tv Victoria Derbyshire BBC News August 24, 2019 4:30pm-5:01pm BST
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cloud sunny day with a bit of high cloud around in the skies. a photo from earlier in the day from lancashire shows the extent of sunshine here and that scene is repeated across much of the uk. tonight cloud in coastal parts of the south—west england and perhaps south wales nato. and the scope for showers in the scottish highlands but otherwise, temperatures are slow to fall overnight. looking at temperatures around 11pm between 18 and 21 in a number of places so a warm night. temperatures will drop and into sunday more of the same weather. they could be some low cloud on coastal areas in the south—west but otherwise, plenty of sunshine for most and if anything even hotter. the top temperature, up to 32 towards london and south—east england.
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hello, this is bbc news. the headlines. prince andrew has said he did not "see, witness or suspect any behaviour of the sort" that subsequently led to the arrest and conviction of disgraced financierjeffrey epstein. the prime minister has said he will urge president trump at the g7 summit not to escalate a trade war with china. the state of global trade, i am worried about the way it is going. the uk thrives mightily on the open, outward —looking free trade negotiation it will be promoting. ahead of the summit the prime minister has been warned against forever being known as "mr no deal" over brexit. donald tusk also said the eu will not co—operate with leaving europe without an agreement. i still hope that prime minister johnson will not like to go down in history as mr no deal.
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brazil's president has bowed to international pressure and ordered the armed forces to tackle a record number of fires raging in the amazon forest. tens of thousands of british airways passengers could be affected as pilots are to strike next month, in a dispute over pay. ba says it's "extremely sorry" passengers have found difficulties trying to rearrange their flights. and now on bbc news, a look back at some of the highlights this week from the victoria derbyshire programme. hello and welcome. over the next half—hour, we'll show you some of the highlights from our programme over the last week. and we start on facebook, where thousands of women in groups across the country are naming and shaming the men they claim have abused them. prick advisor was set up to be a force for good —
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a social media group where women can warn other women about all sorts of negative behaviour by men, from cheating, through to violence, rape and even child abuse. but there's also been a backlash, with some men saying they've been falsely accused and that privacy and libel laws are being breached. here's more. i had been pushed and dragged around and thrown on the floor. she was three years old when she just came up to me and said, "mummy, daddy hurt me." we feel like women are being failed by the system. the women across britain taking their alleged abuse into their own hands. like a little army of women looking out for each other all across the country. posting in a facebook group where women name and shame the partners they claim have abused them.
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some other woman out there that could be at risk could be warned. but in the murky world of social media, when does naming and shaming go wrong? there were pictures of me. she was calling me controlling, she was calling me abusive to her. it's like a public hanging of men. it's why i've been following the prick advisor pages for a few months now. the main national page has got 100,000 members and then there's loads of smaller regional pages that have anything between a few hundred to 40,000 women in there. now, most of the women say that it's a force for good, but i want to know if the groups are a symptom of women that have
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been let down by local authorities that have been cut, or is it a sign of where we're at with social media? and on this quiet cul—de—sac in bradford, we've come to meet sam wright as she's sifting through posts from 8,000 women across west yorkshire. she's a regional administrator of one of many prick advisor groups across the country. women come to us to post up about a guy that they maybe potentially dating, to somebody that they think may have had a violent past, to somebody that they are concerned that they're still sort of dating somebody else, or they're beating me up. or he passed me on a sexually transmitted disease. it could be anything. women in the group say they want to warn others, because of the hurt and the abuse they faced at the hands of violent men. women like claire, who experienced an incident of abuse at the hands of a partner.
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during the relationship i'd been pushed and dragged around and thrown on the floor. i was quite isolated. i felt, like, unhappy and sad most days. claire's partner was charged with battery. she eventually left the relationship and moved away to protect her children. her partner now has no contact with his family. i've had depression, i've had days where i don't open the curtains or want to go out of the house. any counselling or anything i've had, any therapies i've had, i've had to seek myself. i've had to really go and shout about it. there wouldn't be that many members in these groups if the women weren't feeling like they needed that support. statistics show that an estimated 1.3 million women experienced some form of domestic abuse last year and the 18% of the women who were abused by their partners
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in that year reported the abuse to the police. police forces already have something in place for a woman to access information that might protect her from abuse. it's called clare's law, but that information is only accessible when a man has had a conviction for domestic violence. i don't think that it's publicised enough, whereas with the group you've got something that's straight there to hand where you can just type in somebody‘s name and just see straightaway if they're on there. clearly, in the comments, there's quite a few people that know him. yeah. used to work with him. how do you actually make sure the allegations that women are posting about men are true? because, obviously, if they're not true, it's really got the potential to ruin someone's life and their reputation. it's a lot of responsibility on us to sort of look at both sides and think, right, well, who's was telling the truth? sometimes, it'sjust easierjust
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to take the post down. 0bviously, without police involvement, it is just one person's word. do you ever worry about getting caught in between a situation where maybe a man is being accused and it isn't true? i've had threats. like, i am going to come to your house, you've had it. we've had a lot snitching. where are they will screenshot and you can guarantee within, sometimes i'd say less than five minutes of a post going up, it can be fed back to the person that's been posted about. it's like a hundred thousand followers on there and my name, my picture. "bleep is an absolutely narcissistic, vile human being..." and when the posts do get screenshotted and leaked, what happens if it isn't true? what happens to the men who become falsely accused? there it was in black and white. she plastered it all over facebook.
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she was calling me controlling. she was calling me abusive to her. i mean, it's something that i can't prove, because how can i go on there and prove my innocence? i live in quite a small town. it had that effect on my business. people stopped coming to me for things. could you imagine if it was men talking about women, talking about their bodies, talking about their sex lives? i mean a lot of people would just say this is your word against hers. in my case, it's just a crazy ex that's gone on there that wants to call me all the names under the sun and ruin my reputation. and it's worked. it's happened. of all the stories we've seen shared on the prick adviser page, on the prick advisor page, probably one of the most shocking is that marie's. it's not her real name — we're
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going to protect her identity — but i first saw her story shared by one of her friends. she posted the name, the location and a picture of one of marie's ex—partners that she said sexually abused marie's daughter at three years old. marie says her daughter started having night terrors, stopped talking and became incontinent in the months following her meeting her ex—partner. she was three years old when she just came up to me and said, "mummy, daddy hurt my bum." i said, "was he cleaning you?" and she said, "no. daddy hurt my bum with his front bum." as soon as she said it, i knew. all the signs that i'd missed came flying back into my head. to have my daughter, my own child, tell me something like that at the age of three.
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itjust made me crumble. marie reported it to the police and even though there was physical evidence of penetration, the cps didn't feel that the case was strong enough to take it to trial. sue, your ex—partner‘s name, his picture, where he was from, as well as the accusations of him abusing your 3—year—old daughter, were put into the group. do you think you realise the legal implications of that information being put in what is essentially a public group? yeah. i'm not bothered about his identity being shown. i'm not bothered about the danger that goes to him. people need to know what he is. for the future, if your daughter does want to maybe one
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day take it to trial, would you feel worried about that information having gone out there already? no. they can't turn around and say well, someone your mum knows decides to post to prick advisor. so we can't charge him for it. the page that marie posted on was later suspended by facebook and her post is no longer up on the site. a similar suspension happened to sam's regional page, but she says it wasn't clear what content violated facebook rules. we literally got the group handed back to us. there was nothing saying why it had been removed in the first place. other than the fact that we'd broken community standards. how would you feel, off the back of this piece, if facebook did try to take it down? it's really difficult, because obviously it's like going back to square one again and building it up with the members. i think i would definitely open up
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another one, because otherwise, it's like being bullied by facebook into not giving these women a chance to open up and speak out. in a statement, facebook told us... next, yousef makki was killed with a single stab wound to the heart in an upmarket part of greater manchester on the 2nd of march. he died following an argument with a friend known as boy a, who said he acted in self—defence and denied murder. he was found not guilty of both murder and manslaughter following a trial at manchester crown court, but admitted carrying a knife.
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another boy, known as boy b, was cleared of perverting the course ofjustice by lying to police about what he'd seen. boy b also pleaded guilty to possession of a knife, but this was in a different location and at a different time to the incident in which mr makki was stabbed. both boy a and boy b was sentenced to 16 months and four months respectively. yousef‘s mum debbie is now calling for their sentences to be reviewed and for tougher sentences for all knife crimes. earlier this week, joanna spoke to debbie and she asked her what yousef was like. very studious, very witty, very lively. very sporty. everything he did he did it to 100%. he loved boxing, he loved basketball. any sport. he was just a lovely person to be around. he was very, very popular as well with his friends and his teachers and his boxing club. did you ever have any concerns about what might be
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going on when he was going out? no, because i always... he went to stay at friends' houses and they were always from — well, what we say posher areas — and i always spoke to the parents first to make sure that he was getting there and what time he'd be there and vice versa. his friends would come to my house and they'd do the same. how did you get the call, or the knock on the door to tell you what had happened? i'd been speaking to him up until the saturday afternoon. he normally came home to eat about half—seven—ish. and i was just watching tv with my other son and the knock came on the door and i thought it was yousef, but i saw the flashing light and when i opened the door, the police officerjust said, "come with me." and all the way i was saying to him, you know, what's happened? i knew something was bad. but he said, i can't tell you, but it's to do with yousef. and i knew knew straight away what happened.
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and at that point, had he actually died? did you get to see him? he'd actually had a procedure, because the tree where he fell, it was a cardiothoracic surgeon who lived there. he came out and gave him a procedure on his heart. and as he reached the hospital, another surgeon tried. but, within seconds, it was too late. did you get to see yousef? i did after they'd cleaned him up and everything. yeah, in the hospital. i mean, as any any parent, anybody would just think how on earth do you cope with that? yeah. well you just can't perceive it. it's just like watching a movie, but somebody else's moving. but somebody else's movie. very quickly you went from that moment to actually headlong into a trial. the trial‘s already happened. two boys have been... well, one was cleared of murder and manslaughter but convicted of possession of a knife. a second boy was convicted of knife possession as well. sentenced respectively to eight
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months and four months. what was it like going into a trial so quickly after something so dreadful happening to your son and your family? it'sjust like going through the thing all over again. because you have a few months after the funeral and everything and then you start the trial, and it was a long trial — every day for four weeks — and i'd never been inside a court or anything. you know, the whole court itself was just unbelievable. the way we were treated. we were put up into a public gallery, weren't allowed to sit in the court in case we intimidated them. yeah, the whole thing was very distressing, especially for four weeks. when you say you weren't allowed into the court for fear of the defendants being intimidated, how were you told that and how did you respond to that? first of all we asked the cps. they looked into it and came back to me and said,
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"you're not allowed in the court because they need their families near them, because they're only 17." and plus, you might intimidate them. and then i asked the court usher. i put a request into the judge and they said the same thing — that we weren't allowed in the court. how did that make you feel? like a criminal. we werejust... we were just put upstars like criminals. every time we made a noise. every time we made a noise, we were told we were going to be thrown out. because there was a lot of young boys there from manchester grammar school who came to support yousef. and maybe, you know, sometimes there weren't enough seats — they had to sit outside the whole day. but they were just there to support him because they loved him so much. you must have seen and heard things in that trial that were very difficult to deal with. yeah. what sort of things were you hearing and seeing that you found especially difficult? first of all, there was the 999 calls. and then there was one of yousef actually lay on the floor bleeding
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out while the paramedics were dealing with him. and that was shown close up on a large screen. with no warning? with no warning whatsoever. we were told afterwards, oops, that's a mistake. but once you've seen something obviously you can't get it out of your head. how did those in yourfamily...? fortunately, i wasn't there that day, but the close friends and teachers, and especially my daughter — she just couldn't get it out of her head. she said, i'll always think of that vision when i think of yousef. yeah. were there any positive moments for you through that trial, anything that... ? the only positive moment... well, not moment, but all the way through we were told by the cps we had a solid case. so i didn't feel that the outcome was going to be what it was. the actual day when the verdict came, it was just devastating. to hear them say that. yousef‘s father shouted out, "where is the justice for my son?" how did you react, how did you feel?
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i don't remember that actual moment in time, because every single person was feeling the same way. his friends, family, we were all in tears. we were all devastated. so there was a lot of police running around trying to calm us down. we just didn't expect that. and the jury decided in the end that the boy who stabbed yousef acted in self—defence after yousef punched him and pulled out a knife. the jury heard the stabbing was an accident waiting to happen because all three of them indulged in idiotic fantasies playing middle—class gangsters. when you heard that sort of evidence, how did you feel? first of all, "middle—class gangsters" — yousef wasn't in the same class as the two boys, so they got that wrong. gangsters, no. yousef was a boxer. boy a's family issued a statement
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afterwards saying "there are no winners in this case. yousef‘s death was a tragedy and our son will have to live with his responsibility for the rest of his life. but the makki family's hurt and loss are infinitely greater. nothing we can say can make up for that or change it." how do you feel about that? the boys themselves used to moonwalk down the courage and laugh. can you describe what they were doing. like michaeljackson, you know, walk backwards, and they'd laugh or dance about and laugh every time they saw one of us. and even when the boys were taken down in court, you know, there was nothing. there was no remorse shown. you know, i think to make a statement like that, anybody can say they feel remorse, but do they actually feel it? we didn't feel that way. i know that you want the sentencing now looked at. yes. what do you want to happen? the attorney—general is looking at this. yes. we've actually sought legal proceedings now. if not for retrial, then for more
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lenient sentences to the judge. four months for one of them for carrying a knife — he'll get out in two months and that's not a deterrent to anybody who is going to carry a knife, to me — you know two months is nothing. so, hopefully, we're going to do a petition. we need 10,000 signatures to take it to parliament to change the sentences — tougher sentences on knife crime — and also for the whole injustice of everything in the trial. so first of all, on knife crime, do you have an idea in your mind as to what sentences should be — maybe not even specifically about what happened to you, butjust generally? even carrying an offensive weapon. even for carrying an offensive weapon it should be at least five years. i know that you want changes to the trial system. what do you want to see? better treatment for the victims' families, really. in what way? first of all, they should be allowed to go to the court to hear
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everything at least. if they want to keep them separate from others, then fine. you know, have a victim suite or... i was aware that there was a victims' suite, nut i never actually got to see it in all the days i was there. so there's certain things that need to be done in that way. and i know that you do feel very strongly about class issues. yes, i do. why, what are your feelings on that? because if... um, it was the other way round. if yousef would have killed one of these boys, i'm sure he wouldn't have got bail. he wouldn't have got two top lawyers on his case and he surely wouldn't... well, he'd probably be locked up now for a very long time, to be honest. have you as a family been able to stop and breathe and actually properly grieve? no, not really, no. because it's one thing after another. we thought it would be over after the trial.
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now it's just like another trial all over again. your son was effectively described as behaving like a gangster. how will you remember him? i'll remember him as the boy whojust always made me laugh, always came in the house smiling, and went round the house all day telling us all how much he loved us. and he was just full of life all the time. that was debbie makki, yousef‘s mother. well, the cps told us in a statement... "we know the justice process can be incredibly challenging for grieving families and, working with police, we work hard to make sure they feel as supported as possible. we have met with the makki family to discuss their concerns about the outcome. we respect the decision of the jury and our deepest sympathies remain with yousef‘s family. the lawyers for boy b have told us they dispute the claim that he moonwalked in the court building.
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they say they've spoken to other people who were in the court who have confirmed to them that it didn't happen. on tuesday, we revealed that a no—deal brexit could cost the farming industry around £850 million a year in lost profits. that's according to research seen by our programme. the business consultants andersons, who advised more than 2000 farm across the country, as well as the government, say without a significant increase in financial support, it's inevitable some will struggle to survive. jim reid reports. colin ferguson runs his own herd of dairy cows in southwest scotland. in 2016, he voted to leave the eu — a decision he doesn't regret. yeah, i probably would vote the same way. the problem is we've done nothing in the last three years and it's been really tiring to watch. but leaving the eu without an agreement in place could have a big impact on the dairy industry here. the trade in cheese and butter, for example,
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would move straight to wto, or world trade organisation, rules. if we drop into wto rules, our borders are open to cheap imports as they would call them, so food can come from anywhere in the world. it doesn't necessarily need to meet animal welfare standards that we conform to, so therefore our market gets undermined by cheap produce. the business consultancy andersons has more than 2000 farming clients. its calculations suggest total industry profits could fall by £850 million under a no—deal brexit. that would be an 18% drop in the first year after we leave. if you get a hit in terms of profitability of 18%, then that has huge implications for the future viability of such farms. a short drive from the dairy farm in scotland is the port of cairnryan. belfast is two hours away across the north channel. northern ireland is the only part of the uk that shares a land border with the eu. the republic of ireland is just five kilometres
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from here in that direction. whatever happens in october is likely to have a huge impact on lives and livelihoods on both sides of that border. much of the lamb produced here is exported. under a no—deal brexit, it's likely to face tariffs making it 35% more expensive. the politicians making the decisions will not financially suffer — it's us as farmers that are going to suffer. i would come out in october one way or the other. even if there's no deal? even if there's no deal, i still would be inclined. we're hanging on too long. the government says, over time, brexit will allow it to replace eu farm subsidies with a fairer system. if we leave with no deal, it says it will provide more financial support if needed, though it describes that as unlikely. well, that's it for this week's programme. a reminder that you can always send us your ideas at...
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we're back on monday morning at 10:00 on the bbc two and the bbc news channel. hello again, for most it has been warm and sunny with high cloud around in the skies. we can see —— show you a photo from lancashire earlier in the day. 0vernight tonight cloud working into coastal parts of the south—west of england and perhaps south wales overnight and perhaps south wales overnight and still scope for showers working into the scottish islands but after a warm day, temperatures are slow to fall overnight and we are looking at temperatures at 11pm at 18—21 in a number of places. there's temperatures will drop a little and into sunday, more of the same sunny weather. there could be low cloud at
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this is bbc news. i'm lewis vaughan jones. the headlines at five. prince andrew says "at no stage" did he "see or suspect" any criminal behaviour that subsequently led to the arrest and conviction of disgraced financierjeffrey epstein. the prime minister has said he will urge president trump at the g7 summit not to escalate a trade war with china. the state of global trade, i'm very worried about the way it is going, the growth of protectionism of tariffs we are seeing. the uk thrives mightily on the open and outward—looking free trading nation, that is what we are going to be promoting. the prime minister has been warned against forever being known as "mr no—deal" over brexit. donald tusk also said the eu will not co—operate with leaving europe without an agreement. i still hope that prime minster
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