejaculation and difficulties with sex and desire phase dysfunction. At the same time, giving good scientifically validated information, but also not make it so didactic, not to make it so boring, but to use human elements of the stories that I heard every Sunday night, two hours on radio. And I think by my having been already 50, that maturity came across. I already had two children. I already had been married. And in the documentary, it says how often I've been married.

A disgraceful three times, Dr. Rue. Wait, two times were legalized love affairs. All right. Okay. The real marriage was Fred Westheimer, who passed away 20 years ago. And it was the love of your life. The love of my life.

Yeah. What was the most common question you'd get? And what was the saddest question you would get? So these days, the questions have changed. I get less questions from men who ejaculate faster than they want to. I get less questions from women who don't know how to have an orgasm. I do more questions now about loneliness.

The art of conversation is getting lost. Everybody is on their iPhone. And I'm very concerned about that. The loneliness and the inability to form relationships. You said back in the day, the question would always be, I'm a woman and I just don't know how to have an orgasm. It is, I suppose, still remarkable because women are still asking. Some women are still asking that question. And then I say, thank you for asking.

How wonderful that you can ask. Now go and get a book. Now go and get a vibrator. But careful, don't ever get used to a vibrator. Why not? Because no penis can duplicate the vibrations of a vibrator. So use a vibrator, get it out, put it aside, finish with your hand. Otherwise your expectations will be simply set to fine. Exactly.

Right. The Daring TV sex therapist Ruth Westheimer, a.k.a. Dr. Ruth, speaking to Jane Garvey on Woman's Hour in 2019. Dr. Ruth sadly has died at the age of 96. I just want to read this because we were talking about twisters a moment ago, the film.

I was reading a review this morning and it just reminded me, listening to Dr Ruth there. Here's Peter Bradshaw reviewing twisters in the Gorgon. Certainly the twister here is an obvious symbol for orgasm. While there's not a whole lot of explicit romantic activity in this family movie, who needs it when you're driving around looking for the meteorological G-spot? Anyway, just saw that theme coming together there and thought I would share it with you.

Now, we've been hearing over the past few weeks about those things you used to do when you were younger or perhaps at school, but as you grew older, life got in the way and then you stopped, until now, and you've picked or perhaps at school. But as you grew older, life got in the way and then you stopped, until now. And you've picked up that passion again. Our reporter, Sarah Swadling, has been speaking to those of you who got in touch with the hobbies you've been rediscovering later in life.

Today is the turn of Gail, who used to do ballet as a child but stopped when she was 12. Six decades later, she decided to try again and now loves her weekly classes. She told Sarah about how she first discovered ballet. When I was probably between about the ages of eight and 12, I did ballet classes. I also did tap and acrobatics, which is now called gymnastics, but it wasn't then. I did quite well in the ballet.

I got some of my grades, but it wasn't really me. And at 12, I decided that I wanted to give it up and go horse riding instead. In my 70s, I decided that it would be very good for my posture and my back if I took something up again, and that was when I discovered Silver Swans. Silver Swans. Tell me a bit about that. Well, it's licensed by the Royal Academy of Dance. Every teacher has to be licensed. It's supposedly for over 55s, but I honestly think anyone could probably join in if they really wanted to. We get together every Wednesday afternoon. We laugh a lot because we're not very good. But, you know, it's just it's a really lovely atmosphere. We have fun and we chat and we make mistakes. Sometimes we get it right.

But it's just good fun. What do you do in a Silver Swans class? Is it just exercises or do you learn whole dances? Well, we start the class off at the bar. We do a few exercises at the bar. So half the class is bar work, which is a lot of strengthening and muscle work. And then each half term, we get taught a specific port de bras. So we learn a little, I suppose, routine, you could call it. We learn a little bit every week, but we also do a bit of character dancing at the end of the lesson. So perhaps something Russian or Ukrainian, where we sort of poke around the room, crashing into one another. So it's a good mixture of a lot of things. I mean, it's only an hour, but we do seem to cram in a lot. And we have time to chat as well. You were talking about how you thought ballet would be a good idea for your posture.

But it sounds like what you've actually got out of it is a lot more joyful. Yes. Yes. Well, I'd had spinal surgery. And that was sort of my original motivation was to get my back back to normal and strengthen it. But yes, it's a lot more than that now because I don't have any more problems with my back, but I still go every week. What would you say to anyone who was thinking of rediscovering ballet? Well, you don't even have to rediscover it. We've got people in the group who've never done it before.

So I would say give it a go because you've got nothing to lose. I noticed that during lockdown, Queen Camilla was doing Silver Swans and Angela Rippon is an ambassador for Silver Swans so you know I think it's just it's worldwide now so people are obviously thinking that there are benefits. Earlier you were talking about you start at the bar this is dance studio bar on the wall type bar rather than drinks bar yes very much so yes bar with a double re at the end yes that's right so that part of it's good because that develops our muscles um and it's done reasonably slowly so that you know, we have to be quite good at keeping in time and everything. Are all the Silver Swans sessions quite carefully tailored to people of a certain age? Well, I think they are probably, but my granddaughter is a ballet dancer and I

asked if I could take her along one day to my class and she actually really enjoyed it and she's 21 you know and a dancer she really enjoyed it because she said it was slow and she was able to sort of concentrate on each move but I presume that Lucy, who is my teacher, caters for our age. We don't go leaping around the room, for instance, which a lot of us wouldn't be able to do. It sounds quite mindful. It is. It is very much so. It's almost like a therapy that, yes, you can lose yourself. It's lovely music she plays.

And it's also good for the brain because obviously there are things when we learn our little routine, you have to remember the steps. And to start with, I think I've found that quite hard, but it's getting better. It sounds like it's been really life-affirming for you. Yes, it has, yes. I look

forward to my Wednesday afternoons. That was Gail telling our reporter Sarah Swadling all about her dancing with the Silver Swans. Right, ballet, back to football, Diane. I'm not a follower of football, but I am patriotic and I would have loved England to have won. However, I think the pundits, the supporters

and press who criticise the team should ask themselves, could they do better? I doubt it. 84844 if you want to get in touch with the programme on football or anything else indeed. Now, I want to move on to Cat Torres. She is a former model who, after a childhood of extreme poverty in Brazil,

built an extremely successful life coaching and wellness career through social media. Last month however she was sentenced to eight years in prison after being found guilty of human trafficking and slave labour against one of her clients. Charges have also been filed on another case. I'm joined in studio now by Hannah Price, a journalist for BBC Eye who made a documentary about Kat's story. Welcome. Hi, thanks for having me. So tell us a little bit, who is Kat Torres? So Kat Torres grew up in northern Brazil in a very poor neighbourhood.

And one of the ways in which she got out of that situation was when she was scouted as a model. She has long blonde hair, is very pretty, thin, and had everything they were looking for. So that took her to Europe, to South Korea, all over the world. And eventually she ended up in the US. And she was on the cover of magazines and partying with A-listers such as Leonardo DiCaprio. So that soon brought her to the attention of the media and gave her a very high profile in Brazil in particular. So she started to share her inspirational story and also her life of luxury on social media. And that's how she made a name for herself.

So she got all these followers, which we hear from in your documentary. And she actually formed close relationships with some of them, having them as clients for this life coaching or wellness influencing. Can you tell us a little bit more about the dynamic between followers and Kat? Of course. So one of the things that Kat did is Instagram really gave her a platform after her modeling career where she turned to life coaching. And this meant she had hundreds of And these women that found her would Google her and they, they, they always, all of the women we spoke to said they found her really credible. She had a published book, she was on the top media shows in Brazil. And obviously, she had this successful career. So she really began to monetize on this turning her followers

into clients. So she set up a glossy website which promised you all the love money and self-esteem that you always dreamed of offering motivational videos on business relationships spirituality exercise health and this was in 2017 when self-care and things like that was really exploding online and especially for a lot of the young women living in Brazil from poorer backgrounds like herself, they really saw her as almost like their ticket to finding a way out of whatever they were going through. So a lot of these women were vulnerable when they turned to Kat.

Well, one of these women is Anna, and we have a clip from your documentary that gives us an idea of how she was feeling around the time that she met Kat. When I found Kat, I was just in rock bottom point in my life. I had gone out of an abusive relationship. And even before that, I had difficult childhood. I suffered a lot of violence. I was having health issues. I had gone to conventional therapy. I had gone difficult childhood. I suffered a lot of violence. I was having health issues. I had gone to conventional therapy. I had gone to many doctors. I was losing weight. I was really sick and nothing was working. I just was in a point that I had lost hope in life and in my mind, like I didn't really see like a future for myself. All these people say that they can find God,

and God can heal you. So that was kind of like my last shot. I was like, let me see if God is real. Let me see if I can find a spiritual answer. Then I kind of started to turn to the spiritual world. You want to take a sip? Yeah. I just got emotional talking to you.

No, it's OK. You're doing really well. It is really something seeing Anna on screen. She said it was the first time she was on camera talking about this relationship that she had with Kat. I mean, how would you describe it? So I think at first, like she says herself, she was in a really vulnerable situation. She was living in Boston with no support around her and one of the things that Kat did through her consultations was have these women open up about their deepest insecurities and also their wildest dreams and Anna now describes it as a form of manipulation

really where Kat was using this information she had to offer her a way out and that never turned out to be exactly what these women thought it would be. So she actually invited Anna to come live with her in New York as her paid live-in assistant. She thought this would be laundry, washing, looking after her animals. She was told she would be paid, she said she was told she'd be paid around two thousand dollars a month but when she got there she says the reality was very different and i should say that kat denies anna's accusations that she ever lived with her other women also claim the same thing but um one desiree was another woman whose case was brought to trial and Kat Torres was actually found guilty of human trafficking and slave labor. Um, I mean, that seems like such a jump from somebody who's, you know, following an influencer to coming to this very dark place? So I think Anna in some ways is kind of the beginning of the story

with Kat and her followers because she says when she arrived she was treated like a slave, wasn't paid, had to be working 24 hours a day and wasn't allowed to sleep but eventually she managed to get out of the situation but we come to 2022 and Kat starts inviting some of her most dedicated followers to come and live with her she's sharing this on social media she's reaching out to her one-on-one clients that she feels are most dedicated to her each one that ends up living in the house with her in Austin Texas says that they were lured there under different circumstances. With Desiree, Kat Torres said that she was suicidal and needed a friend and booked her a ticket for the next day to fly from Germany to Texas.

She told work she'd be back in a few weeks, but she never returned. And there are three women that we know that were living in the house, all who report incredibly hostile environment that eventually came out of it, where they weren't allowed to speak to each other. They say they weren't allowed to leave their rooms without Kat's permission. Any money they earned, they said, had to be handed over to them. Which at times was huge sums, which could have been in prostitution or indeed working as strippers in clubs. You interviewed Kat in prison in Brazil earlier this year

before she was sentenced. I want to bring a clip of that to our listeners. When I was seeing the people testifying, they were saying so many lies, so many lies, that at one point I couldn't stop laughing. How does it make you feel when you're hearing that former clients are traumatised? Do you have any emotional reaction?

I have to say they are absolutely ridiculous and that they need to run back to their parents. Did you believe in the advice you were giving these women? Oh yeah, I believe a thousand percent. Do you take any accountability for any of these allegations? Absolutely not, zero. And do you think you deserve to face any punishment or justice? Absolutely not. Quite defiant there. I should say the cat is appealing the decision of Desiree's case

that found her guilty of human trafficking and slave labour. But what was your conversation with her like? I noticed in the documentary she said she didn't like you very much. Well, we didn't really know what we were going to find and our team from BBC Eye and BBC News Brazil got a rare court order to enter the prison. But we didn't know if she'd talk to us. And she started off quite fragile and calm. But the more we confronted her with the evidence we'd seen, the more hostile and aggressive she became, particularly towards me.

And she even kind of left us with a parting threat that we'd see if she had powers or not. Why did you want to make this documentary, Hannah, and make people aware of this case in our last minute? So I think this documentary and this story goes a lot deeper than it might seem on the surface in terms of the coercion and manipulation that these women say that they experienced and human trafficking is growing it's a rising crime and authorities are saying social media is making it so much easier for traffickers and grooming individuals so I think it's super important that young people know what to look out for because human traffickers don't always look like they do in the movies. And it's often people they know.

I found that interesting in the documentary. It's way more likely to be someone you trust. And these women were incredibly intelligent. They were just in a vulnerable position. And the worst thing imaginable happened to them. Hannah Price, thank you so much. You can watch Like, Follow, Traffic to Insta's Fake Guru

which is on iPlayer from today. Actually, I think it went up at midnight. And if you have been affected by some of the issues we've spoken about, you can find support

on the Women's Hour website. Find me tomorrow. We'll be talking about historical fiction. Here's one. Kirstie, is her name, would we condemn

other athletes for achieving silver and not gold? It should be seen not as win-lose, but silver in Europe. The last word there on the football. I will talk to you tomorrow. That's all for today's Woman's Hour.

Join us again next time. I'm Tom Heap. And I'm Helen Chersky. A journalist. And a physicist. Ready to tackle the biggest issues on the planet. Each week on Rare Earth, a podcast from BBC Radio 4, we investigate a major news story about our environment and wildlife.

We delve into the history. How on earth did we get here? We stir up the politics. Who's right and who's wrong? And we search for effective solutions to rising temperatures and collapsing wildlife. In our new series, we'll be learning how to reduce the destructive power of wildfires. And we'll be learning how to reduce the destructive power of wildfires, and we'll be hearing how the most vulnerable communities are trying to flood-proof their cities. And we'll reveal the new phenomenon of green hushing. Companies no longer want to talk

about the environment. They're worried that green activists will point out their hypocrisy, while right-wing critics accuse them of being too woke. Better to say, and perhaps sadly do, nothing. Listen to Rare Earth on BBC Sounds. 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 I'm Kate Snell.