Author and judge Nicola Williams, Abortion in the UK update, Police violence against women

Woman's Hour

Nicola Williams’ new novel Until Proven Innocent sees the return of Lee Mitchell, a young barrister from a working-class Caribbean background, who is strong-armed into defending a supposedly corrupt racist police officer charged with the death of a 15-year-old pastor's son. Nicola served for many years as a criminal barrister, one of the few black women in that job, and draws on her experience of the criminal justice system in her writing. She joins Nuala to discuss juggling being a part-time Crown Court judge with writing, and how she draws on her legal experience in her books.

Complaints about police officers' treatment of women are highly unlikely to result in action, according to new police data for England and Wales. The National Police Chiefs' Council says nine in 10 complaints were dropped in the six months to March 2022. We hear from Maggie Blyth, the National Police Chiefs' Council lead for violence against women and girls, and Nuala speaks to Sir Peter Fahy, former Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police.

The House of Commons recently approved the introduction of exclusion zones around abortion clinics, and now some experts are recommending that the mandatory authorisation of abortions by two doctors should be dropped. To find out more, Nuala McGovern is joined by Fiona de Londras, Professor of Legal Studies at the University of Birmingham, and Professor Kaye Wellings, co-author of a new London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine abortion study.

Last year, an NHS Digital survey found that 31 per cent of 17 to 24-year-old women had depression and anxiety. What can be done to help them? A new Policy Centre for the Wellbeing of Young Women and Girls is being set up at a Cambridge University college. Dorothy Byrne is the president of all-female Murray Edwards College and the former head of news at Channel 4 Television. She joins Nuala to explain how and why she created this centre.