Professor Angela Gallop

Presenter0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs Podcast. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. And for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:44

My castaway this week is Professor Angela Gallup. She's one of the country's leading forensic scientists. Cold cases are her speciality. She's helped solve some of the most notorious violent crimes in recent British history, including the killings of Stephen Lawrence, Damalola Taylor, and Rachel Nickel. Over the course of her 50-year career, she's developed a reputation for going the extra mile to get the evidence she needs. At one point, she reconstructed a murder scene in her back garden with her husband playing the victim. Later, one of her investigations made history when the murderer was identified and convicted through his familial DNA, a first in forensic science. But if you're expecting a hard-bitten cynic of the TV crime-drama variety, you'll be disappointed. She's an optimist and fell in love with science via botany. She was happily studying the biochemistry of sea slugs when a friend suggested she apply for a job working for the Home Office's Forensic Science Service. She got it and found an unexpected passion along with her new career. She says, when I find that little shred, that tiny little bit of something, that's when I know I'm onto something. It's that light bulb moment, and it feels like the most exciting thing ever to have happened. That's why I do it. Professor Angela Gallup, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Thanks very much. So Angela, we do tend to think of scientists as, you know, looking for clarity, certainty, these kind of perspicacious voices, but you believe, I know, that the key to getting results in your work is imagination, which is fascinating and perhaps a little counterintuitive. How does creative thinking help you in what you do?

Professor Angela Gallop2:23

I think really if you're looking for something, searching for something and often you're not quite sure what it is you're looking for, then I think in order to give yourself the best opportunity of finding it, first of all you've got to understand the circumstances and that's why the crime scene is so important. But then you've got to be really imaginative about how you go about testing things, what you test and the order you test them in and all the rest of it. And that requires you to demonstrate a bit of flair, you know, and it's not just, oh, well, we always do it this way. We always start at this end and we finish at that end and if there's evidence we'll find it on the way. Sometimes you have to be much more creative than that.

Speaker 22:44

Hmm.

Speaker 12:44

Yeah.

Professor Angela Gallop3:01

Throughout the

Presenter3:01

Forensic science is such a big part of crime dramas today, Angela. What's your opinion of how it's put

Professor Angela Gallop3:07

Trade on screen.

Professor Angela Gallop3:08

I mean, while it's great entertainment and I wouldn't complain about it for a moment or not publicly anyway

Professor Angela Gallop3:14

Are you a noisy viewer? Do you sit watching it? Well, I d the thing is that I don't watch much of it. So that's the way I get around that.

Presenter3:15

Why you would

Presenter3:22

An actor played you in a series about the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path murders. What did you think of how your current

Professor Angela Gallop3:24

Yeah.

Professor Angela Gallop3:29

Character was sketched out.

Professor Angela Gallop3:30

There's no reason why she should know this, but she lacked that passion that carries you on when anybody else would have been bored hours ago looking for something tiny.

Professor Angela Gallop3:41

She was so laid back, she said, Oh, well, we might do that or we could staring out of the window, you know, obviously with her thoughts miles away. Whereas actually, in reality, you're right there in the present, you're right in it, determined to do your very best.

Presenter3:56

And you're often leading teams and motivating other people.

Professor Angela Gallop3:59

Am I right in thinking that you've been known to take a Buzz Lightyear toy with you to strategy meetings on occasion? I think I once took him to a lecture I was giving to a police force because you see he he's got this wonderful phrase to infinity and beyond and that and that's you know just where we want to go. I mean obviously keeping it real but I just wanted to give that sense of determination and passion.

Presenter4:23

All right, Angela. Well, to Infinity and your discs, I think. Let's start with your first. What have you chosen and why are you taking it to your desert island today?

Professor Angela Gallop4:26

Yeah.

Professor Angela Gallop4:31

They

Presenter4:31

Uh

Professor Angela Gallop4:31

Well, I've chosen um The Gas Man Cometh by Flanders and Swan.

Professor Angela Gallop4:37

They were favourites of my father, and so therefore became favourites of the whole family, and I particularly like this track.

Professor Angela Gallop4:44

Because it's a a sort of metaphor for what I've seen in life ever since then, the circularity of things.

Professor Angela Gallop4:51

and the way that they come round and even though you learn through experience, of course you do, at least when they come round again, in this case you might have the telephone number of the glazer or the painter or whatever, you know, so it makes it slightly easier. But it I just find them very entertaining.

Speaker 25:06

It was on a Monday morning the gas man came to call. The gas tap wouldn't turn, I wasn't getting gas at all. He tore out all the skirting boards to try and find the main. And I had to call a carpenter to put them back again. Oh, it all makes work for the working man to do.

Speaker 25:29

Twas on the Tuesday morning the carpenter came round. He hammered and he chiseled and he said look what I found. Your choice of

Presenter5:38

The Gasman Cometh Flanders and sworn a family favourite from your childhood, Professor Angela Gallup. So tell me more about it. You were born in Oxford, nineteen fifty, the middle child between two brothers, and your dad, Kenneth, also had two sons from his first marriage. So so what was your place as as the only girl in that that slide?

Professor Angela Gallop5:53

So

Professor Angela Gallop5:57

Slightly extended family. Well, I was n like another slightly strange boy, I think.

Speaker 26:01

Actually.

Professor Angela Gallop6:02

I inherited my older brother's clothing and things like that. And the only time when I looked half presentable was when my mum used to dress me up, particularly to see my relations, because I had a maiden aunt, a great-aunt, actually, and she was quite wealthy, and so she would buy me these very pretty dresses from expensive stores in London. And so, you know, mum could get me looking nice for about ten minutes. So, Kenneth.

Presenter6:27

Your father taught economics at Oxford. Your mother, Unice, was also an academic, and I think you've said that she instilled in you a sense of fairness.

Professor Angela Gallop6:38

She did. She was absolutely all about fairness and I would say injustice, and I'm sure that's where I've got some of of um the way I think about things. I'm sure I've got it from her.

Presenter6:50

Your parents divorced when you were eleven. You've described that as quite a tricky time. What do you remember about it?

Professor Angela Gallop6:55

The difficult thing is, I think, and it's probably true of a lot of people whose parents' marriage breaks up, but you blame yourself and you look at yourself, or you know, in my case it was probably me and my brothers, what had we done, that, you know, had been awful. And it takes a while to get over that. And in fact, it wasn't until I mean, I alw almost remember the occasion, but it wasn't until I was twenty seven that I actually got my father and understood.

Professor Angela Gallop7:23

you know, why he did this. He was a wonderful man, absolutely charming, very nice man, but he had serial love affairs because he was always searching for that wonderful moment when you fall in love with someone and he was always looking for that. And of course it lasted for a little while and then it gradually wore off. So I think I understand that better now and I've

Presenter7:44

And how did you find that out about him? How did you discover that?

Professor Angela Gallop7:47

I think it for the first time he opened up to me. I think I was having some doubts about my own first marriage, and I was sort of started talking to him about that, and he became much more open and more honest, I think. And I suddenly got it, and I thought, Ah, that's it. Would have been good to know that earlier. Yeah, it would have been good. Yes, absolutely.

Presenter8:06

The

Presenter8:10

Alright, Angela, it's time for some more music now, your second disc today, if you don't mind.

Professor Angela Gallop8:14

What's it gonna be?

Professor Angela Gallop8:15

Yes, this is Kathleen Ferrier, because she was a great favourite of my mother's, and so we used to have this wonderful singing going on through the house all the time. I didn't like everything that Kathleen sang, I didn't like her Blow the Wind Southerly type songs, but I did like it when she did something more classical, and so I've chosen a a track from the Messiah.

Speaker 28:37

And tell us good tidings to sign.

Speaker 28:47

Yeah.

Speaker 28:57

Oh Lord and tell us good tidings to fight.

Speaker 29:11

Yeah.

Speaker 29:22

Let me all

Speaker 29:26

I am

Presenter9:37

O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion from Handel's Messiah, performed by Kathleen Ferrier with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Adrian Bolt. Tell me about school, Angela. You went to an independent girls' school in Oxford. Now I know that your great aunt paid your fees the aunt that you would uh dress up in your Sunday best and own visits. Uh did that mean that you felt you had to work hard to kind of earn your paid?

Professor Angela Gallop9:53

Okay, so

Professor Angela Gallop9:56

Eli

Professor Angela Gallop9:57

Yes.

Professor Angela Gallop10:02

Place? Oh, I was terrible.

Professor Angela Gallop10:04

School work just passed over the top of my head. I mean, I just couldn't get interested in anything much, really.

Presenter10:11

I think there was one teacher who

Professor Angela Gallop10:13

saw some potential in you though, and who engaged you in her subject? She was just brilliant. She taught me botany. She made plants come alive. It was absolutely amazing. Just by standing there and talking about them, she was very

Presenter10:13

So

Presenter10:15

Are you engaged?

Professor Angela Gallop10:26

enthusiastic in a quiet way. And you know, and she was standing there and I remember her turning her hands as if they were leaves turned to face the light so they could photosynthesize better. And she just I don't know, she just made it live for me. And so that was the spark that that absolutely. I owe my whole career, I think, to Mary Thompson.

Presenter10:41

Absolutely.

Professor Angela Gallop10:45

Time some more music, disc number three, what is it?

Professor Angela Gallop10:49

This is a a bit of Bach, because Bach, along with Handel, is one of my favourite composers, and I've been choosing pieces that feature instruments that I really like, and one of my favourite instruments is the trumpet, and another of my favourite instruments is the organ.

Professor Angela Gallop11:06

And so here you've got the trumpet and the organ playing together, and it feels like they're having a competition about who can play the best, who can be the most technically brilliant, as the tune swaps about from one to the other of them. So it's a wonderful piece of music.

Presenter12:19

Bach's keyboard concerto in D major, arranged for trumpet and organ, performed by Alison Balsam and Colm Carey.

Presenter12:27

Angela Gallup, after a degree in botany and a PhD where you focused on sea slugs, you were looking for a new way to satisfy your scientific curiosity and answered an advert to join the government's forensic science service at their lab in Harrogate. Did it live up to your expectations?

Professor Angela Gallop12:46

Really? I remember when I I turned up it was very unexpected. It was in an old house, a grand old house, on the Duchy estate in Harrogate. There were two bathrooms where we used to do our blood grouping, with the marble basin still there. We did our ABO um grouping on a marble basin.

Professor Angela Gallop13:04

Strung across one corner of the lab was a washing line on which we were drying bloodstained clothing, because obviously you can't examine it until it's dry, so something fresh from a crime scene would have to be dried out first, which is a bit grisly, isn't it?

Professor Angela Gallop13:18

My my first case was very much a baptism of fire. It was a man who believed that his wife and her pet dog were inhabited by evil spirits.

Professor Angela Gallop13:27

and basically killed them with his bare hands.

Professor Angela Gallop13:30

And the first item that I had to examine under heavy supervision, of course, but was the woman's handbag which had been lying on the floor near to where she'd been attacked.

Professor Angela Gallop13:40

And it was made of vinyl plastic, and it had inside.

Professor Angela Gallop13:45

an apple which was slowly rotting, and the lab was very warm it was October, but a very warm day in October, and so the smell of the dried blood on the vinyl with the rotting apple inside was just awful.

Professor Angela Gallop13:57

So I uh I thought, my goodness and it kept reminding me of what had happened to her.

Professor Angela Gallop14:03

So I found it really difficult.

Presenter14:04

Yeah.

Professor Angela Gallop14:05

Yeah.

Presenter14:05

Well, we will find out how you came to deal with those emotions, but for the moment, it's time for some more music. Your your next disc. But if you chose

Professor Angela Gallop14:14

I do like some forms of pop music, particularly sort of romantic songs, and I remember when I was with my second husband who introduced me to Doctor Hook, and I very much like Doctor Hook's songs and singing, and I've just chosen one of those as an example. It's more like the movies.

Speaker 214:35

I guess the dance is over now.

Speaker 214:39

So you just curtsy and I'll bow.

Speaker 214:43

Maybe that's the baby to play us.

Speaker 214:47

Oh dead inside

Speaker 214:53

And I'll just take what's left of me.

Speaker 214:57

Right back to where it used to be.

Speaker 215:02

And you go sell your magic

Presenter15:06

Doctor Hook and more like the movies.

Presenter15:10

Angela, in nineteen seventy seven you started working at a new FSS lab in Wetherby as senior scientific officer, and that meant that you started going to crime scenes. What can you remember about the first one that you attended?

Professor Angela Gallop15:23

It was one of the Yorkshire Ripper series, so again I I mean I think it was the way it was though, but you were thrown in very much at the deep end.

Professor Angela Gallop15:30

Um but it was Helen Ritke who was killed in the woodyard in Huddersfield.

Presenter15:35

She was very young, just a teenager, I think.

Professor Angela Gallop15:37

Oh, she was yes, she was a most lovely, lovely looking girl. I had to think about whether or not I was going to be able to

Professor Angela Gallop15:46

cope with it constitutionally because you don't know until you're faced with something whether you can or not.

Speaker 115:51

Uh

Professor Angela Gallop15:52

And I found for that crime scene and for every crime scene I've ever been to, it's that recognition that something truly terrible has happened and that I must do my very best. I must be as careful as I can possibly be, as meticulous, as imaginative as I can be in collecting the right things and having the right ideas for them. And so I was so consumed with that thought that it actually completely covered over any emotional problems that I might otherwise have had. So while I could recognise it was a terrible crime, and I don't say that I've had an emotional bypass or anything like that, I'm sure I haven't.

Speaker 116:29

That I'm sure.

Professor Angela Gallop16:30

But um it just takes the place of those emotional thoughts and it puts you more into a technical mode when you just want to do your best.

Presenter16:37

Yeah.

Presenter16:40

Angela, by 1982 you had a young son. Did your work make you feel fearful about the dark side of humanity?

Professor Angela Gallop16:48

that you'd been exposed to.

Professor Angela Gallop16:50

I don't think I thought that everybody was a murderer or rapist or anything. The only th way in which I think it has damaged me a bit, not so much for my son, but for myself being a woman, is that I don't, and I haven't for almost ever, gone out for walks on my own in less than well populated areas. And I and I don't like being out late at night because I've seen bodies in all sorts of

Speaker 117:10

Snow curve.

Professor Angela Gallop17:16

Different environments, and so I can imagine them. And actually, when I go around the country, and particularly when I go up into the north.

Professor Angela Gallop17:25

where I've, you know, been a forensic scientist and actively working, I remember oh, yes, a signpost is somewhere and I oh, I remember that. Yeah, there was a case there where, you know, this happened and I the scene comes back to my mind. Yes, the scene comes back to me.

Speaker 117:34

Yeah.

Professor Angela Gallop17:39

And so that keeps my awareness of very unlikely, absolutely, that you're going to be attacked by anyone, but if you've got unlucky, you just might be, so why don't you not do that? That's the sort of thing stayed with me a bit.

Professor Angela Gallop17:52

Angela

Presenter17:52

It's time to make some room for the music. Tell us about your fifth choice today.

Professor Angela Gallop17:57

Yeah.

Presenter17:57

My f

Professor Angela Gallop17:58

Fifth choice reflects the moment only about, I don't know, sixteen or seventeen years ago, something like that, when I discovered

Professor Angela Gallop18:08

The Joy of Real Opera for the first time.

Professor Angela Gallop18:12

and uh my partner, who I'd only just met then, because I said, I've I think I like opera. You know, I've got all these discs and I play them, and I think I like it, but I've never actually been to anything I've been to one or two things, but n never actually been totally seized with it and he said

Professor Angela Gallop18:27

I'm going to take you to Glindbourn. And so he took me to see a new production of Julius Caesar Handles Julius Caesar. And it was absolute magic. And it's the only time in my life I've had some near misses since then, some of them at Gleinbourn, but it's the only time in my life when I've sat through a performance of something and the only thing I want to do at the end of it is to see it all over again. And not tomorrow, but tonight, now. It is absolutely amazing. It was wonderful.

Presenter18:51

Ow.

Professor Angela Gallop18:55

And so I've chosen a song sung by a great opera singer, Danielle Denise, and she is Cleopatra and she is celebrating her lover Caesar's return from war.

Speaker 219:08

We still live Sequo John Door Johnson

Speaker 119:30

To believe in your

Speaker 219:38

Yeah.

Presenter20:08

Da tempeste il leño infranto from Handel's Julius Caesar performed by Danielle Denis with Lesard Floresson, conducted by William Christie.

Presenter20:18

Angela Gallup, in the 1980s, you set up your own company, and in 1992, you were asked to investigate a case that would prove to be a turning point for you. It was that of Roberto Calvi, an Italian banker. He'd been found hanging from scaffolding under Black Friars Bridge in London in 1982. His family were unhappy with the two inquests that had already happened into his death. One had recorded a verdict of suicide, but they said he was a devout Catholic who wouldn't have taken his own life. And you've described this case as very important to you.

Professor Angela Gallop20:51

Uh

Presenter20:51

Why?

Professor Angela Gallop20:52

I just had the clothing he was wearing, or some of the clothing I only had his.

Professor Angela Gallop20:57

suit jacket and suit trousers and the shoes he was wearing.

Professor Angela Gallop21:01

and the stones with which his body had been weighted down, and the rope from around his neck,

Professor Angela Gallop21:06

And I remember saying, Yes, yes, I'll see what I can do. I remember saying that. And then when the time came, I thought, my goodness, what am I going to do? I've hardly got anything. How can I answer this huge question about murder or suicide? And what did you do? Well, I was very lucky because the actual scaffolding that had been used at the time erected under Blackfriars Bridge and from which he was hanging still existed and it had been protected and looked after all those years. And so I was able to ask for some of that to be sent to me. And of course I needed a space to erect it in. And so that turned out to be our back garden. So we erected this scaffolding and then I persuaded my long-suffering husband, who was also a forensic scientist, so that helped tremendously.

Speaker 121:47

Luckily

Professor Angela Gallop21:49

you know, what uh why and what he was uh being asked to do. But um he played the part of um Calvy. He was roughly the same, a little bit taller and a little bit thinner, but roughly the same size and shape. And he put on a pair of uh a suit that the Calvy family had supplied and some a pair of shoes and then he performed the various manoeuvres that he would have to you know, Calvy would have to have done had he.

Speaker 121:56

Mm-hmm.

Professor Angela Gallop22:13

walked across the scaffolding, got on to the scaffolding and walked across it himself. And so that's how I how I was able to say, Well, actually, if he'd done that you'd expect that, and it's not there and so he ha he would have to have been murdered in some way and then attached to the scaffolding.

Professor Angela Gallop22:30

Basin

Presenter22:30

An old saying in forensics, isn't there, that every contact leaves a trace. Now you're dealing with microscopic samples invisible to the naked eye. Have you always managed to find that?

Professor Angela Gallop22:41

It is so true that every contact leaves a trace. You've just got to be clever enough and careful enough to find it and imaginative enough to find it. And a wonderful example of that is the Stephen Lawrence case where really good scientists I mean ourselves included but have looked for blood on the clothing of suspects and not found it and not found it and not found it.

Speaker 122:59

Mm-hmm.

Professor Angela Gallop23:04

And in the end it was coming at it from a different angle. So coming at it from in this case textile more textile fibers that we decided to look at the original packaging to see if any fibers had fallen off into the packaging that we found this tiny flake of blood. So this is in packaging that an item of evidence

Presenter23:21

Yeah.

Professor Angela Gallop23:21

It's been kept in. Yeah, because stuff falls off. The jacket. Yes, exactly. And so we found in there this tiny flake of blood.

Presenter23:22

Yeah, because stuff.

Presenter23:23

A jacket.

Professor Angela Gallop23:28

With two fibres encased in it, so obviously there at the time the blood was wet.

Professor Angela Gallop23:33

And they were from the jacket of a suspect and then the blood, the DNA and the blood, matched Stevens. And so this was the first piece of evidence. But then we thought, well, if we found it in the packaging, there must be the remains of an original bloodstain somewhere on the garment and we kept missing it. Everybody's missed it. So that's when we got out a microscope and went over the whole thing in detail with quite a bit of the jacket. So every single in and it was exhausting to do because the jacket was a grey jacket.

Presenter23:54

Don't

Presenter23:55

Every fibre of the jacket.

Professor Angela Gallop24:01

composed of white fibers and black fibers, so overall it looked grey. But all the time while you were looking down the microscope your eyes were compensating for dark light, dark light, and it was very difficult to search. But eventually inside the back of the neck, which is sort of where you might expect to find a tiny spot of blood from an attack like that, we found the remains of a spot of blood and we tested it and it was Stephen's contained Stephen's DNA. So eventually we got there.

Professor Angela Gallop24:28

It's time for your next piece of music, number six. What have you chosen and why? Haydn's cello concerto. I lost one of my wonderful brothers. He died some years ago and Yo Yama was a friend of his and so he agreed to play at his memorial service. And it was absolutely fantastic hearing this brilliant cellist. He didn't play this piece, he played another piece. But I just wanted to have something by Yo Yama and definitely some cello.

Speaker 224:47

Brilliant

Presenter25:55

Haydn's cello concerto number one in C major performed by Yo-Yo Ma with the English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Jose Luis Garcia. Angela Gallup, in 1999, you investigated the death of a sex worker called Lynette White, who was found with multiple stab wounds in a flat in Cardiff in 1988. Five men were suspected of killing her, although there was no forensic evidence to connect them to the crime, and three were convicted. Now, two years later, those convictions were quashed by the Court of Appeal. How did you and your team find the real offender 11 years after the

Professor Angela Gallop26:30

Killing. First of all we started looking at the various bits and pieces that had been collected from the crime scene to see whether there was anything that hadn't been tested that might conceivably yield something. And one of the things that we looked at, which no one but bothered about, was a tiny piece of cellophane off the end of a cigarette packet. And this had quite a lot of blood staining on it, smeared blood, which would almost certainly have come from Lynette herself. But on it also was one round spot, tiny round spot, and that was much more interesting to us because that could have come from airborne blood coming off an injury. And so that could conceivably have come from the offender. And so it's that that we focused on. So we tested this tiny single spot and we got a nearly full profile, male profile. And so we called it imaginatively cellophane man. And so cellophane man became a big feature of the case. And then the race was on to see if we could find any other staining on any of of the other items from the scene. So we got the police to take the skirting board off. We also got them to remove the front door. So we scraped away

Professor Angela Gallop27:36

carefully at this paint, not going too deep when we would have lost all any blood that had been there, not going too shallow when we'd never have revealed it.

Professor Angela Gallop27:45

And eventually we found blood on both of these things. On the door we couldn't see it, but we could tell it was there because it was responding to our chemical tests. So there was a tiny bit left from the original swabbing. And then this skirting board, and we managed to show that that also was cellophane man.

Presenter27:59

You had the profile of the killer, but he wasn't on the DNA database. How did you go about finding him?

Professor Angela Gallop28:04

One of the elements of the profile that we had was rarer than the others. It was about one in a hundred of the population, so it was reasonably uncommon.

Professor Angela Gallop28:14

And we managed to show that this one element occurred in about six hundred men.

Professor Angela Gallop28:19

and we came up with one profile which was much closer.

Professor Angela Gallop28:23

than any of the others, and it belonged to I think it was a fourteen year old boy who hadn't even been born at the time of the murder, and who'd had his DNA taken for some minor offence, relatively minor offence.

Professor Angela Gallop28:34

And then it was a question of going through the members of the male members of his family.

Presenter28:37

Some you

Professor Angela Gallop28:39

So we thought we were probably in the right family. It was very likely we were in the right family. And so then we looked at his father's profile and it was very close, but it didn't match. Then the police discovered that he had a brother. So then we looked at the brothers, so an uncle of the chap who's on the database. So we had a look at his profile and he was very close, but it wasn't a match. And then they discovered that there was another brother.

Speaker 128:43

Mm-hmm.

Professor Angela Gallop29:03

who had been a recluse for the last sixteen or seventeen years, or whatever it was, worked as a night watchman, and they got a sample from him that we discovered a match with with Cellophane Mann. We can

Presenter29:14

Case made history, too, in that it was the first time someone who'd committed murder was identified through a familial DNA link. How rewarding was it for you to see the killer brought to justice?

Professor Angela Gallop29:26

I think it was brought really firmly into focus when I met for the first time one of the Cardiff Five.

Professor Angela Gallop29:33

John Actie, who has had a terrible time and seeing the dignity.

Professor Angela Gallop29:40

with which he's coped with the whole thing. It is awe inspiring, I think. I have a huge amount of respect for him and the others who got wrongly convicted, and it was great to be able to do that.

Professor Angela Gallop29:53

It's time for some more music.

Presenter29:54

Your seventh choice today, Angela, what are we going to hear, and why?

Professor Angela Gallop29:58

Yeah, this is to remind me of my son, who is very, very keen, to put it mildly, on church bells and all things to do with camponology.

Professor Angela Gallop30:07

And so I've chosen the Belle Anthem, and I've chosen a very old recording by Alfred Della and the Della Consort.

Professor Angela Gallop30:15

And I've chosen this because I think the speed with which the piece is played is just perfect for what it's trying to show it. You can hear the church bells in the background, and it's absolutely brilliant.

Speaker 231:03

Rejoice in the Lord Hall away, and again I say rejoice, Rejoice in the Lord, and again I say rejoice.

Presenter31:22

Purcell's the Belle Anthem performed by Alfred Della and the Della Consort.

Presenter31:27

Angela Gallup, we've talked about bringing offenders to book and exonerating the innocent, but I wonder what about the victims? As we've heard, you took on the Stephen Lawrence case in nineteen ninety five and then again in two thousand six, and your work helped convict his killers. Later you attended two memorial services for Stephen.

Presenter31:46

What did going to those services mean to you?

Presenter31:48

Yeah.

Professor Angela Gallop31:48

I think it just confirmed me in my view that things are not, or certainly weren't,

Professor Angela Gallop31:54

Fair.

Professor Angela Gallop31:55

You know, this case wasn't investigated as thoroughly as I would like to think it would be to day.

Professor Angela Gallop32:01

And I think the McPherson inquiry went into that in great detail, and talked in particular about how police culture had to change. And I think I felt very strongly about that, and it came over, and I also was struck by the eloquence, particularly with which Stephen's brother

Professor Angela Gallop32:18

talked about this young lad who had so much to look forward to, and was clearly such a nice boy. It was just heart breaking, really.

Presenter32:27

Uh

Professor Angela Gallop32:27

Uh I'm about to cast your

Presenter32:27

Away Angela

Presenter32:29

How do you think you'll spend your time?

Professor Angela Gallop32:30

Uh

Presenter32:30

Going.

Professor Angela Gallop32:31

Do you know I have well no, I do know what I'm going to be doing because uh I am asking for something I am asking for something that should take up a lot of

Presenter32:37

Yeah.

Presenter32:38

You'd have it in mind already so you can picture your

Professor Angela Gallop32:39

Do you think you can picture yourself on the island? I do. I can picture myself on the island with this thing that I'm going to devote the rest of my life to.

Professor Angela Gallop32:47

You look quite content. There's a look of acceptance, I'm sure.

Presenter32:50

I don't know.

Professor Angela Gallop32:53

It's a happy resignation. It's all

Presenter32:54

All right. One more disc before I do, though, your final choice today, Angela Gallup. What is it and why?

Professor Angela Gallop33:01

My final choice has to be the most wonderful opera singer that I've ever come across, Joyce Di Donato.

Professor Angela Gallop33:09

And I've asked for her to be singing

Professor Angela Gallop33:12

A wonderful song from The Marriage of Figaro and it shows the strength of her voice across all the the full range that she has and the wonderful sound that she can make.

Speaker 233:25

Oikesa faith of your own.

Speaker 233:41

Our heavenly saint on our head.

Speaker 233:50

Okay,

Speaker 233:53

Viridio, Caupero sorfo, pizzi.

Speaker 234:23

Yeah.

Presenter34:25

Voice a pete from Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, performed by Joyce Didonato, with the Orchestra of the National Opera of Lyon, conducted by Cazusciono.

Presenter34:36

So, Angela Gallup, it's time to send you away to the island. I'm going to give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare to take along with you and keep you company. But you can also have another book. What would you like?

Presenter34:47

Can I have the complete works of somebody?

Professor Angela Gallop34:49

Uh

Presenter34:50

Well, it depends what

Professor Angela Gallop34:51

Whether it exists as a tomb already. Oh, I don't know whether it. I shouldn't think that it does. Whose works is it?

Presenter34:56

Whose works are you? Robert Harris. He's my Robert Harm. There isn't a complete works of Robert Harris, but we could make up a collection of titles. It'll be quite heavy, but we'll do a little collection of the title.

Professor Angela Gallop34:59

That's my favourite one.

Professor Angela Gallop35:11

The heavier the better, basically. You can also have a luxury item. What would you like? I would like to take a full church organ and all the sheet music that you could possibly think of to accompany it. Okay, so full-scale pipe organ. Absolutely.

Speaker 235:19

Elf?

Presenter35:25

It was full scale.

Professor Angela Gallop35:27

Yeah.

Professor Angela Gallop35:28

Could you play it? No, but I would learn to play it. Absolutely. Can you read the music? Yes, I can read the music. Okay, that's it. I could do all that. Oh, I could do you know, I can yeah, I know roughly.

Presenter35:28

I

Presenter35:34

Okay, that's a good stuff.

Presenter35:39

Now I can see why you were looking so content at being cast away on the side. That's absolutely fine.

Professor Angela Gallop35:42

Yes, absolutely, it's fine.

Presenter35:45

Finally, Angela Gallup, which one track of the eight that you've shared with us today would you save from the waiting?

Professor Angela Gallop35:51

Babes. Joyce Donato.

Professor Angela Gallop35:53

I think that would

Professor Angela Gallop35:55

It would make me feel good, calm me down. I think it would be brilliant.

Professor Angela Gallop35:59

Yeah.

Presenter35:59

Professor Angela Gallup, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Professor Angela Gallop36:04

Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity.

Presenter36:26

Hello, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Angela. I am so pleased that she's going to learn a new skill on the island. We've cast away the forensic anthropologist Professor Dame Sue Black, and Angela's favourite author Robert Harris has been to the island too. You can find those episodes in our Desert Island Discs programme archive and through BBC Sounds. The studio manager for today's programme was Sarah Hockley, the assistant producer was Christine Pavlovsky, and the producer was Paula McGinley. Next time, my guest will be the actor Richard E. Grant. I do hope you'll join us.

Speaker 137:04

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Speaker 137:08

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Speaker 137:14

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