what went wrong? and what are the lessons? jasvinder sanghera, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. you are an abuse survivor and we'll talk about that. you're also a lifelong advocate for survivors of abuse and you were hired by the church of england to be part of their independent safeguarding board, but you've been fired. does all of that suggest

to you that key institutions might talk the talk about protecting the vulnerable, but maybe they're not so good on delivery? absolutely, i would agree with that point. and specifically, my role was survivor advocate, so my role was specifically to be a voice for victims and survivors who had experienced spiritual abuse by the hands of members of the clergy across the board and to ensure that their views were not only heard, but embedded across policy and practice. so, from my perspective, i did thatjob. i sat with victims and survivors, i listened to the harrowing stories of abuse but, equally, those they went to who often looked the other way. and i shared those experiences with the highest of the highest, so the archbishop's council members, made up of the most senior bishops, various people

on there, and explained to them that victims and survivors are tired of apologies. they need to be heard. they want change and change is very slow for them. and today, as i sit here, as somebody who was removed from that role and accused of being too survivor—focused by a very senior member of the national safeguarding team, i feel aggrieved for victims and survivors, in all honesty, stephen. well, i'm going to stop you there because before we get into the detail of your relationship with the church of england... and i should just say, as you've made one specific allegation, they have specifically said that they did not accuse you of being too survivor—focused, so we will revisit that... ok, that's fine. ..and much more detail. but before we get there, i think, for people to understand the passion you bring to this wider subject, we do need to revisit a little bit of your own story, your own past.

you were born into a pretty traditional sikh family. parents migrated from india to the uk, to the midlands, in england. they wanted to arrange your marriage. indeed, i think, from the age of eight, they were talking about who you would marry. you, as a teenager, rejected that, didn't you? idid. i was promised to somebody by the age of eight and i'd watched my sisters being taken out of british schools to marry men in photographs. when it was my turn, it was in order of age, i said no. i was born in britain, i want to go to school, dare i say, college or university? and i say that because growing up within that household, we were not allowed to have thoughts of independence orfreedom. so, i became the... ..the perpetrator, actually, the person who was not following the norm, the status quo. and as a result of that, i was taken out of school and kept a prisoner at home till i agreed to the marriage. i've already used the word

"abuse", but it's not something that's always easy to define. what you've just told me about the way your family, your parents, brought you up, the assumptions they made, the behaviours they practised upon you, do you categorically regard that as abuse? absolutely. i was a child and the role of parenting is to protect your child, to protect them physically, emotionally, from harm. and from my experience, i was being conditioned to believe that it was part of my tradition, my religion and my culture to marry this stranger in a photograph and that growing up in britain does not mean you have rights, independence or freedom. my mother would say to me, "the only reason "i'm sending you to school is because it's the law." so, from my perspective, they were in a position of power, as parents, and that position was being abused. you ran away. i think you were actually 16 when... i was. ..you ran away. and that, in essence, broke relations with your family,

particularly your mother, forever. mmm. is there any time in your life when you've looked back and thought, "i could have handled it differently"? absolutely not, because from the age of 16 and leaving, for the next 16 to 20 years old, i begged for their forgiveness, as if i had done something wrong. it took my sister's suicide to realise that, actually, i was the victim, not the perpetrator. the point is this... just... let me stop you for a second, cos what you've just said is shocking. i believe she was called robina, your sister. she was, yeah. she, unlike you, agreed to go ahead with what i think you would always call a forced marriage. yeah. and in her 20s, deeply unhappy, she took her own life. she did. if you remember, i was still disowned by my family then, so my family never spoke to me again.

and my sister was very unhappy in her marriage and went for help to members of the community, religious leaders also, and family members, and they sent her back and told her it was her duty to make the marriage work. she tragically set herself on fire and she died, and i felt that somewhere, because of that experience, my mother would say, "come back," you know. "we forgive you." not that i needed forgiving. you know, i was asserting myself, in terms of not wanting to marry a stranger. but she actually made the point, "this doesn't change anything." you know, "you cannot come back, even though "robina died in this way. "you mustn't show your face at the funeral," etc, which is why i set up the charity karma nirvana, so i could speak out. and interesting that you do hold your mother, of all family members, primarily responsible for inculcating this particular sort of atmosphere and practice and behaviour in your family. you say, "i'm ashamed to say that women do uphold these "so—called honour systems.

"they are the gatekeepers of abuse." do you think the work you've done in karma nirvana, this ngo that you established afterwards, has made any difference to the mindset of people, including women like your late mother? i think it has. i think it's made an influence in terms of sending out that strong message. i mean, i campaigned for the criminalisation of forced marriage. that, i'm hearing, from the younger generation today, is acting as a deterrent, as almost a tool to negotiate with family members... to be clear, you achieved that. yeah. i mean, that legislation was passed. absolutely. and younger people are telling me now that, "we're able to say to our parents, "�*you can't do this to us. it's against the law. "'you'll go to prison.”' so... but i have to say, change is really slow in that community, where this is happening. where the change is happening is the increase in reporting. karma nirvana, i left in 2018, has a national helpline now. we have civil, criminal law. recently, the age of consent

for marriage for children in england and wales has been increased from 16 to 18. yeah, you can't marry under 18. no. so, we've changed things significantly, in terms of leaving that lasting change... i should say that's in england and wales, it's not in scotland and northern ireland. not in scotland, no, no. but the point is, in 1993, nobody was talking about this. you know, today, the reporting is in its thousands, hundreds of thousands, across the uk. and yet, we can still think and look at terrible cases, like that quite recently of somaiya begum, who was a young woman who was murdered — brutally murdered — by her uncle cos she had reported her father's threats of violence after she refused to accept an arranged marriage. she was supposedly being protected by a forced marriage protection order, which was part of the legislation that you'd worked so hard to get.

absolutely. and yet, still, her own family — her uncle, in this case — murdered her. just suggests to me that all of the work that you've done, it's taken you some way, but there's still an awful long way to go. you could not change... if my mother was still alive today, you could not change her views. really? absolutely. and my family still don't talk to me. i read on facebook two years ago that my brother died. you know, they still refuse to acknowledge me. i'm talking about sisters who were born in this country and raised in this country, who still see me as an individual who shamed the family. it's going to take a really concerted effort of awareness, people in schools, teachers need to be talking about this, because they're the most affected group — children and young people. so, yes, we've created laws, but to shift a culture and a mindset, we've got to continue speaking out and accepting this is not part of somebody�*s culture.

and on this question of implementation, you and others, including trevor phillips, the former chair of the equalities and human rights commission, have talked about what they see as a problem, from policing to politicians, with public officials who worry that if they are too interventionist in some of these cases, they will be labelled racist. absolutely. if people see culture before they see abuse, we've got a problem. i saw that in my role at karma nirvana. i recall a police officer calling the helpline and i used to have "beggar belief" box on my emails, and this police officer rang the helpline and he said, "i'm ringing you because you deal with "the cultural stuff, don't you, as an organisation?" and the call handler listened to this call and he said, "i've got a man with me, "who is from an afghanistan background here in britain, "who is in a full—blown relationship with "a 14—year—old girl and he's telling me it's part of "his culture and his religion, so i don't want to offend him.

"could you just tell me if that is acceptable? so, the call handler stopped and she said, "look, can we just remove culture, tradition, religion, "whatever it is you're thinking it could be "and look at the possible raft of offences here?" look at the law. absolutely. now, you obviously have a very high profile for the work that we've just discussed. the church of england, going back many years now, has realised that it has an issue with abuse within and how best to deal with it, to credibly say to the world that we are aware of our own problems and we're tackling them. we're going to be open, we're going to be accountable. in 2015, current archbishop justin welby said this... he said, "whether the perpetrators are alive or dead, "survivors of abuse within the church must come first. "the church has to get this right. "there are no excuses for getting it wrong." and as a result, perhaps, of that feeling, in 2021, you were asked to join this independent safeguarding board.

did you, at the time, feel absolutely convinced that the church was serious about truly coming to terms, confronting the abuses within? i think the first thing to say was i wasn't asked to go into that role of survivor advocate, i applied for the role. i left karma nirvana after 25 years and i thought, "now, what do i want to do? "i want to put myself somewhere to make a difference." so, i watched the iicsa inquiry, the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, and i watched for a whole year the testimonies of men and women who'd been abused by members of the church. and i could see the journey the church was on and i wanted to make a difference, so i applied for the role. and i felt they were serious about this because, you know, it wasn't an iicsa recommendation to have an independent safeguarding board. they took it upon themselves to say, "we're going to develop more independence, it is

"needed within the church." so i did feel they were serious, absolutely. mmm. you now claim, "at every turn, we..." that is the safeguarding panel/board, and there are two key figures on it, yourself and steve reeves. you seem to have cooperated quite a lot. "at every turn, we've been told, �*you can't do that,�* "even though we're supposedly independent." you seem to be saying that having set this board up, they had no intention of letting you and the board members do the real work. i'm notjust saying it, i can give the evidence of that. i mean, i'd been on the board since september 2021, right up tojune 2023. so, i had the experience of being part of a board that was developed in the church of england to ensure independent oversight of safeguarding, to ensure that we also had an oversight of the national safeguarding team, that the church of england has to deal with safeguarding. and what was happening to us was that at every point

we tried to make decisions, to be that very independent body, our hands were being tied. let me give you an example. so, one of our roles is to receive complaints from victims and survivors into reviews of their cases. what we need to do that is collect information from the national safeguarding team or across the church of england, so we established an independent service level agreement between the independent safeguarding board and the church of england and we signed that but they didn't sign it. so, we couldn't access any information. an independent body, surely, should have no no—go areas but we were finding ourselves in that position. yeah, i mean, we've spoken to the church of england and they've given us a response. yeah. they reject many of the accusations that you make, specifically about things like you claiming that

you were told by officials that you were too survivor—focused. they say that is a complete misrepresentation of what you were told. they also say that you and steve reeves behaved in a way which made the functioning of the board pretty much impossible. and to add to that, meg munn, who was the interim chairman appointed to this board of three, she says, of you and steve reeves — "although they initially "welcomed my appointment, the two existing board members" — that is, you and reeves — "routinely "ignored emails, failed to respond to reasonable "requests, declined to have meetings. "i was staggered at this unprofessional behaviour, "particularly when it concerned such important issues." 0k. so, the first thing to say is that we're an independent body. after the first chair resigned because of serious data

breaches, she resigned — the second chair should have been somebody appointed in the same way we were appointed, openly recruited, and she wasn't. she was imposed upon us. this is nothing against meg munn, by the way. so, the point here is the archbishops�* council make a decision for the independent body to appoint a chair who, within 48 hours, 7a victims and survivors contact us to say, "do not under any circumstances share data "with this person because she's part of the church." she sits on the national safeguarding steering group, which we scrutinise, so we've got a problem. well, i need to say, because the legal issues here are complex but they're quite important, that the first chair of your board, maggie atkinson, absolutely rejects the characterisation you've just given as to why she left and she's described your views of why she left as "partial, biased and deeply prejudiced against her," so we need to put

that on the record. 0k. surely, what really matters here is you, for good or ill, have now left the board, the board has been dissolved, and the real impact here is on survivors of alleged abuse inside the church of england. i believe there were at least a dozen active cases that you were working on when the board was dissolved. yeah. what are you saying to — you're still in touch with them, i imagine. well... what are you saying to them now? well, onjune the 21st, we were given an hour's notice to tell us that they're disbanding the board. my colleague steve reeves contacted the general secretary to say, "please give us more time to prepare the survivors, "those cases we are dealing with". you have to remember, these were people who came to the independent safeguarding board with their experiences. they had to go through a process to be accepted for a case review. some of them were complaints. we were not afforded that time.

and as a result of that, these victims and survivors have been left in limbo. yes, they are still contacting myself and steve. i have brought that to the attention of the archbishops�* council... what's their mental state like? they are — their mental state is horrendous. i've listened to one survivor describe to me her suicide plan. i've had a survivor telling me they've taken two overdoses since. i've shared all this with the church of england and what i don't understand is why they will not just sit down and talk with us in terms of developing a plan for these individuals. i can't ignore them and i am not going to ignore them... well, the church says it's not ignoring them either. it points to the fact it has now appointed a new sort of independent supervisor of the whole safeguarding professor alexis jay, who ran that independent

inquiry on child sex abuse that you referred to. they also point to several other initiatives they've taken, including putting more than — well, over £100 million into programmes to help the victims of historic abuse. so, they say, "look, victims, be aware. "we've had a problem with the board but "we are moving on" — to quote archbishop welby — "we're resetting," and clearly, the message from the church is, "victims, you can have faith in our commitment." unless victims and survivors own and believe that and see the evidence of that... crosstalk. but are you telling them they shouldn't believe it? i'm not telling them anything. i'm at the end of the line, as is steve reeves, when they contact us to say, "what is happening? "we don't know what is happening. "we've been told options are being developed "but nobody�*s talking to us." so, we're still the data controllers. when we left, we were told, "you're only to deal "with the data, nothing else." so, that is something

we're trying to manage. and incidentally, stephen, in november last year, in 2022, myself and steve travelled to york to sit with both senior bishops and i remember the email, sending the email at 3am in the morning as well, before that meeting, to say, "we are at "a crossroads. "the crossroads is this. "we are doing what you told us to do. "we are following the terms of reference which you approved, "that is on the website, publicly on the independent "safeguarding board website, but every turn we go to, "our independence is being thwarted. "you're not allowing us to be independent." so, we presented them with what looks like an independent model and we were told that, "we will seriously consider "this." and the reason i'm saying that is because taking out a dispute notice against the church of england was a very difficult decision for me and steve. yeah, because, i mean, this is a tragedy for the church and it's a tragedy for the individuals who have experienced terrible

abuse at the hands... absolutely. ..of people within the church. absolutely. than anybody, should be sort —— surely, you know, you, as a survivor, more than anybody, should be sort of thinking to yourself, "what is the best way "that we can move forward in the interests of those "survivors?" are you sure you're handling this in the best interests of those survivors? absolutely. as soon as we were told we were no longer needed and we were only to handle the data — and we had a huge response and we still do have this response from the 12 — we have emailed the most senior people to say, "please work with us to find a way forward". i have to say... crosstalk. maybe you're being a bit negative, really, about where the church is today, cos as you know, i interviewed an influential bishop in the church, rose hudson—wilkin, just the other day, and she said, "the truth "is that the church is appalled at what went on in the past, "the church has changed," and to quote her memorable phrase, "if you sneeze now in the church, and it looks

"like a safeguarding problem, you are out". that's her confident assertion. but that is not the assertion of victims and survivors. i can tell you that for sure. and i can also say that, actually, what the church needs to do is look quite openly at what happened with the independent safeguarding board. we're almost out of time but i need to ask you this last question, then. if you are still so appalled and so lacking in trust in the most senior church leadership, can you still call yourself a practising, believing church of england christian? well, my faith is personal to me. these people are... crosstalk. has this rocked your faith? it has — well, it has rocked my faith slightly, but i've met victims and survivors who are no longer part of the faith because of it. but for me, the church needs to be more compassionate and needs to be very honest about what has happened here. bring on a review of the independent safeguarding board.

i respect professorjay but that's a longer—term plan. there are things right now that need to be addressed and people who are being harmed because of decisions that they have made that need to be tackled immediately. we have to end there but jasvinder sanghera, thank you so much for being on hardtalk. thank you. thank you very much indeed. good morning. 0ur weekend may well have started off wet and windy but we closed out the story with some sunshine and some warmth. in fact, in suffolk, we saw highs of 26 degrees on sunday afternoon. now, mixed fortunes with our week ahead. in fact, we're going to start off monday for england

and wales under this area of high pressure but low pressure over the next few days will dominate further north and that will bring some rain, some of it heavy at times. early morning patchy low cloud, mist and fog will quickly fade away across england and wales with a light south—westerly breeze. the sunshine will start to kick in and take over. but further north and west, some of that rain turning quite heavy through northern ireland and north—west scotland as we close out the afternoon here — only around 16 or 17 degrees — but at the highest values further south of 25 celsius — that's 77 fahrenheit. now, as we go through monday evening and over into tuesday, we'll see that rain turning quite patchy as it pushes its way steadily southwards. with quite a lot of cloud around, we keep those temperatures around 1a or 15 degrees. under clearing skies, maybe around 12 or 13 celsius. but that weather front could bring a little spot or two of light rain across north wales over into northern england. behind it, there will be some showers on tuesday.

a breezier day, not quite as warm again — 19 to 21 degrees. but we keep the sunshine across central and southern england — 25 celsius once again. now, as we push through the middle part of the week, there's another weather front that's going to be pushing in across the south—west, still under the influence of low pressure further north, so it's quite a messy story through midweek. we could have a little bit of patchy rain through wales into the midlands but this frontal system is the dividing line between some pretty humid air pushing up from the south — highs of 26 degrees quite possible — and noticeably fresher air further north — 16—18 degrees at the very best. but it's the fresher air that's going to win out as we go through towards the end of the week. low pressure drifts just that a little bit further south and east. a north—westerly wind direction will take over and that's going to push that warm russet tones — the temperatures in the mid 20s — it's going to push it back over to the near continent, so that fresher feel will arrive for all. so, our week ahead will be rain

at times into the north, warmer for the south until friday.

live from london, this is bbc news. england's lionesses are heading home. the team are flying from sydney airport after their defeat to spain in the women's world cup final. nurse lucy letby is due to be sentenced later after being found guilty of murdering seven babies. a state of emergency has been declared in southern california where tropical storm hilary has arrived, bringing torrential rain and the risk of flash floods. hello, i'm tadgh enright. england's lionesses are heading home from australia after losing theirfinal

in the womens�* world cup. these are the latest pictures from the airport in sydney. the team will be flying home in the next hour, disappointed no doubt but still with heads held high after that narrow 1—0 defeat in the final. the game was watched by millions of people around the world with the tournament hailed as another step forwards for the womens�* game. the spanish team, meanwhile, were in high spirits as they returned to their hotel last night. it's the first time they've won the trophy. their captain, the goalscorer, 0lga carmona, it's emerged was only told after the game that her father had passed away after a long illness but the news was kept from her until after the game. let's get the latest from shaima khalil in sydney.

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