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Woman's Hour

MP rape allegations, Mothers' march, Melissa Caddick

Woman's Hour

BBC

Society & Culture

4.13K Ratings

🗓️ 6 November 2023

⏱️ 57 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

An unidentified Conservative MP has been accused of rape by several women. These allegations are mentioned in a new book by former cabinet secretary Nadine Dorries. It comes after reports the Conservative party's former chairman, Sir Jake Berry, wrote to the police to make them aware of the claims after leaving the post last year. The deputy Prime Minister, Oliver Dowden, has denied a cover-up by the party when he was the chairman. Emma Barnett hears the reaction of Isabel Hardman, Assistant Editor at The Spectator, and Conservative MP Caroline Nokes, Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee.

A group of mothers under the umbrella of Just Stop Oil are planning a slow march to demand an end to new oil and gas licences and to call for a secure liveable future for their children. Just Stop Oil's tactics around the country, from blocking roads to halting theatre productions, are controversial. Emma is joined by two of the protesting mums.

When con woman Melissa Caddick vanished from her luxurious eastern Sydney home in November 2020 - with only her partially decomposed foot found washed up on a beach months later, it set off a frenzy in Australia. Regulators suspect the 49-year-old stole nearly £16m from more than 60 clients, including many of her family and friends, to help fund a lavish lifestyle. Chief investigative reporter at the Sydney Morning Herald, Kate McClymont, joins Emma to discuss.

We hear about a development in the case of Agnes Wanjiru, a 21-year-old Kenyan woman who was found stabbed to death at a hotel in the garrison town of Nanyuki in 2012. Witnesses said she was last seen leaving the hotel bar with a British soldier, and her body was found in a septic tank at the hotel nearly three months later. A Kenyan judge concluded after an inquest in 2019 that she had been murdered by one or two British soldiers. As yet, nobody has been convicted. Kenyan police have now flown to the UK to question British soldiers and officers about the case. Emma speaks to Sunday Times journalist Hannah Al-Othman.

Sarah Whalley is the producer and director of Forests, an episode of Planet Earth III. She was pregnant during filming and chose to name her child Forest. Sarah talks to Emma about how the isolation of her pregnancy during lockdown was mirrored when they filmed a Hornbill bird in its nest for the first time.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.

0:05.0

Hello, I'm Emma Barnet and welcome to Womanza from BBC Radio 4.

0:10.0

It's good to be back with you after a few days off which included

0:13.4

scintillating acts such as cleaning out a shoe cupboard and trying to have some photos printed

0:18.4

as well as I should say eating some delicious meals delicious cuddles with our children,

0:22.6

and a particularly competitive and funny game

0:24.9

of articulate with some good friends.

0:26.9

Well, I hope we're still friends.

0:29.0

I'm asking this warning about your downtime

0:31.7

because the singing and acting legend that is Barbara Streisand

0:34.7

has been talking about her life after writing her memoirs and one thing she said stuck out.

0:40.1

Have a listen.

0:41.6

I want to live life. I want to live life.

0:43.0

I want to get in my husband's truck and just wander, hopefully with the children somewhere

0:51.0

near us.

0:52.4

When they come over, we have fun. I haven't had much fun in my life, tell

0:58.9

you the truth, and I want to have more fun.

1:03.0

Barbara Strise in there, a rare insight into perhaps how she feels about things.

1:07.6

Speaking to my colleague, the BBC's music correspondent Mark Savage,

1:11.4

are you having enough fun in your life? Have you assessed it? Are you looking

1:15.5

around and thinking maybe the week ahead? What pockets of fun am I actually going to have as opposed

1:20.0

to the jobs I need to do, the job you actually have, the other things that are always on

...

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