114. An interview with Jane Ryan

Jane Ryan, a dedicated human rights lawyer, discusses the failures and biases embedded in our prisons—especially for pregnant women and women of colour. This episode reveals the grim realities hidden behind closed doors—and the urgent need for systemic change.

Jane discusses the importance of listening to women’s voices, sharing powerful stories on how systemic neglect and outdated protocols put lives at risk, often ignoring the specific needs of women and marginalized communities. Exploring how negligence perpetuates harm, and although, initiatives are starting to making a difference— much more needs to be done.

 Whether you’re passionate about human rights, mental health, or criminal justice reform, this episode will deepen your understanding of how systemic failure affects society’s most vulnerable—and how collective action can turn heartbreaking stories into catalysts for change.

Episode disclaimer - Jane Ryan is a human rights solicitor and partner at Bhatt Murphy solicitors. Any views expressed are personal only and not those of Bhatt Murphy.

Produced by Louisa Nabi 

Transcript

Welcome To Rebel Justice

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're listening to Rebel Justice, the podcast from The View magazine. When we think about justice, we think about it as an abstract, something that happens to someone else somewhere else. But the justice and the law regulate every aspect of our interactions with each other, with organizations, with the government. We never think about it until it impacts our lives or those of someone else. Our guests are women who are with lived experiences of the justice system, whether as victims or women who have committed crimes, people at the forefront of civic action who put their lives on the line to demand a better world. We ask them to share their insight into how we might repair a broken and harmful system with humanity and dignity. We also speak with people who are in the heart of the justice system, creating important change. Judges, barristers, human rights campaigners, mental health advocates, artists and healers. I'm Louisa, and I'm a new member of the team at Rebel Justice. Today we have got someone who has been tireless in her fight for human rights. She is accomplished in being an unwavering support for those particularly disadvantaged by the system, working with immigrants, transgender and cisgender women and the LGBTQIA plus community. Her cases often revolve around lived experiences that the government would rather overlook than scrutinise, but she has continued to reinforce her voice in the face of adversity. Would you like to introduce yourself, Jane?

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Yeah, thanks very much, and thanks very much for um having me on. I'm really delighted to be here and looking forward to our own conversation. My name's Jane Ryan, I'm a partner at Bat Murphy Solicitors, and I specialise, as you've said, largely working with women and LGBT people who have had contact with the criminal justice system.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

So what made you go into areas of law around the protection of women's rights in prison in the first place?

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Yeah, I mean that's an interesting question. Well, I suppose like like many people, um, it wasn't really a sort of single, you know, lighting light bolt moment. Um, I probably had quite a naive belief that I wanted to change and challenge injustice. And as I developed in my career, that became more and more focused on a kind of commitment to accountability, and particularly state accountability. Um, I have you know some family experience of um people within criminal justice and um mental health, uh significant mental health uh issues within my family, and I think that gave me a particular empathy for my clients and for the experiences that they had. Um when I started out my career, and this was in the sort of heyday before the drastic and savage cuts um implemented by LASPO in 20 uh 2012, and at that time prison law was better funded, and you could have a more variety of cases. So I had a sort of caseload of you know a different uh different scope of of prison law from what you see now, so categorizations, parole board reviews, security, etc. And I would, you know, happily travel around the country meeting my clients and and uh you know getting that insight and developing that sort of frontline practice and and understanding of what it was like and the experiences that they had. But what I realized or came to experience was that I had so many male clients, just so many and so few women. And um so when I did sort of start, when I did get a woman's case, I was always you know very keen to do it because um you know they were they're so underrepresented within my cohort of clients, and ultimately that that's just led me to kind of focus on on women's rights um within uh prison, particularly. Um, but that's obviously not to say that you know, I think there are real, real problems that that men experience within prison as well, and you know, particularly in terms of mental health services, um you know, incredibly high levels of violence. We saw an urgent notification in December, just gone for HP Swales side about you know the appalling uh circumstances within that prison. So I think a lot of the issues that we'll talk about touch upon, you know, men's experiences as well. But I have sort of inevitably chosen to focus on women.

Mental Health Stigma And Substance Misuse

SPEAKER_00 5:06

You were talking a bit about mental health, and obviously you've represented various vulnerable individuals that live with mental health conditions. Do you feel that the general public do not fully understand the impact of mental health and tend to avoid discussions about it, often like putting it into its own box of them being labelled as weird or odd?

Accountability Starts With Listening

SPEAKER_02 5:27

Yeah, I think that's um an important. Well, I think there's probably still, you know, a quite significant stigma around particular mental health issues. I mean, there's obviously catastrophic failures in regard to mental health services in the community, and we're seeing that being exposed through the Lampard Inquiry, um, which is ongoing into the inpatient deaths in Essex, and there's a separate mental health inquiry that's been set up in relation to T-sites. So there's obviously like very, very significant problems in terms of the care that people are provided in the community, and I think, yeah, probably tied to that, there is a stigma in regard to mental health and offending behaviour. Um, perhaps I, you know, I don't know what your experience, Louisa, is, but obviously you're a mental health practitioner, so you'll know better than me. But you know, you see it with um particular diagnosis such as emotionally unstable personality disorder. So despite you know, a kind of groundging report over 25 years ago about how that diagnosis shouldn't be a diagnosis of exclusion, you still see that sort of, oh, this is a behavioural choice, etc., um, coming up again and again. And I think also importantly tied to that is how we approach substance misuse because it is consistently not treated as the disease that it is, and I think that is I think that has really significant consequences and is really important for how we think about criminal justice in this country.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

So, how with women rights overall in prison, how do you think they could be best improved?

A Pregnancy Missed In Custody

SPEAKER_02 7:18

That's a very, very important question. So I think, well, if I think of it as a sort of starting point in terms of what I do, so my driver is accountability and trying to seek accountability. And so for a client, that can come in many different forms. That could be, for example, having a face-to-face, um, it could be through a settlement meeting, it could be through instigating disciplinary proceedings or referral to a regulator, or through uh the legal process, seeking to sort of require changes within that. Um and you know, that would be something that um can achieve some changes. But what we repeatedly see, and I think what you're what is important in terms of your question, because you can have a lot of policies and potentially a lot of um litigation, but if there isn't that grounding in operational practice, then it doesn't really mean anything. And you know, we we see that because we see the kind of repeat failures. Um, so I think the starting point would probably be for me, in terms of an improvement to women's rights, is and this is a difficult one, but listening to women in prison and listening, listening to women in the criminal justice system. Um and I can give some examples if that would be helpful in terms of what I've seen in my cases. Yes. Um I acted for Louise Powell, who was a woman uh who was sent to prison in 2019, and she was sent sentenced to 30 weeks. Um, and she arrived at HP style when she was unknowingly to her pregnant because horrifically she was pregnant through an assault. And over the course of her short imprisonment, her pregnancy there were multiple missed opportunities to identify the pregnancy, and in particular, um other prisoners identified that they thought she was pregnant, and Louise, when she went into labor, was desperately calling out and crying for help. Um, and there's sort of really, and I don't want to traumatize people listening, but there was really appalling CCTV of her walking down these steps, bent over, doubled over with pain from labor and asking for help when she was in labor and not getting that help, and so she wasn't seen by a nurse, and appallingly, she ended up giving birth um in a prison toilet uh unaided, and very tragically her baby did not survive. Now that terrible, terrible circumstance really highlights a lot of the issues of what is wrong with women's rights within prison. So those prisoners were not listened to, Louise wasn't listened to, and had they been, there would have been an opportunity to help her and save her baby. And I think also what's you know really significant about that case is that the healthcare provider conceded that but for the negligence, so but for the failures in listening to Louise and the failures to identify her, uh, to identify the pregnancy, that the baby would have had medical attention and would have survived. And so that is really the most profound and devastating life-changing event for uh any individual to have suffered. It's absolutely appalling. And what we discovered and um through Louise's incredible work that she undertook in um going public with what happened to her and uh participating in a long Article II investigation into the circumstances of everything that happened. And what we found out is that because the healthcare system and the prison system was in effect designed for male prisoners, so that there wasn't that process to identify um the pregnancy, and so specifically there was what's called a secondary um health screening assessment, and there's no because that's for men, right? So there's nothing on that process on that form at that time or the subsequent um forms associated with that investigation that could identify uh her menstrual history, the history of sexual health, or contraceptive history. And so that to me really, really highlights like what can go wrong when you have a system that isn't centering women because because had that been in place, then Louise would not have suffered what she suffered, um, and her baby would have survived. And so you know it's I mean that that is a really uh stark and shocking example, but I think it it highlights what we what we see and what what you know myself and campaigners and and other lawyers um and women in prison experience.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Yeah, I mean that yeah, that story is just horrific that someone would go through that like it and the fact and the fact that she had the strength and the courage to be able to go public with that so that she could make lives better for other women in prison that could face that sort of challenge. Would you say that case stays with you when you um try to advocate for others?

SPEAKER_02 14:30

Yeah, I mean definitely. I mean it's you know it's a really um you know, it's a really stark and horrible example of of what goes wrong. I mean, you know, plainly um there was also the tragic death of baby Ayesha Cleary at Bronsfield. Um and so those two two appalling, appalling baby deaths in a very short period of time uh I think were real kind of um, you know, were an absolute crisis point in terms of what was happening to pregnant women in prison. Um and yeah, I mean obviously on an emotional level, um participating and um working with Louise um certainly stays with me, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Do you think that the issues faced by I mean you said it yourself about how the prison is structured to operate with male prisoners? So do you think that the issues faced by pregnant women in prison are local to certain prison prisons, or do you think they're just a continued systemic issue?

What Changed And What Has Not

SPEAKER_02 15:50

So I think there's been changes, so partly because of um those two absolutely horrific deaths that we've talked about. And so following that, there uh was a new framework and operational guidance issued, um, which did make improvements. Um, for example, requiring uh a midwife be allocated to each individual women's prison, where and so that is um obviously a very important safeguard. And so there have been um some changes. I don't think those changes have gone far enough. We have seen sort of separately to sort of outside what happens within prison. Um there has been the sentencing guidelines change in 2025, so um that pregnancy is a mitigating factor, and pregnant women should not be sent to prison if it's avoidable. Um, and similarly, under the Sentencing Act uh 2026, there's the new bail provisions in relation to pregnant women. So there have been changes, and I should probably just acknowledge there that those changes haven't come about um by themselves, like that's come about through absolute advocacy by very, very committed um women with lived experience, such as my clients and campaign organisations, particularly level up, who have spearheaded um that campaign, and it's important to recognise that. Um I also just should mention my my colleague Michaela Carini, because she's done a series of cases about sentencing appeals for pregnant women, and so I think all of that sort of storm of real life experience advocacy and then that culminating in legislative change is really important. So I think that's you know, that's all progressive and good. Um it's not fixed though, clearly, and we will need to see how some of the changes in the sentencing act are actually implemented because um there are some concerns that um the new sort of standard recalls may create a further kind of churning door of people in and out of prison and the impact that has on um mothers, etc. So all of it is kind of to be seen, I think.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

It's good that there has been some changes, but obviously there still needs to be more, and it's just all through hard work and people trying to support others. Um what do you think is the biggest change that you might have contributed to, or the thing that you're most proud of in your career?

Handcuffing Pregnant Women In Labour

SPEAKER_02 18:57

Yeah, um I mean that's a quite difficult question, I think, because I I suppose that in my role as a human rights lawyer, when a client comes to see me, they they're they're coming to see me because they've had the most horrible traumatic experience. So I think it's quite difficult to say that I'm sort of proud of a particular piece of work for that reason because because it's sort of so connected to to their trauma and their experience and pain. Um but I suppose what I would say I think I can appropriately talk about is what's happening at the moment, because one of the urgent issues that I'm facing, and that again with a group of brilliant clients we're working on together is the issue around handcuffing of pregnant women in labor and anti natal examinations and appointments, and that is a really urgent matter that requires urgent change. So I'm acting for six women who were handcuffed during labor and antenatal examinations, sometimes to male officers for different times. Um, and through my approach, which is what we've talked about in terms of how to achieve accountability and change within a system that is sort of so weighted against my clients, how do you do that? And so the ways that we are doing it is that we have requested and have been fighting for an independent investigation to look at all of the incidences. Um, what I have seen and what we're aware of through a deep dive review that the Secretary of State for Justice undertook following concerns raised by my clients, is that there seems to have been multiple circumstances of women being handcuffed when they should not have been during uh examinations and labour.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

I was just thinking about, particularly with um women of colour, do you think do you feel that women of colour in particular obviously, particularly those that are pregnant, do you feel like in prisons they are treated harsher than white women by guards or other medical professionals?

SPEAKER_02 21:49

Yeah, I mean I think there's evidence to support that. Um, you know, women of colour are disproportionately represented within the prison service. And I've worked on some quite horrible cases of racism within prison, which have, in my view, I would say, have uh arisen from quite uh nasty stereotypes about you know um kind of angry back women and disproportionate use of disciplinary action, etc. Um, so all of that I think is really appalling. What I would add to that is in my experience, women in prison are often quite reluctant to get a lawyer involved, and that's partly because they don't want to rock the boat, because they're fearful, for example, of um consequences in relation to leaves or seeing their children and these types of issues. So I did a case uh which was reported in The Guardian in 2024 about a separation of a child from a black mother where she had made multiple complaints about racism that she experienced, and that culminated in an apology and various other um different kinds of recognitions that she had uh asked for. And I think what that shows is that within the mother and baby unit process, which you may be familiar with, so within prison, there's uh units where you can live with your child up usually up to 24 months. But what we found, and I think what that case really showed, was the use of um kind of threats and punitive um processes around, well, we'll take your child if you do X, um, and that was really shocking given uh the racism that that she was experiencing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

Do you think, given the recent rise of the far right uh protests across Europe and the popularity of people like Tommy Robinson, do you think that racism has become more mainstream in our society today?

SPEAKER_02 24:39

I mean, I think sadly it has, because we're you know, I mean, the I mean um, you know, some of the policies that reform are pursuing are openly racist, I think. And um I think you know after the well just seeing the whole sort of commentary and dialogue around immigration, um it is quite overtly racist.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:16

And yeah, there seems to be you know a kind of acceptance that particular language and demonization of migrants is okay and it will frequently go unchallenged in in media in a way that I don't think it used to, but that that's sort of my impression. Um I don't know whether racism has increased or not, because you know, as a white person I don't experience that, but um I think you know the the climate appears hostile, um and and that is really really alarming because it creates really significant uh safety issues for people of colour, um, and that's really really concerning.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:10

It's just horrific how it's almost become normalized.

Trans Prison Policy And Media Distraction

SPEAKER_02 26:15

Yeah, I mean agreed, and it's sort of, you know, it feels very retrograde. It feels like uh, you know, the the kind of the abuse and threats that that people experience. Um you know that feels feels to me like something that that should have been left um behind, but it sadly won't because you know, as as we know that that those issues are continuing and growing.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

What do you feel about how trans people are treated in prison and how they are perceived along with criminal activity and just how this has sort of enhanced the transphobic transphobic movement that we're seeing in the UK at the moment?

Ending Unnecessary Imprisonment Of Women

SPEAKER_02 26:59

Yeah, I mean I think it's a very sort of politically charged subject, clearly. Um, you know, very strong views on either side. Um, but I think what I would say just a sort of starting point, which is as a feminist, I honestly find the focus of media and all of the commentary on trans people just to be a total distraction from the real issues that are impacting women. Um and you know, I actually find it quite painful. I find it quite painful as a feminist that feminism has been co-opted in such a way. Um, you know, for for my part, the sort of issues impacting women are absolutely mentus. Um you know, there's a domestic, domestic violence, domestic homicide, as we've talked about all of the issues in criminal justice, there's a crisis in maternity care, and particularly as as we've seen for for black women and for people for women of colour. Mental health services are at crisis point. There's like white, there's sexual harassment. And I was reading the um, there's an Ipso survey on which they did for Women's Day, so just you know, last week or whenever it was. Um they were looking at attitudes on gender equality, and one in two men across 29 countries thought that men were discriminated against, and that women's you know, gender equality had kind of gone too far. And so I just think like, why are we not talking about that? Like, why are we not talking about educating men? Why are we not talking about patriarchy and systems of power? Like, why are we not talking about that? And I just think all of that is just so much more important than for women for for women's rights, for women's rights, it's so much more important than where a trans person peas, to be honest. Like, yeah, I I find it utterly bizarre. Um, and yeah, I think we should probably sort of scrutinize why and how that discourse has arisen, because um, you know, it wasn't that way five years ago, ten years ago. Um, and to my mind, I think the UK is a bit of an outlier when it comes to to this, particularly the discussion and the environment around transgender rights. It's it's you know, it's it's as far as I am aware in any event, it's not what you see in in other countries other than the Trump administration. And yeah, so I think that's that's my sort of starting point, which I just think it's it's not it's not a woman's rights, it's not where women's rights should be. And as a feminist, I find it very depressing that that that all of all of this attention is is is taken from very, very real issues impacting women. Um so that's a sort of long-winded introduction, but I think in terms of prisons, I guess um, well, I suppose it's you know, but again, we sort of just need to focus on the kind of reality of the situation, right? So the reality of the situation is that way before Fair Women Scotland, the prison service framework in England and Wales was that trans women will be allocated according to biological sex. Okay, so the consequence of that, in effect, is that the vast majority of trans women are held in male prisons. Um and there is a process, there's a process that is undertaken within prisons through what's called a transgender case board, and that is an individualised risk assessment about where it's appropriate for that trans woman to be, or indeed trans man, to be allocated. Um and I think that's right because it should be an individualised risk assessment uh for various reasons, including violence to that person, but also any risk of violence that they pose to women. So it's plainly important that that happens. And from my experience, you know, I have worked uh and acted for trans women who haven't gone through male puberty, who are sex workers, who um are read as uh cis women, who have faced domestic violence from men and face the same sort of risk of sexual exploitation, um, substance misuse issues, poverty that other women face. And so I I just think it's very important, and I really do think it's really important that um that we approach this issue with compassion, um, with a recognition that trans people are individuals, and that you know that that we just have to be really careful to ensure that trans people are not used as political footballs, really. Um and that, you know, there needs to be a bit of reflection about that, I would say.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

Yes, I think the government tend to try to well, certain parties in the government try to um put transgender people as a scapegoat to other problems, and it's just ridiculous how that happens. And in terms of what you were talking about in um the survey, about when in two men feel discriminated against and feel like female quality has gone too far, I think that it's it's almost like because they've been continuously privileged and now they feel like that's at risk, they feel like that's being attacked.

SPEAKER_02 33:55

Yeah, I mean it's so interesting, isn't it? And I just think if if kind of if a lot of the kind of media and commentary was much more kind of around, you know, men's attitudes and and you know how to change that and how to actually address male violence, etc. Like yeah, it you know, I really do think that that would be quite an important shift, and I I don't know how we do it, but I do think it's it's something that that needs to happen.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

Yeah, yeah. Instead of just putting a focus on protecting women, to if we educated men from an early age, it would it would, you know, slow down the process of needing to have those um extra interventions and protection in place. Like there was talks about having separate tubes for men and women because of the risk of women being harmed, but that wouldn't need to happen in the first place if men were educated from an early age.

SPEAKER_02 35:01

I mean, yeah, I agree. And I think, you know, there's sort of other I mean, I think that's right, and I think there's sort of an you know, other kind of important sort of steps that could be taken, which you know, uh, you know, I don't, you know, misogyny being a hate crime, for example, so just sort of really recognizing that that those like those pervasive and damaging attitudes about women and and really trying to uh challenge that is is essential to to actually addressing violence against women. Yeah, I think it's also become more normalized in younger teenage boys with misogyny, with the rise of social media and and people having too big of a platform to advocate their voices, um, you know, all to do with the manosphere and toxic masculinity and how young boys are just you know they're vulnerable and they take that all information in and treat that as how you should normally treat women in society and take that as, you know, the base it's just no, I mean I I I agree, I think those are really valid points, and I think that's where the conversation should be. So it should be about you know, focusing on on that education, um, and focusing on that uh, you know, that uh evidence so that there can be real changes.

SPEAKER_00 36:37

In terms of all the areas that you've worked in and um you know mental health, pregnant women, do you f what do you feel like what is the biggest change you hope to make to the criminal justice system in the future of your career?

Public Pressure And How To Help

SPEAKER_02 36:56

Well, I think it would be really I mean it's probably a cliche, I imagine that many people come on your podcast and and say that the Corsten report recommendations should be implemented, but those that's the the 2007 report by Baroness Corsten, which you know recommended the setting up of women's centres and the kind of presumption against imprisonment, because what we see is that imprisonment doesn't work. So I think as a you know, as a goal, I would um like there to be no need for a prison lawyer. I would like there to be uh a real kind of significant change so that um there wasn't a need for the work that I do, and that would be I think a really important and profound change. Um I mean I see it in so many of my cases where women, as just say, sort of catastrophically let down. Um I had a case working with Sheree McDonald, who is a wonderful client, whose mother, Christine MacDonald, died um uh in HP style again, uh following her imprisonment for um shoplifting, and um she was imprisoned for stealing shampoo and bubble bar, um, some hair dye and a piece of cheese, and that reactivated a community sentence order, and so she was sent to prison for the most low-level offences, um, where she had a very, very tragic and significant event happen on the day that she was arrested, which is she witnessed her other daughter suffer catastrophic injuries. So she went into prison and didn't know whether her other daughter was alive or dead, and she was also opiate dependent, and so uh that is a as we've talked about, in my view, substance misuse should be treated as a disease and a public health condition, and she suffered a withdrawal in prison that was mismanaged, and ultimately she ended up taking her own life in a death that the jury investigating her death found was contributed by neglect because of the failures to provide her with basic medical attention for her opiate withdrawal, and because of failures by the prison service to respond again, as we've talked about, but respond to her cries for help, respond to her cell bell, and respond to her request to see a nurse. And I think if you know, we've talked about why it's so important that that women are listened to, and you know, tragically, this is another case that highlights that. Um, but I think what it really shows in terms of those kind of what am I here for and what would I like to change is there's just no way that Christine should have been in prison, it's as simple as that. Like she obviously, obviously should not have been in prison. Um and you know, it that is something that we all need to focus on and change because you cannot keep sending traumatized women um with you know particular mental health and drug dependencies, etc., to these institutions because they are simply not safe and it perpetuates the trauma. And um, you know, I just don't I I mean it's it's really depressing, but but more women will die when they do not need to because of the system that we have. Um so I think the the ultimate goal has to be making sure that there's no need for me and that there is no uh unnecessary imprisonment of women for non-violent offences, it's just completely bonkers. That would be my uh my ultimate goal, really. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:41

Um with the you said about the current case that you're working with about the six women and how they were handcuffed during examinations and even labour, what do you feel like the first step is into trying to change that?

SPEAKER_02 41:57

Well, I feel like I'm on about step 17 because I've been working on that case. Um, so the the clients went or two clients went public uh last February. So they um well, we wrote to the Secretary of State for Justice last January and and said, you know, we've got concerns about this, this is what their experience is, we think this is a what a wider problem. Can you check this? And told them what they need to do. And the Secretary of State for Justice did not provide a substantive response to that correspondence, and then two of my clients chose to speak to Channel 4 News and explain what had happened to them in a public forum, which is obviously an important way of shaming the state into doing something and requiring um the first steps on what is going to be, I think, quite a long process to get those changes. Um, but I mean, briefly that for those two clients, so uh under their pseudonyms, Joanna was um handcuffed for 34 hours during the induction of her labour, um, and Laura for 48 hours, including 12 hours during induction of labour, as well as on most, if not all, of their antenatal appointments. And they had you know really appalling uh incidences where you know they were chained to male officers and were going through very, very intimate examinations and obviously the uh horrors and pain of labour, whilst handcuff is just immoral. Um Was that handcuffs should be removed for pregnant women unless there were very exceptional circumstances when they arrived at hospital and following the advocacy by my clients, they undertook. So when I say they, I mean the Secretary of State for Justice, undertook an internal review, which from the limited information that has been disclosed publicly about that, indicates that there were widespread issues with compliance with that policy across the prison estate. And so my clients have been fighting for a proper, independent and effective examination and investigation into all of that to get to the bottom of what was going on. And they ultimately conceded to do that investigation. However, I have very serious concerns, as do my clients, in terms of the adequacy of what they have proposed, because at the moment they are, and again, to be clear, this is the Ministry of Justice. They have not said that my clients will be funded for legal representation, they have not said that they will notify all women who were impacted, they have not said that they will hold any aspect of the investigation in public, and they have not made any commitments in regard to disclosure and the rights of my clients to participate in the investigation. So the concern is that there is a lack of clarity and transparency about what's going on, and that rather than you know uh facilitating my clients to assist that investigation, my clients are being uh closed out of it, and so we are continuing to have a battle with them about this.

SPEAKER_00 46:05

I mean, for the your clients, the lack of clarity and just the lack of support from the Ministry of Justice must be just so frustrating and excruciatingly painful for them to then to just relive the whole situation continually and then not have that support that they need is just horrible.

SPEAKER_02 46:29

I mean, absolutely, I mean it's it's completely unacceptable, and from my clients perspective, their participation and involvement is because they do not want to happen this to happen to anyone else. And um, you know, that that is what they're there for, um, and they want some answers about how and why they were treated like that. And uh you know, I they are entitled to that and it's as simple as that. So we will keep pushing to get that for them. Um you know, they cannot be shut out of this, um, and we will make sure that they're not.

SPEAKER_00 47:18

Do you feel like there's anything that the general public could do to help or support?

Support The View And Stay Connected

SPEAKER_02 47:26

Yeah, I mean, there's always, I mean, as I we've kind of touched on, but I think it's always important for human rights issues that there is uh, you know, a kind of public campaign and um help that can be afforded to try and highlight these issues and make changes. Like it's to be honest, it's I think it's actually quite rare for effective change to come through a legal process alone, um, which other lawyers may not agree with, but um, because lawyers do like to emphasize their own importance. But I do like you only really get change through a kind of culmination of uh advocacy and political work and uh you know lived experience and all of these all of these groups and and and um factors coming together to to make a change. So yes, absolutely. Um you know keep an eye on the Bat Murphy website and you know we will keep you all informed in terms of what's happening with that.

SPEAKER_00 48:35

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. You've been an incredible insight about what's going on in terms of those people that are more disadvantaged by the system and how you're supporting them and helping them, and the courage, the courage that they have at the moment to go through that. Um thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 48:56

Yeah, thank you. I've really enjoyed our conversation. It's been really interesting talking to you and thanks to the View magazine and and everything that you're doing to really focus these really important issues and to bring it to everyone's attention. So I'm really grateful that you're doing this work.

SPEAKER_00 49:15

Thank you. You've been listening to Rebel Justice. If you'd like to support our work and receive four digital editions and one print issue a year, subscribe to The View for just£20. Make sure to follow us on our social media or on Instagram at the View underscore View underscore magazines. And you can also find us on LinkedIn, X and TikTok. If you'd like to reach out to us directly, you can email inquiries to us at press at the viewmagazine.com.