Woman's Hour

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Woman's Hour: Sarah Brown, Dr Julia Shaw, Ian Paterson

Sarah Brown, Dr Julia Shaw, Ian Paterson

BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, Sarah Brown, Dr Julia Shaw, Ian Paterson

Sarah Brown on the 20th anniversary of losing her daughter talks about premature birth.

Sarah Brown on the 20th anniversary of losing her daughter talks about what we now know about premature birth.

This year marks 20 years since Sarah and Gordon Brown lost their daughter Jennifer, who died ten days after being born seven weeks prematurely. In a search for answers, they founded the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory in 2004, which looks into the causes and consequences of premature birth. Around 1 in 13 babies in the UK are born prematurely –before 37 weeks. Sarah is Chair of the charity Theirworld and tells Emma about the latest research.

It's been over a year since Sarah Everard was adbucted, raped and murdered by a serving police officer, Wayne Couzens, who's now in prison for life. The vigil that followed in London followed to remember Sarah, ended up with clashes with the police and arrests. Now it's been reported that some police officers thought the event was an anti-police protest. The Evening Standard newspaper has printed what certain officers have told Westminster magistrates court this week. They say they faced resistance when they tried to break up the crowd, had feared being attacked, and were branded “murderers” by some people in the crowd. At the moment, six people are being prosecuted by Scotland Yard over the vigil. Jamie Klinger is one of the founders of Reclaim These Streets, which tried to organise the vigil.

Psychologist and co-host of BBC podcast Bad People Dr Julia Shaw’s new book Bi: The Hidden Culture, History and Science of Bisexuality combines her own experiences of being bisexual and her background in the psychological sciences to explore and celebrate a sexual identity she says remains marginalised and forgotten.

It's been described as "one of the biggest medical scandals ever to hit this country". In 2017 surgeon Ian Paterson was jailed for 20 years after being found guilty of 17 counts of wounding with intent. Mr Paterson was diagnosing cancer when there wasn’t any and cutting his patients open for no reason, performing unnecessary and damaging surgery. He also carried out unregulated "cleavage-sparing" mastectomies, in which breast tissue was left behind, meaning cancer returned in many of his patients. Ahead of a new ITV documentary being broadcast this weekend, Emma speaks to the whistleblower who first raised concerns about Ian Paterson – Mr Hemant Ingle, and one of Paterson’s victim’s Debbie Douglas, who is still campaigning for a change in the law to prevent anything like this from happening again.

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