The Freedom Project: understanding domestic abuse in relationships
Woman's Hour
BBC
4.1 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 11 October 2019
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
16 years ago a woman in her twenties, who was a translator at GCHQ, leaked an official and confidential email. It instructed Katharine Gun and her colleagues to share any information they might come across concerning a clutch of nations belonging to the UN Security Council. The information could then be used to persuade them to vote for the invasion of Iraq. Her email became an Observer article and she lost her job, nearly lost her marriage and was in fear of going to prison. Now her story is told in a new film ‘Official Secrets’. She joins Jenni to remember that time in 2003 and explain what happened next.
How much are we squeezing play out of our children’s days, our institutions and spaces? Michael Rosen, author of ‘Book of Play’ joins Jenni to talk about why play matters to both children and adults – and to share tips on how we can get more of it in our lives.
When Sally Challen was recently interviewed on Woman’s Hour she talked about the Freedom Programme she attended, once she was in prison. She described how it helped her understand the coercive control and domestic abuse she had suffered for years from her husband Richard. We speak to Clare Walker, a group facilitator and a trainer for the programme, Pat Craven who founded it and Louise, a listener, who wrote in to say how attending for the last year had changed her life.
We speak to Grammy-award nominated blues singer Beth Hart about finally feeling able to be herself with her new album, War In My Mind.
Presenter: Jenni Murray Producer: Kirsty Starkey
Interviewed Guest: Katharine Gun Interviewed Guest: Michael Rosen Interviewed Guest: Pat Craven Interviewed Guest: Clare Walker Interviewed Guest: Beth Hart
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts |
| 0:04.5 | Hello Jenny Murray, welcoming you to the Woman's Hour Podcast. Good morning. |
| 0:10.0 | Michael Rosen, a former children's laureate, describes himself as an improviser, ad |
| 0:15.2 | liver, chancer, and blagger, and says we all share those qualities. Why does he want |
| 0:20.8 | to encourage us all to be more playful in his new book of play? Sally Challenge, newly |
| 0:27.4 | released from prison, tells us how she'd been helped to understand coercive control and |
| 0:32.4 | domestic abuse by the freedom program. What is it? And how can it change a victim's life? |
| 0:39.9 | And a new confidence to take control in her late 40s, the blue singer-beth heart with |
| 0:44.8 | a new album, war in my mind and she will sing live for us. |
| 0:50.3 | Now a new film had its premiere last night at the London Film Festival and will go on |
| 0:55.3 | general release next week. It's called Official Secrets and tells the story of a young woman |
| 1:01.5 | who was a translator at GCHQ in 2003. Kiranitly plays Catherine Gunn who saw an email on her |
| 1:09.8 | computer at work. It asked for information she and her fellow workers might pick up concerning |
| 1:16.0 | a number of nations who might be persuaded to help push the United Nations Security |
| 1:20.8 | Council to vote in support of the invasion of Iraq. Gunn smuggled the email out of GCHQ, |
| 1:29.1 | it reached the observer and she lost her job and came close to a prison sentence for leaking |
| 1:35.2 | official secrets and the real Catherine Gunn joins us. Catherine, why did you agree to |
| 1:41.6 | a high profile film being made about your story because you've kind of gone quiet since |
| 1:47.0 | it all happened? That's right. Well this process has actually, it did begin about eight |
| 1:55.1 | years ago and you never know when you start these things if the film ever gets made, if |
| 2:00.8 | it's a successful film, if it will get a wide circulation. And over years of ups and downs |
| 2:09.6 | and ups and downs we finally, three years ago, sort of the stars aligned and this group |
... |
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