Woman's Hour - Women's safety, Paralympics

Episode Date: March 3, 2022

'Enough'. That’s the name of a new communication campaign launched by the Home Office this week to tackle violence against women and girls. It comes in the week of the anniversary of the abduction and murder of Sarah Everard in London, by a serving police officer. So one year on, where are we in the fight to deal with violence against women and girls? We speak to Labour MP Dame Diana Johnson who is the chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, and to Woman's Hour listeners Polly and Rebecca about their concerns.The Winter Paralympics begin tomorrow in Beijing and ParalympicsGB are sending 24 athletes to compete - the biggest British Winter Paralympic team in nearly thirty years. There are five female athletes including alpine skier Menna Fitzpatrick, who won four medals in Pyeongchang four years ago. Jessica discusses our medal prospects with Andy Stevenson, 5 Live’s Paralympic Winter Games reporter; and the International Paralympic Committee's decision not to allow Russian or Belarussian athletes to take part with Rebecca Myers, journalist at The Sunday Times.On Sunday the BAFTAs red carpet rolls out to recognise the very best in British film. One of the nominees in the short film category is about a small and unique community in the heart of South London - locals at the London Palace Bingo Club. Their beloved club is being forced to close down, and the film follows the regulars who have depended on it for years. Jessica speaks to the director Jo Prichard. The film is available to stream on the Bertha DocHouse website this weekend.Danielle Marin is the author of Top Girl, a book exploring her first-hand experiences with drug dealing, gangs and violent crimes. Danielle wants people to know about young women who get caught up in this kind of lifestyle, and how she found a way out. She joins Jessica.

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 Jessica Crichton. Welcome to the Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning and welcome to the programme. Now, over the last two years, there's been a shocking number of murders that have focused attention on the issue of women and girls' safety in our society. They include sisters Nicole Smallman and Beaver Henry in June 2020, primary school teacher Sabina Nessa last September, and a year ago today, the abduction and murder of Sarah Everard by Wayne Cousins, a serving police officer. This week, the Home

Secretary, Preeti Patel, announced the launch of a new national communications campaign called Enough. They want to challenge perpetrators and raise awareness of what we can all do to safely call out abuse. She's also announced that tackling violence against women and girls will become a national priority for police forces alongside terrorism, serious and organised crime and child sexual abuse. Now shortly you'll hear the views of the MP who is chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee on whether the government is doing indeed enough. But we also want to hear from you as well. Tell us how safe do you feel? If you don't feel safe, how could you be made to feel safer? What would that look like? What would need to happen? Let us know. I know for me in my own personal experience, I definitely do not feel safe walking alone at night on the streets.

And what I found myself doing, particularly in recent months, is when I'm walking somewhere and I'm by myself and it's dark, I'm continually looking behind me as I walk, just in case someone tries to ambush me or someone tries to grab me. And I mean, I'm doing this, like kind of sharply turning my neck every five or six seconds. And perhaps, yeah, paranoia, that could be the reason for it. But it's what I do to make myself feel a bit safer. Let us know what you do, though. You can text Woman's Hour on 84844. Text will be charged at your standard message rate. On social media, we are at BBC Woman's Hour, or you can email us through our website. And in fact, some of you have already contacted us about this.

We've had lots of interaction from so many of our listeners. One person said, constant visible female police presence is needed on the streets until men can be trusted. Another listener said, boys need teaching this stuff in schools, how to be kind, that expressing emotion is okay.

What I will do is read out quite a few of your messages throughout this programme, because again, we want to have you involved and we want to hear what our listeners are telling us. Now, also on today's show, the Winter Paralympics get underway tomorrow and Great Britain are sending their largest group of athletes in almost 30 years.

So we'll be looking at their chances of medal success, but also discussing the International Paralympic Committee's decision to ban Russia and Belarusian athletes from competing at these games. Plus, it's just over a week now until the glitz and glamour of the BAFTAs return to London. One of the short films that has been nominated centres on this unique group of bingo fans in South London. The director will join us to talk about how she unearthed this group of mostly elderly bingo lovers and who rely on each other for their social interactions.

And I'll be speaking to the author of a book which explores in quite brutal detail her experiences with drugs, gangs and violence on the streets of London and how eventually she managed to find a way out of that lifestyle. But first, violence against women and girls has been a big talking point in recent months. The Home Office has started a new campaign, as I said, called Enough, which offers simple acts that people can do to challenge violence against women and girls. And it comes in the week of the anniversary of the abduction and murder of Sarah Everard in London. So one year on, where are we in this fight to deal with violence against women and girls?

For one assessment, I spoke to Labour MP Dame Diana Johnson, who is the chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee earlier this morning, and I asked her how well she thinks the government is doing. Well, the Home Affairs Select Committee has launched an overarching inquiry into men's violence against women and girls because we want to see exactly that, how well the implementation of the government's plans are going. They're making lots of good promises. The ministers yesterday in the

House of Commons were saying, you know, they are moving on lots of issues. However, I think the view is that it's not as quick as it should be. One example is the perpetrator strategy, which was promised in the domestic abuse bill that was supposed to be published within a year of royal assent of that bill. And that would mean it has to be with us by the end of April. And we're really keen to see that because we know that only 1% of perpetrators of domestic abuse actually get put into any programmes to deal with their offending. So we're very keen for the government to speed up and to implement the promises that they make and the words that they say in Parliament we want to see actually deeds now. The government has announced this week that violence against women and girls will be made a national policing priority

for forces in England and Wales. This was a key recommendation of a review last September by a police watchdog that these crimes should be taken as seriously as counter-terrorism, organised crime and child sexual abuse. So whilst you feel that things might not be moving as quickly as you would like, that is a big step forward, isn't it? Oh, we welcome that. That is very positive very positive again it would have been better if it could have been announced before but we're very pleased that that's happened that's a very key message and enforcement really to police forces that this has to now be seen with the seriousness that the epidemic of violence against women and girls in this country is at. So we really welcome that. I think it is

that could have been done earlier. There have been calls for this actually for many years. It's not a recent thing, this, but we welcome it. And I'd like to get your thoughts on another big policy announcement this week from the Home Office. It's a communications campaign called Enough, which seeks to highlight the forms of violence against women and girls that are out there and the simple acts that ordinary people can take to challenge perpetrators. What's your assessment of these policies in particular? Well, I think a communication strategy, which was promised last July, is really a very positive step forward. And I know that lots of women and girls do not report offending, sexual offending, things that happen to them because they don't think they're going to be taken seriously by the police or they don't recognise them as violence against women and girls. So I think this messaging out is really positive. And I, you know, I'm very pleased the government have done this, but it's not on its own.

This is not going to solve the problems of male violence against women. Again, it's a positive step, but there's much more to do. For example, I just wanted to tell you about a case in my own constituency of a man perpetrator who for many, many months was prowling the streets and was exposing himself. He was flashing. And what we learned later on was that he then went on, because he was getting away with that, he then went on to kidnap, rape and murder a young woman who was a student at Hull University. And what happened when that came to light was people came forward and said, yeah, there was this man who was doing this, but we didn't report it. And so there is a real issue there about encouraging and educating the public that that type of behaviour should be reported to the police. It's a criminal offence

and the police want to deal with it. That's the other key part and action will be taken. So that's the case of Libby Squires, who was a student in Hull and was raped and murdered in 2019. And now you're working with her mother, Lisa. Libby's mum and I, Lisa, decided that we needed to tackle this on two levels. We needed to say that people should report this type of behaviour, but also if it was reported and it went to court, that there was some action. Because if a man's exposing himself if he's engaging in acts of voyeurism looking through windows at women and men having sex or undressing or whatever then that should be a red flag that there is a problem and that needs to be addressed

early on because what we know is that these small number of men will go on possibly to offend in a far more serious way and that's what happened it escalates so it's that getting in early and so I've tried to bring forward some changes to the law I've met with ministers and I took Lisa with me actually to meet the the minister the government at that time was saying well we're going to have a communication strategy which we've talked about now and that's been launched this week. So that's good. But they weren't willing to do anything specific around this issue of the red flag and what happens to an individual man who's behaving in this way. So we're still fighting to get some action on that. And I talked about that again yesterday in Parliament. And I understand that Lisa Squire, Libby's mum, is meeting the Prime Minister shortly. And I know she will be pressing this with him as well. Now, we asked our listeners if they felt safe. And if they didn't, what would

make them feel safer? We had a good response from a lot of people. And you know, not one of them said that they felt safer. Many were asking for more police presence, better lighting. So what can be done, Diana, to help women feel safe enough to exercise outside or walk home once it's dark, for example? Well, I'm not surprised by that, to be honest. And I think any woman who has walked home in the dark at night knows that feeling of being very concerned and worried about what's going on around her. And, you know, we've heard several times, you know, holding your keys in your hand as you walk down the street just to feel you've got a bit of protection. So I'm not surprised to hear that. And of course, there's not one magic

bullet to this. Police presence and feeling that there are police around in an area is really important for people to feel safe and secure. And street lighting. I mean, that's quite a basic thing. But having well-lit streets and areas in our communities, again, is another important area. And sadly, we know over the years there have been cutbacks on those basic things. We know police officers have been cut, although now they're starting to be recruited again. We know the street lighting has been reduced, but it's also changing that culture. And it's about recognising that when we talk about violence against women and girls, we really need to say it's male violence against women and girls. We need men to stand up and be counted on this as well. And to say when their mates are behaving in a way that's inappropriate, that they stand up and challenge that.

So there are lots of parts of this that we still need to address. And of course, recently, we've got the relationship and sex education being a statutory part of the education curriculum. You know, many of us have fought for this for a number of years, and please, we've got that in. And that hopefully will help to start to engage with young people and talk about some of the issues around how you treat each other, how men treat women, what is acceptable. And just one last thing, the issue around pornography. I chair a group in Parliament and we're doing an inquiry into pornography and the violent pornography that is now ubiquitous online, young people see that. And again, I think that's fuelling this whole climate of violence against women and girls. And I think we need to address that. And hopefully in

the online safety bill, which the government are bringing in, we will start to address that pervasiveness of pornography. Now, the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has launched his communications campaign, which is actually aimed at educating men. Something, again, that our listeners also highlighted. So what are your views on putting the onus back onto the perpetrator? Absolutely, because what we know is that it's the messaging around women's safety is often, well, you know, don't walk through the park at night, you know, carry your keys in your hand, be careful about where you go. All those messages are really directed in the wrong way. What we need is the messaging that Sadiq Khan,

as Mayor of London, is doing, which is about addressing the behaviour of some men. That's the key thing with this. It's about why is it that men feel that they can behave in this way? Why do they believe that they can catcall at women in the street? And that's one of the other issues that we've been discussing in Parliament, whether there needs to be an offence of street harassment, because I'm sure many, many women have had this kind of behaviour in the street directed at them when it's unpleasant. We know that young women particularly are targeted for catcalling and name calling and whistling and behaviour that really we should not allow. So there's all of that to deal with. But I think generally, we have to sort of redirect that spotlight back onto men and men's behaviour and

what is acceptable. And as a society, we say it's not acceptable that we're allowing this behaviour to carry on unchallenged. Now, the government appointed Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blythe as the National Police Lead for Violence Against Women in September. How do you feel about that appointment and what do you feel she's been able to achieve? Well I think that's a very good appointment and I'm very pleased that we have that lead now on tackling violence against women and girls in the police. You will know that, you know, in recent weeks, sadly, we have seen some real problems institutionally within the police. There was the IOPC report around the Charing Cross incidents

where there was deep misogyny there being talked about between serving police officers. And the IOPC said that there was culturally a problem within the police around misogyny. So I'm hoping that Maggie Blythe will be looking at that as much as the police response to tackling violence against women and girls. So we welcome that. Now, it's early days, but it's a good appointment and we welcome that focus. You know, listening to what our listeners are telling us about not feeling safer, you know, a year on from the abduction of Sarah Everard. Would you expect women to feel safer just a year after that had happened?

I, from a personal perspective, I never expected to feel safer a year on. I didn't feel as though a year was long enough to counteract such deep-rooted issues when it comes to violence against women and girls. You're right. This is a very deep-seated issue. What happened a year ago with that awful murder of Sarah Etherard was it galvanised, I think, a feeling in the public that had been probably percolating for some time about why was it that women didn't feel safe to walk down the street and had to put up with behaviour that wasn't really on. So it's good that there was that coming together and that belief that something should change. I suppose I'm a politician, so I want things to change quickly. I don't want us to be waiting five or 10 or 15 years or for the next generation before things change. And that's why I guess I'm a bit frustrated at the pace of change in government. And, you know, the government have said all these things that are absolutely right. They want to tackle this. They want to do the right thing.

But we need them to move much quicker. We need to get this underway far quicker than has so far happened. But, you know, we've talked about some of the positive things the government have done. But I think you're probably right. It was very ambitious to feel within 12 months you could turn around such a deep-seated cultural problem that we have about women's safety and violence against women and girls and I'm just thinking about

domestic abuse you know the figures on domestic abuse particularly post what happened during Covid are really shocking and that's why that perpetrator strategy that we talked about right at the beginning is so important about how we start to tackle the domestic abuse that's going on in our homes up and down the country. How safe do you feel Diana when you're walking around by yourself? Oh there are moments especially when I leave Parliament I mean I came out of Parliament on Monday night because we sat late it was one o'clock I was standing waiting for a car to pick me up. And I stood there in the rain, in the dark, in the centre of London, not feeling particularly safe. So I certainly recognise that feeling of worry about who's around the corner, who's coming

towards me? Will my car turn up? Will I be able to get home okay? Will the driver of the car be okay? You know, things like that, I fully appreciate and understand. That was Labour MP Dame Diana Johnson, who is the chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee and who I spoke to earlier. And as you heard from her, she at moments doesn't feel safe by herself.

As I have told you as well, I express my concern when I'm walking out, walking around by myself, particularly at night. And lots of you feel the same way. So many of you have got in touch with us. Izzy says it doesn't feel as though anything has changed. Amy says I don't feel safe when walking in the dark and no longer running the day along the canal near me. So this idea that women don't feel safe is a running theme amongst you, our listeners as well. And some people have got in touch to offer, I suppose, ways in which women and girls

could perhaps feel safer. For example, Elle says that police should provide women's safety packs that include devices and alarms. More alarms on train carriages. They don't feel accessible when anxious. And there's quite a few of you that have expressed this sentiment as well. Linda says, I always walk with my car keys at the ready if walking home alone. Definitely don't feel safe.

Now, someone else who got in touch with us was Polly, who lives in Suffolk. She has two daughters living in London. And I can speak to Polly now. Polly, good morning to you. What was it that made you want to get in contact with Woman's Hour initially? Well, I think it's just my daughter was home at the weekend. And it just, listening to your program, just, you know, it was so recent what she was telling me. I just thought I had to get in touch. she's a young um first year student in london

and i've got two daughters an older one and the younger one and um she's just had a couple of experiences of walking home she has she works in a bar um to support herself through uni and finishes in the early hours on occasions. And she's walked home, well, got cabs home or a bus home, walking from the bus stop one time. A cyclist was coming up beside her, really harassing her. A man sort of swerving in front of her offering her suggestions and things she was just head down just you know i need to get home and thankfully she got home safely and on another occasion um in her block of flats there's a basketball court um in the middle of the flats

and she got out the cab walked into her flats and there was two lads in the basketball court with balaclavas on. She had her key at hand and as she was walking towards the main door to the flat, the lads in the balaclavas just charged at her

and she got into the flat and there's just you know, and they just ran past. And so she got in just in time. So I just thought it was, with the discussions going on, that it was very relevant and scary as well. Very scary. And I'm so glad that it didn't cause any immediate harm

in that situation to your daughters. But what impact has it had on them and i think she's you know she's obviously you know a lot more aware now it's it's shaking her up she's the same as everyone's been saying she has her keys in her hand uh the girlfriends at work they've all got each other's numbers and they they said that you know as soon as you feel unsafe you know just call us and you know so they've discussed that amongst themselves um she's talking we talked the other day about getting a rape alarm that kind of thing you know so um yeah it just it's i think it's just

been a bit of a rude awakening to her coming from suffolk and then living in London and you know just yeah it's just waking her up I think. So you mentioned the idea of possibly getting a rape alarm how does it change the way your daughter interacts and how she socializes but also how she behaves when she's out and about? Yeah I think that that's that's also yeah she, she's decided she's not going to as many clubs as she probably would do. Just being a lot more alert, a lot more alert. And maybe not, you know, drinking as much as she probably would. Yeah, all kinds of aspects. What would be an effective way to address this?

What can you do as a mother what what can we do as women oh talk to talk to our children talk to the boys talk to the girls talk i think it's got to come um from an early age we've got to be teaching them respect for all people for all you you know, everyone across society. It's just got to be talked about more. And I absolutely concur with everything the Labour MP has said this morning. It's just, you know, from schools, much more rigorous. I think it's got to be integrated into the DNA of schools and education

not just a one-off assembly on respect and that kind of thing. It's got to be part of the, and as you said, calling the men out as well. What do you think about switching

the onus to the perpetrator, to men? Absolutely. I totally agree with that as well. We need to get to the men when they're boys to teach them that it's not right. It's not on. You can't behave like this with people and women and anyone and just intimidate them and make them feel uncomfortable and it's just you know it's just wrong about it it's just sad that we're still having this discussion in 2022 you know but it's so integrated into our society isn't it and yeah it really is it's clearly very deep-rooted polly uh i really appreciate you coming on to

to share your story and that of your daughters as well we can now speak to rebecca who lives in hackney in east london who originally emailed the program good morning to you rebecca just give me a sense of how safe you feel and why or why not? Good morning, Jessica. I don't feel very safe living in Hackney, but I guess I haven't in other places in the country as well. And actually, your producer asked me yesterday what ways I've sort of curtailed my social life in order to feel safer or what changes do I make and I had to really think about it because it's it's so ingrained in me that I don't even really particularly question it anymore that I wouldn't think to go on a night out if I didn't have a way

of a safe way of getting home you know I'd have to budget for an uber for example or I just wouldn't be able to walk home even even if i'm going somewhere very local um i would try and not stay out late um if i found myself in a position where i am out late then i try and walk in areas that are have better lighting uh i won't walk near hedgerows um i'm a bit like you in the sense that i'm very aware of what's happening around me so I'm constantly looking behind me trying to make sure that I can't be you know snuck up on or taken by surprise and so it just feels like we as women have got so used to having to take measures into our own hands to make ourselves feel safer which which is just the wrong way around, really.

Yeah. We are continuously having to think about how we can make ourselves safe and basically not be perpetrated against. And I understand that you disagree with advice that women should keep a phone on them. Why is that? Yes. So I heard earlier on, I think it was late last year, that Priti Patel was backing a plan to create a text and call service, 888, in order to, you can sort of phone them, tell them that you're going home and let them know how long you think it's going to take you to get home. And then an alert will be sent off if you don't reach your destination. But somebody at the end of a phone line is not going to be able to help you in that immediate moment. And I think it gives women a false sense of security. We shouldn't, you know, if we're relying on technology and particularly if we're distracted and encouraged to be on our phones that is exactly what opportunistic criminals look for is somebody who has headphones in or who's using technology who's completely um limited their their peripheral view by staring at a screen and that's when you become more vulnerable and it's just not a good

it just doesn't seem like the right kind of advice um if something's going to happen to you it will have already happened by the time that person on the end of the phone is alerted. So it's just not helpful. Yeah, as we understand that is a proposed service. It's not up and running as of yet. And in fact, some women, some girls may actually find that type of service useful. Now, Rebecca, you've said what you do to enable yourself to feel safer when you're out and about. Do you have any suggestions or measures that other women could take to make themselves more difficult to attack? Well, I think, so I took the opportunity to take some self-defense workshops during lockdown. And it's, again, it's a shame because it's, it's borders so closely on,

on what I would, you know, call victim blaming. The number one thing that somebody will tell you in a self-defense workshop is try not to be in a position where you are compromised or where you're likely to be attacked. Well, you know, that's all well and good. And we can try and take measures to make sure that we're not vulnerable. But if you are in a position where you don't feel safe, it's about having this heightened sense of awareness. Again, try to make yourself look like you would be a nightmare for any attacker that somebody doesn't see you as an easy target. Because if you seem to be distracted because if you're seen to be distracted

if you're um if you're not paying attention if you're on your own things like that that's all going to potentially make you more of a target um but i think most most women actually know this it's it's it's this idea of you know walk where it's lighter um try and you know protect your personal space be aware of people that are around you that sort of thing but you know self-defense workshops will go as as far as saying you know if you can practice how to hit someone really hard if you have to defend yourself in your personal space learn how to throw a punch and for it to be meaningful and to have an impact which you know hopefully nobody's in that position but it's yeah but i know makes me feel a bit safer of course rebecca practical advice but some women won't be in a position where they can go and train they won't be in a position to

uh i suppose put their bodies through that that kind of uh physical training to enable to do self-defense? And should they have to? No, absolutely not. I completely agree with what Polly was saying, the previous person you were speaking to, that it really comes down to speaking to cultural issues and speaking to young boys. If my mum, when I was was younger could say to me, here are the ways in which someone might want to hurt you or kidnap you and here's how to prevent

that and here's how to protect yourself. You know, I had those lessons from the age of seven. I think young boys can handle a conversation about consent and about respecting women, you know, about challenging poor behaviour. We're not the bus of sexist jokes. We're not there to be objectified. It needs to start, you know, it needs to come from the male side as well. It's not, it shouldn't be up to us. Yes, I can totally relate to that, Rebecca. I had conversations with both my mother and my grandmother

from a very young age about how not to be attacked as a woman when I was out on the streets or out anywhere, either alone or in a group. Rebecca, thank you so much for joining us. So we heard from both Polly and Rebecca, both talking about their experiences of how safe they feel, particularly in London. And of course, while we are putting a lot of onus on men and the perpetrators and boys as well, we should say, and this is true, that men can be allies to women. There are many men out there who want to help women and girls in feeling safer when they're out and about. So that's important to note. I just want to read out a few more messages from all of you across the UK who have been getting in touch.

And there's a lot of you out there feeling as though nothing has changed a year on from Sarah Everard's murder. And a lot of you simply saying, I do not feel safe. There has been some practical responses, as well as Rebecca there talking about self-defence. Someone has said, architects, city planners must do better for designing safer spaces. Most of them are men. And there is someone who says, Sally-An sally ann in fact so she's left her name

and she says when she's walking out and about she has a mock chat on her phone to no one she includes where she is and how soon she'll be home and she hopes that if she is being followed then this will help deter an assault so uh thank you so much for everyone that's getting in touch. You still can. We are at BBC Woman's Hour on social media and on the text as well. 84844. Text messages will be charged at your standard

operator rate. Now the Winter Paralympics begin tomorrow in Beijing. Paralympics GB will have 24 athletes competing which is the biggest British Winter Paralympics GB will have 24 athletes competing, which is the biggest British winter Paralympic team in almost 30 years. Five of those athletes are women, including alpine skier Mena Fitzpatrick,

who is Britain's most decorated winter Paralympian. So, will she medal again? And what about GB's other medal prospects? And what has been the impact of the International Paralympic Committee's decision just this morning to ban Russia and Bella Russian athletes, I should say, excuse me, from competing? Here to discuss are Andy Stevenson, Five Lives Paralympic Winter Games reporter, who is also host of the Winning Mindset podcast,

which is the official podcast of the International Paralympic Committee. And also Rebecca Myers, who's a journalist at the Sunday Times. Now, Rebecca, I'll talk to you shortly about those sanctions I mentioned. But first, Andy, it seems like GB will be well represented out there. What sports will those athletes be competing in morning jessica yeah i think you mentioned benefits patrick there i think her and millie knight two of our vision impaired skiers are the ones to really focus on in terms of medals and hopefully uh gold mena won gold in pyeongchang in the slalom four years ago and i think it's important for people listening

to try and put themselves in the position of of menena and Millie and imagine what it's like to hurtle down a mountain at 70 miles an hour with virtually no sight. You know, both Mena and Millie have less than 5% vision. Millie has very slight kind of peripheral vision, but nothing in the centre. It's just black in the centre. you know it's an interesting one you know I work a lot in in Paralympic sport I'm disabled myself and there is always a nervousness around using the word brave to describe Paralympians but actually when I use the word bravery here to describe Menorah Millie it's actually not really to do with their disability specifically it's the fact that anybody going down a mountain at that speed without being able to see is just brave and they

follow the way they do it is they follow a guide so they have a skier in front of them wearing a bright suit or a bright jacket and they follow that guide and often they communicate with each other via kind of bluetooth headset so the guide can be giving instructions back to the skier the skier can be talking to the guide in front of them and that relationship is is pretty unique in sport there are guides in the summer paralympics you see it in sports like athletics but actually this relationship when you take into account the the danger element and what they're doing I don't think there's anything like it in the rest of sport. Yes. I mean, you've painted such a picture there.

The first thought that came into my head was, well, that's scary. Very, very, very scary. In Mena Fitzpatrick's case, how do you expect her to get on? Will she win big again at these games after winning so many medals in the past? Yeah, so she won four medals in Pyeongchang. She has had a bit of a blow in the last few days, though.

So Mena was going to Beijing with two guides, one guide to do the speed events, one guide to do the more technical events like the slalom. And her guide, Katie Guest who who by chance is also the sister of the British Olympian Charlie Guest who we saw a few weeks ago in action Katie Guest has tested positive for Covid in the last few days and just it must be awful for her she's not been able to travel out to Beijing so Mena will now be guided by Gary Smith who she was planning to work with as I say on a couple of the events but they'll now do all of the races together and you know that I think that will be

unsettling but Mena's you know been here and done it before I think I think she'll definitely be contending for medals and I think she'll definitely be contending for a gold in a couple of them I just want to mention because you used the word scary there, one other thing to say about Millie Knight is that her and her guide, Brett Wild, have had a couple of really serious crashes in the last few years, including one last year. Yeah, hasn't she had to deal with some concussions, hasn't she? Yeah, so they had a particularly bad crash last year

and she's had severe concussion and all of the things that come with that you know nausea headaches fatigue but also I think in a way more importantly in a sporting context how do you stop that giving you the fear you know when Millie and Brett are in that kind of start gate in the next couple of days how do you get into that start gate and not be thinking about the crashes you've had and the concussions you've had well how does she i mean you've been around these athletes what what do they do what do they have to do mentally to prepare for something like that she works very closely with the team psychologist she tried to take some time away um from the sports i guess you know he'd have to say enforce time away but she

took time away during the lockdown and she's actually taken up karate she's become a very very good karate athlete in her time I think you know she told me a couple of months ago on the podcast that she would actually rather lose even more of her sight than have another concussion it was that bad she said you know the symptoms were just awful to get through and the kind of mental aspect of it as well so that gives you some sense of what she's dealing with if Millie and Brett were to win medals in Beijing as they did actually at the world championships in January that would be really quite something and you know she should she would deserve all the praise that would come her way if she were to do that oh my goodness yes she would andy thank you very much i would just want

to bring in rebecca myers now from the newspaper at the sunday times good morning to you rebecca thank you for joining us on the program just give us an update on what has happened uh this morning in fact i think there was a meeting wasn't there and the International Paralympic Committee have announced that athletes from Russia and Belarus can no longer compete after saying previously that they could compete as neutrals what's the latest? Yeah this is a stunning new turn actually so initially as you said they had said they would allow Russian athletes and Belarusian athletes to compete but but under a sort of neutral flag, neutral team name, which is something we've seen before in cases of doping, for example. But this is not doping. This is war. And I think they have they did miscalculate how that would play out on the international stage.

And they've come under huge criticism. And they made that decision. It did also make them sort of an outlier in the world of sport as most organisations kind of had moved to ban. Sorry, Rebecca. We're having issues hearing you clearly. So I'm just going to go back to Andy for the moment and hopefully we can sort your line out and speak to you properly in just a few moments' time. Andy, hopefully you're still there.

We were talking about GB's medal chances, in particular Mena Fitzpatrick and Millie Knight. But actually, there's quite a few debutants that will be competing at the Paralympics for the first time. Hope Gordon in Nordic skiing. What can you tell us? Yeah, so Hope Gordon is going to be Britain's first ever female athlete in Nordic skiing at the Winter Paralympics. Nordic skiing is that kind of umbrella term to take in cross-country skiing and biathlon where there's a combination of skiing and shooting. But yeah, Hope Gordon from Edinburgh, 26 years old. She has complex regional pain syndrome which means that

the mobility of her legs is affected and she's in almost constant pain. The interesting thing about Hope Gordon is she's a swimmer or she has been a swimmer in the past. She missed out on selection for the Commonwealth Games for Great Britain. She's also on the Paralympic programme for canoeing as well, canoe sprint. So I think even if you've not seen Hope Gordon, you can, I think, paint a picture or build up a picture in your mind of somebody whose upper body strength is massive. You can imagine that canoeing is actually not that far away from the cross-country skiing she's going to be doing because she's going to be doing that skiing from a sitting position, pulling herself along with the poles. So her arms and muscles in her arms are just superbly developed.

So she'll be pulling herself along with great strength hope gordon we also have megan dawson farrell in the wheelchair curling and shona brownlee who's a sit skier in the alpine skiing so many names so many names to look out for andy thank you now hopefully i think we can speak to rebecca again uh whose uh line should be a little bit clearer to to us now. You were just explaining about Russian and Belarusian athletes being banned from these Winter Paralympics. What's been the reaction to it, Rebecca? Yes, hi, sorry about that.

Yes, I mean, this has been welcomed, this U-turn. It is understood that the IPC were coming under a lot of pressure from other countries, including the UK. Some countries even saying, look, we're going to boy boycott even though some of their athletes were already there we understand they were sort of saying we just won't perform and the ipc said it was a case of you know literally an impossible situation they would have not enough athletes to compete in some fields so they sort of said this was their only choice um the british team have welcomed it have joined the kind of support

of that move. Our wheelchair curlers were due to play Russia on Sunday so there was a kind of very real impact for the British team but they have supported this and said they believe it was completely the right decision to ban Russian athletes. Rebecca Myers, journalist at the Sunday Times, thank you very much and

to Andy Stevenson as well who's Five Lives Paralympic Winter Games reporter. And of course, the Paralympics get underway tomorrow. Now, next Sunday, the BAFTA's red carpet rolls into town to recognise the very best in British film. One of the nominees in this short film category centres on a small and unique community in the heart of South London.

They are the locals at the London Palace Bingo Club. Now their beloved club is being forced to close down and the film follows these regulars who have depended on it for years. Joe Pritchard is the director of the documentary and joins us now. Good morning to you, Joe. Congratulations, your first ever BAFTA nomination. So how did you find out about this unique community of bingo fans and what was it like working with them? Morning, Jessica. Hi. So I've lived in South London for 15 years and this Elephant and Glass Hall and the bingo hall was on my doorstep. And everybody who lives in the area would have seen this massive billion dollar, billion pound redevelopment that's been going on. And I was looking for a way to tell the story.

And the bingo hall was the perfect setting. And the film's really about the community of regulars that were there. And a lot of them were there every day and all day. Brilliant. And the film features many elderly people who, I suppose, rely on this bingo hall for their social interactions. And you really get a sense of the community spirit watching the interview, watching you interview various characters in that hall. Was that something that you wanted to come across in the film? Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's the reason the film has been recognised in the way that it has, because the key themes of the film are about community and togetherness and the way that these people chose to spend their retirement,

their time together and, you know, their everyday lives. And while I knew that the shopping centre was going to have to close, the pandemic I didn't know was coming. And all those things that we all felt the loss of so much, and especially for elderly people. A lot of the regulars of the club were also single. That wasn't a coincidence that this was the way that they got their socialising and they structured their days. So these were some of the people that were hardest hit

by the pandemic and now coming out the other side of it. This film having existed because I filmed it before it just threw a whole load more context on the themes and the interviews and the ideas that come across in the film. Yeah I think it will really resonate with a lot of people let's hear from some of that film shall we we've got Sandrika here who's a former nurse who suffers from dementia. She had written to Theresa May, the then Prime Minister, to ask her not to close the bingo hall. She's reading the reply that she's had from 10 Downing Street.

You wrote to Theresa May? Yeah, I've got a letter from 10 Downing Street. Dear Mrs. Langevin, I'm writing on behalf of the Prime Minister to thank you for your letter. The Prime Minister very much appreciated the time you have taken to write to her. I used to be a staff nurse, mentally and generally trained. I worked day duties, night duties, days off, holidays. On the holidays, I worked on the army base, looking after the war patients.

I did a lot of work, looking after the war patients. I did a lot of work. Looked after many patients. You see, I suffer from dementia. And I have got enjoyment here by meeting people. They will say hello to you, good morning to you, and lovely staff and everything. That will make me happy. But now I have nowhere to go, so I don't know where I will be.

That's good, I better go and buy my books before I forget Now Jo, this is an independent film, you didn't receive any outside funding so tell us how you managed to put this together on a pretty small budget Yeah it was something that just snowballed, I knew I wanted to make a film

and because it was local to me I could go and film and I just found the time I could, I mean I'm freelance and a lot of the people in the industry are so it was evenings weekends and then little bits of time in between contracts try and pick it up and then sitting on the footage for about a year trying to get funding and it's not an easy thing I mean there's a lot of people going for that. So I think the biggest barrier in the end was just confidence because after a few knocks, you have to decide, am I still going to try and do this, try and finish it? And I really couldn't have done it without amazing people

who joined me to finish the film, who believed in it, friends and my executive producer and the editor who together we kind of pushed it to completion. But yeah, in the end, I finished it for a few hundred pounds. Well done you. Not an easy task. Jo Pritchard, thank you for joining us on the programme this morning. The film is available to stream on the Bertha Dockhouse website this weekend. Now, Danielle Marron is the author of Top Girl,

a new book exploring her firsthand experiences with drug dealing, gangs and violent crimes. Danielle wants people to know about young women who get caught up in this kind of lifestyle and how she managed to find a way out. And Danielle joins me now. Good morning to you, Danielle. Just tell us why you wanted to tell your story then um i wanted to tell my story because i feel like girls in gangs are it is such a hidden issue and girls are not really recognized as being gang members you know there's a lot of media footage about it being men from inner city areas and i just wanted to shine some light that there are females going through this as well it's interesting that you actually use the word gang member there because every time you you sort of mention it in the book it's in quotation marks because you're frustrated with that term where do you stand on that now? Yeah I was really I really wanted it to always be in quotation marks because I don't associate

myself with that word I never felt like I was a gang member. I didn't call myself that. Other people were calling me that, the police, counsellors, etc., probation officers. So I just wanted to highlight that it's kind of a social construct and I didn't feel connected to that word. What would you have called yourself then? I wouldn't have called myself anything, but I would have called the people that I was around my family they were my brothers

you know my aunties things like that so yeah we didn't really call ourselves that. I suppose from the outside looking in people would use the term gang member because you were involved in criminal activity. There was a group of people synonymous with criminal activity. Yeah, that's correct. And if you look up the term in the dictionary, it is that it's a group of people with a common goal. And yes, that is true. We all did have a common goal, and that was to make money via drug dealing. So, yeah, technically we were a gang but me myself I didn't feel connected to that these people were my family and my friends and my community I see now there was um the book is very detailed there it's very you know you don't really hold

back you give um a lot of brutal detail about what you experienced, what you saw, what you witnessed. And there was a turning point in your life after a brutal sexual assault in your teenage years. And you went to the police. The boys that perpetrated against you were never charged. And as a result, you lost a lot of trust in the police service. We've been having so many conversations over the past year or so about women's safety and the role of police officers. So how do you feel about that incident now when you reflect on it? I still look at it.

I mean, the actual act itself is still quite numb to me. I don't really have any emotional connection to it because I was just, you know, via trauma. The police, you know, I understand more now that they're just doing their job. And, you know, I do have, I've always been taught as a young person to have respect for the police. But during my time, you know know drug dealing and all of these things that happened to me I I did lose respect for them and I remember they they told me at that time you're going down a slippery slope and the words they those were the words that they used um and it just made me lose all confidence I mean the the men that um perpetrated the sexual assault on me

they were arrested and they were remanded but the Crown Prosecution Service said that they couldn't be charged so it wasn't just the police it was actually the whole criminal justice system as a whole that I felt let down by. Yes of course now it's been I think five't it, Danielle, since you first stepped away from drug dealing. But you've obviously been strong enough to able to change your life around and turn your life in a different direction. But I wonder if you hold yourself accountable for what you did during those years and the crimes that you committed. Of course. And that's why a lot of the feedback on the book that i'm getting is that it's very brutally honest and i'm not painting myself as a victim um you know i took

on this role willingly um and i wanted to throw some light as well on the fact that not every young person in a gang is coerced into it some people are doing it because they want to because that's literally what we're seeing in our day-to-day life. I saw people that were successful as drug dealers. My friends were already selling drugs. So you say that you willingly went into that life, you chose that life, but there's a lot of incidents within that book that when I read them it sounded as though you were groomed or exploited yeah so that's what I found quite interesting about writing the book as well because until it was written down on paper in chronological order I wasn't able to see

um all the events that happened to lead up to me going to country and or county lines and sell drugs at the time I felt like I wasn't being groomed I was actively asking my friend to let me go I wanted to go but in hindsight the reason I did that was because I had dealt with so much trauma I actually just wanted an escape and I got it via um going to country or what everyone else would call, you know, engaging county lines. And when did you realise that what you had been through, you were now perpetrating? So you had been groomed, you had been exploited, and then you went on to, I suppose, mimic that exact same behaviour and do it to others? I mean, I don't feel like I ever exploited anyone.

No one in our business organisation was exploited. Everyone was there willingly. People were asking for roles. People were asking to go to the countryside locations. So I don't personally feel like I was exploiting anyone. If you mean the drug addicts, of course, yes, I was committing crime and selling them drugs, which was not great. I mean more, I suppose,

the young people involved in county lines. We know that a lot of them are underage. A lot of them are running away from bad situations, whether that be home life school life whatever's going on in their personal lives and aren't necessarily of sound mind when they are introduced to this type of lifestyle yeah um so in all gangs in london operate differently so i can only talk about the people that I was involved with I was the youngest person involved so there was no one younger than me um so there was no young people there was no

chicken shop you know oh we're gonna buy you some chicken and you have to go and sell there was none of that like none of that at all it was actively boys trying to make money to make it out of a bad situation. And I was also the only female. So the rest of them were men. So I don't I didn't see any exploitation in my particular area of London. However, I'm not saying it doesn't go on in other areas. Yes. And as I say, you've managed to turn your life around. You've managed to stop the cycle what do you think you can now pass on to other young people to to other women to ensure that they can follow in your footsteps and change their lives around as well I'm a young women's key worker so I do work with young women in the criminal justice system

currently and I've been doing that for a few years now. I believe I get on so well with my clients and I can make change for them because I've been in their situation. And it was the same for me when I met my probation officer who was such an inspiration to me. She was very young and she seemed like she had experienced

what I had experienced and that helped me change my life. Was that the turning point for you? A hundred percent. My probation officer was such an inspiration. I'm still in contact with her to this day. She's an amazing woman. And I now feel like I can be like that for my clients.

Danielle, thank you very much for joining us this morning and for being so honest about your experiences. Danielle Marin, who is the author of a new book called Top Girl. Now, just before we go, I just want to let you know that Danita will be with you tomorrow on Women's Hour and she'll be chatting to the Swiss Tamil singer Priya Raghu, who's been shortlisted,

shortlisted, I should say, in the BBC Sound of 2022 poll. And to two women as well about their experiences of climbing mountains. Helen Mort and Amy McCulloch will discuss the creative inspiration you can find on a mountain and what it's like to be part of a community dominated by men. That's a Woman's Hour tomorrow with Anita just after the news at 10am. Now I just want to leave you with one more message we've had from people coming in about women's safety. And there's been such a response from all of you. And Lizzie has

typed in via Twitter and said, I'm sorry and concerned that women are advised to be violent towards an attacker by punching or kicking. Men are stronger than women, heavier. I was advised to talk respectfully and be kind, remind him of his family. We've had so many responses from you. Thank you all for this week for keeping in touching and keeping me busy here on air on Woman's Hour. It's been an absolute pleasure. I'll speak to you tomorrow.

And that's all for today's Woman's Hour. It's been an absolute pleasure. I'll speak to you tomorrow. And that's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Once upon a time, there was a man who lived in a house that wasn't on any map. The man lived in his house with his adopted sister, Nikesha, his friend, Sebastian, his aunt, Lily, and his faithful housekeeper, Mrs. Boone.

And then, one day, after years of living in peace and harmony, those sneaky towrags in British intelligence sent a young lady to find the man. They'd filled the unfortunate girl's head with all sorts of nonsense about the man. He's a thief, a smuggler, a killer, a liar. The Themis group has tendrils everywhere, through governments, intelligence services, law enforcement.

An organised crime syndicate so powerful that no one's ever heard of it. Evidence gathered vanishes into thin air. Witnesses recant. Crooked politicians shut down investigations. And they set the young lady on a collision course with this poor man who just wanted a quiet life in the countryside. Honestly, I don't know what they thought was going to happen. Who is Aldrich Kemp?

A new five-part series by Julian Simpson on BBC Radio 4 and available on BBC Sounds. 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.