Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Human rights lawyer; won landmark cases for women imprisoned for killing abusers, black cab rape victims, and spy cops scandal activists.
On the island
Eight records
The keepsakes
The book
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:05You've said that terrifyingly often the law is not fit for purpose for half the population. Tell me more about that.
out of anger, but it didn't work for women who kill through fear of violence. And it led to these really, really stark contrasts between the experience of men who killed their wives and often were able to say, oh God, she nagged me, or I thought she was having an affair, and were successful in those use of defences, whereas women who may have been subjected to the most horrendous domestic abuse but may have had to hold off before responding because of the fear that if they responded at the time, they would come out much worse from it. And the law wasn't working for them because they were said to be, well, you waited and you could have just left. So complete lack of understanding of the context there.
Presenter asks
4:55I heard that you're sometimes known as DJ Hazer. When and by who?
When lockdown happened, we were all stuck in our separate homes and came up with the idea of having a Friday night Zoom disco. I volunteered to put together the playlist and in our separate houses we all had our screens, we all dressed up in outfits and put on glitter balls and lighting and stuff. Just played tracks. We took selections so people could send their selections in and we just had a Friday night groove. And DJ Hazer was born.
Presenter asks
George Eliot
I've chosen a book that I read when I was probably 18 or so. It's got so much to it, and I kind of fancy having another read of it, which is Middlemarch by George Elliott
The luxury
a wine fridge with an endless supply of delicious white wines
I'm going to take a wine fridge with, you know, an endless supply of delicious white wines
What kind of parents were they? Tell me about them.
As I got older, particularly, I more and more appreciated my parents as really exceptional people who were very positive, encouraged, very pro-feminist, both of them. My mum was a feminist of sorts. My dad was incredibly supportive of my mother. And they were involved in really interesting stuff. So it was a pretty good upbringing.
Presenter asks
14:49Your older brother Matthew died when he was fourteen. How do you remember him now, when you think back?
Well, Matthew, in fact, I was born on his birthday. He was three when I was born. And I think initially he was okay. But when he was like a toddler, he developed these brain tumours. And it was very touch and go. My parents managed to get somebody to perform an operation to get rid of the the tumours, but it left him with a form of brain damage. And he was as a consequence, he was what we used to describe in those days, you wouldn't use these terms now, mentally handicapped. So he had a number of issues around behaviour and learning that were problematic and some physical disabilities as well.
Presenter asks
25:53Tell us a little bit about Emma Humphreys and how you got involved in her case.
We used to get letters from women in prison for justice for women. And we got this letter from Emma Humphreys, who had by then been in prison for seven years and she wrote this incredibly powerful letter just describing what had happened to her and how she had lost hope in fighting for justice. But now having seen these cases, she wanted help to appeal her murder conviction. … She knew in her heart she wasn't a murderer. I mean, she'd been subjected to the most horrendous abuse. She wrote it in a letter, and we got this letter, it came to our home address, and I thought, God, we've got to take this case on.
“the law wasn't working for them because they were said to be, well, you waited and you could have just left. So complete lack of understanding of the context there.”
“I more and more appreciated my parents as really exceptional people who were very positive, encouraged, very pro-feminist, both of them.”
“I found it quite difficult to deal with that and about telling people about it. I just kind of found the idea of talking about, you know, your your brothers just died. I couldn't tell friends about it.”
“She was this incredibly bright spark. She was very funny. She had a great sense of humour. You know, she had a really, really strong sense of justice as well.”
“Once you actually thought about coercive control and looked at it in a different way. It was a bit like, you know, you put a new magnifying glass and suddenly the whole story becomes clear.”