218. Isla Traquair

0:02This is a Global Player original podcast. I've had much, many, many more stories I'm actually really proud of, but I did get a front page when I was 15. The editor of The Sun phoned up the press agency and said, who's this Isla Traquair or whatever? And they said, well, actually, she's this teenager. And he said, tell her to give me a call when she's older with a name like that. She'll go far. immediately there was rumours started going around well why would i have this job so i really had to prove myself and rumours like that which were completely untrue rumours about what a suggestion that a boss sleeping your way to the top yeah and i mean i mean this is like straight out of rivals yeah you know the table being turned that i've reported on crime you know most of my life and then to be a victim of crime and to go through that process and, to be honest, not have a great experience.

0:59Two female community officers, amazing, brilliant. Passed it on to a male officer, it went horribly wrong. To the point where an inspector had to intervene and pull that guy off the case.

1:21isla traquer is by some distance by the way the most beautiful name of any of my guests so far on this podcast this is scottish journalist tv producer producer tv show host you host you name I mean, you're kind of you do everything, as you're going to tell us, who's worked at a range of networks and outlets, including but not limited to STV, that's Scottish television, Channel 5 and ITN. Currently, you are between the US and Scotland where you live. Well, I would say I'm very much back in the UK. OK. I gave up my green card. That's another story. so a proud scott and also a born journalist who wrote you wrote your first front page story age 15 can you remember the headline it was the beef crisis i think it was really yeah it was really boring it was like you know i don't know however many job losses oh i see so it wasn't anything particularly but pamela anderson in a bikini i think it was the sun she was pictured next to my tiny little name and i was like well there you go didn't expect that i've arrived you might have you said you've been you were born inquisitive and your job is who you are so well hey me too welcome to difficult women I let's require thank you for having me and I feel it's an honor to be on the list of difficult women for all the right reasons of course so there are no wrong reasons for being in on this podcast um tell us a bit about your childhood you grew up outside Aberdeen three brothers so I already feel like we're soul sisters I felt that since the moment I met you We were like, we've got a lot in common.

2:58Yeah, three brothers and people assume, oh, how nice. Three protective brothers. No, they were not. I mean, my childhood has shaped so much of who I am. I mean, I used to get beaten up, thrown through glass windows. I've had a broken leg from one of my brothers. The one I'm probably closest to now is the one who broke my leg. It was a rough and tumble upbringing. And I was a third. And by the time the fourth came along, you know, we had to really, my poor mum, you know, we had to really amuse ourselves so learned yeah maureen uh and we she was a teacher and she went back to work when i was still pretty young my dad ian uh was a computer he had his own business a computer software designer relating to the oil industry so it was away a lot so we had to we all learned to be pretty independent pretty quickly and i also learned that i had to keep up and i was not going to be outdone by my brothers so i remember putting myself through many terrifying things such as going on a roller coaster in Alton Towers when I was really not the right height and I just sit between my dad's legs and things like that and but then I'd end up loving the scary things that I have done and that kind of has set me up for everything I've done in my life.

4:06In terms of sport and you know as well as rough and tumble did you want to do everything they did and beat them? Yes but I wasn't allowed so that was an interesting thing. What were you allowed to do? Well, there was quite a few things that I got to know because you're a girl. At school, it was just football for the boys. I hated netball because you had to stand still. Eventually, I did get on a football team and then I was known as the hacker. So that didn't do, you know, it wasn't too good at that. But I did do traditionally female activities. I did ballet tap and modern from the age of two.

4:38I started my ballet with good toes and bad toes. Ended up competing in that. I swam, I did gymnastics and all those things. but I didn't learn to play golf for example till I was in my 20s and I decided to do that while my brothers had learned how to play golf I don't know if dad offered me or not but it was just certain things weren't options I skied from a young age that was with my brothers but I yeah there was the main thing was about restrictions like you can't go out until after you know you've got to be home by this time even though I was beyond the age that my brothers were allowed to be out late and the answer was always because you're a girl because you're a girl because girl and that very much annoyed me and I've had that again repeated throughout my life as well certain things or I've it would never be said out loud in a in a work environment but I have felt restricted at times.

5:22So your background I mean we I think we have a lot in common but mine was much less traditional and conservative than that I was never I was told because you're a girl you've got to do better run climb that tree higher read earlier all those things I was I was incentivized by my dad particularly so what does how would you describe kind of in class terms your your background it sounds kind of middle up middle middle but I mean my my dad with his own business I mean twice he's had to start again and at times we survived on my mum's uh salary but you know one side of my family my father's side it sounds a bit posh but it's not my uh my grandparents had an estate it was a castle it got knocked down it was my granny side she was uh forbes and her grand her parents were lord and lady my dad's technically a baron but that's just locked to the land we were very ordinary we had a very normal house uh a very normal car all those things and i got my first job sort of at home cleaning the toilets in my house when i was 12 and i started saving for my car when i was 12 and i was the only one out of my friends that bought their own car so So we, no, there was not, we never, we were never starving.

6:38We were never not able to get things, but we certainly knew the value of money and we weren't handed things. Got it. Not posh and entitled at all. I think you got the bug really early for journalism and reporting, didn't you? Age 14, when you did some work experience at a radio station. Did you sort of think this is who I am then? Yeah, I mean, I knew that I loved words, history, people. We did a thing through a careers advisor and it came out 98 % suited to being a journalist. I think number two was librarian, which is ridiculous considering how much I talk. So, yeah, I went and did a week work experience.

7:16I was young for my year. I started school when I was four. So I was only 14 when I did the work experience. And it was fascinating. Back in the day when they actually cut the, you know, the tape and glue, you know, stuck it together. I remember that with a razor and that sticky tape. Yeah, so I was also fascinated by newsroom politics. I think one of the DJs was having an affair with a news girl and I was in the studio where there was footsie going on. I thought, this is interesting. So a year later, I did work experience again and it was with a press agency. And they liked me so much, they said, look, could you come back one day a week?

7:48So I rearranged my sort of study time, worked there for free one day a week. And that's when I got my front page when I was 15. It was on the beef crisis. I feel it was a bit of a cop-out because it wasn't quite a kind of running around getting the story that particular yeah well no we didn't rewrite it we did get the story but it was it i i don't recall knocking on a door it was more like phone calls confirming something checking and writing it but i've had much many many more stories i'm actually really proud of but i did get a front page when i was 15 the editor of the sun phoned up uh the press agency and said who's this isla traquire or whatever and they said well actually she's this teenager and he said tell to give me a call when she's older with a name like that she'll go far but I didn't I didn't call I uh I went on and started my sixth year applied for a competition with a newspaper group up in Scotland um it was the Press and Journal it's the oldest regional newspaper in the UK broadsheet and I was one of eight to get on that course there's a bit of a story behind that as well trainee course they only did it once so at the age of 16 I started my training six months classroom based and then 18 months on the job to get the qualification and that was kind of me but I mean I was covering pretty horrific stories from a very young age I always joked that I was about 400 when I was 14 and people always thought I was a lot older than I was thinking back now it's insane some of the stuff that I did at that age but I still had a level of maturity I know that you were called the death knock queen Aberdeen's death knock yeah yeah so explain what a death knock is and what kind of stories you were covering well you'll know this so the death knock is the thing that every journalist hates it's when you have to go and knock on the door of a household that has lost someone through some tragic way and in these days we went through literally the the classified that you know the the death notices and if it said suddenly or the age was young we would then have to we couldn't get it through the advertising that was you know that information was protected we'd have to go through the phone book and phone everyone and then find out who it was i'll go for a more straightforward one let's say someone has died in a car accident or they've been murdered we go and knock on the door and we have to say I'm so sorry to be here but this is who I am and I work for this newspaper and if you'd like to do a tribute piece now I vomited the very first time I did a death knock and I was so pleased when they weren't in it was a missing climber um but after that they did answer the door and most of the time I got well welcomed in with open arms because I was so sincere saying I know that I'm the last person you want to see right now and if you want me to go I'll go um so yeah and they found it cathartic and I would always honour them.

10:24I thought that was very important. I have, when I've been a difficult woman, is going back to the news desk and saying, you know, this is, and someone wanting to twist the story and I'll be like, absolutely not, it is not that, it is this. So that's how I kind of accidentally fell into doing, you know, from the police tape, you know, to the trial of being a criminal journalist. And yeah, I specialised in crime. I'm trying to remember what age, I was very young I'm still a teenager and that has been a theme throughout most of my career is the the crime speciality I did step away from it when I moved to LA and Vancouver for quite a while and then when I came back again crime was sort of came knocking at my door yes just going back to the death knock you also have to ask for a photograph don't you if there isn't one and it's just but But most, I would imagine, unless there's been some really terrible circumstances, which often, which of course, often there has been.

11:24I mean, sudden death is very shocking. So what percentage of times were you welcomed in, given a cup of tea, told the whole story, given a photo and went back to the news desk saying, you know, got it all? Most of the time. Yeah, I can remember one. there was a there was a a punch that I ducked and it hit my photographer um they hit tried to hit you yeah a wee well a wee blonde teenager yeah but yeah but I I'll forgive that but someone else someone else in there yes when you did the death knock yeah usually they would they would um sometimes they'd sit in the car I can't remember because it's so long ago but there was once that But honestly, I'd say like 98 % of the time I would get someone to talk to me.

12:13And that was kind of what I got known as that, you know, if you want anyone in any circumstance, send me. I wouldn't say it's 100 % success rate, but I have been able to persuade prime suspects in murder cases to talk to me as well. So I can be, I'm very gentle when it comes to the grieving. I'm ferocious when it comes to the bad guys.

12:43you're still in local newspapers at this point you know five years or so into your career as a journalist doing the death knock writing up crime why did you move into tv what happened there um i i ended up even though i never got the title i kind of ended up being like the chief reporter and i was only 20 by this point i was sort of training the people coming in who'd gone off and done university who were older than me and I was uh with my who man who became my husband um so I wasn't gonna I didn't have aspirations to go really far met the tv boss I can't remember how that came about and he was interested in me and honestly I looked down my nose at television news because I would do if I was doing court you know for the day unless it was a big trial it's one story but if I was doing the other court cases I could do 20 stories in a day I mean long hours and some of them were nibs and some of them were longer and then I thought one story a day so anyway a job came up they offered it to me and I did I got the from my news desk oh well I didn't know you wanted to do television as though it was a bad thing I had no interest in being on tv or the kind of the glamour side of it I really didn't I just thought this will be a good challenge and I fell in love with the visual side of the storytelling so but I remember that you know really getting a hard slap in the face my very first story it was two brothers who were chess protégés and we'd filmed so much stuff and for a minute 20 piece we barely covered it so I was like okay it's a bit trickier than you know and I hadn't been taught how to do voiceovers I remember speaking to one of the presenters going on my way through to a voiceover we've got how do I do a voiceover just like very quick thing she went there'll be usually three words you emphasize draw a line where there's a full stop so your eye kind of can quickly see where you're going to go so I did it and then the editor threw the button went you need to not whisper Isla so I had to find my voice pretty quickly and then I think within a month I was reading the news and I was only 21 and my very first bulletin I had to hand it back to Sir Trevor Macdonald and I swear the the microphone was picking up my heart thumping out of my body.

14:52That's exciting though you're a national news anchor I mean and you were on channel five. Yeah I moved so Scottish television while I was there I ended up that's when I ended up really going deep into the murder stuff again I wrote and produced three series on Unsolved Murders it was the most successful exported series that they did we did it on a shoestring and I'm so proud of that work and we've actually had multiple I think we're maybe around about seven people who are in jail now not directly as a result one I would argue probably is which is uh came came full circle recently but that was a a really proud moment to put together dramatic reconstructions and write documentaries I really fell in love with the long form which as you know news you scrape the surface a little bit and then run away and do something else and then I had been shortlisted for the ITV regional news awards um I didn't win the first time but I met one of the bosses who I thought was sort of jokingly offering me a job and then I got shortlisted again and then on stage he said oh I offered someone a job you know last year and she'd whatever and then gave me a wink and I was like did you did you really mean it and by this point my marriage was in trouble um I'd kind of done everything I needed to do with with my tv career up there so it kind of coincided that I started going to work in London while I was still producing one of the murder documentary series I would work weekends in London fly back do the murders and then do the murders and then I was supposed to go but as a an arrangement with stv one of my colleagues quit they said you can't leave so i quit and i took a chance i didn't have a job i was on a trial but it paid off and i think within two weeks i had four different job offers because it was very soon after me being down there it was the ipswich prostitute serial killer story no one else it was my day off no one else wanted to go because it was i think it was like oh a body's been found and sadly the attitude that some people have to sex workers yeah exactly and i'm like four or five of them five of them within a two-week period and so you reported that for itv grampian which one no itv national and i ended up doing internationally because i did all the lives so i was actually there when they found the last two bodies so i got had a worldwide exclusive so after that the job offers came in and i stupidly they did stupidly or not stupidly turned them down because i said i need to prove myself i i got offered a big and you won't mind me saying this nice martin martin frizzell flew to aberdeen with his with his right hand man and did a dvd presentation and they wanted me to go and be on the couch at gmtv and i got offered a lot of money and to be a breakfast yeah and i was worried about being classed as a an auto cutie and i felt like i needed to prove my worth because i was being judged I mean I was 26 and I well then and maybe still now I do look a bit younger than I am and uh or maybe you really do look I think we should say that you know you let's talk about looks in television and being being female in television and you know to what extent is it important to have you know really good looks to make it I think it can be a blessing and a curse and everything I'm going to say now is going to make me sound like I'm big headed.

18:08I really think I'm quite, whatever, we judge ourselves and I don't think I'm the most beautiful woman in the world and certainly not model like or anything like that. But I've had people tell me that, whatever, they think I'm attractive. And you work on telly too. And I work on TV. However, people then make assumptions and can underestimate you and it's definitely been a challenge for me and that's why I turned down those jobs and took the lower paid contract at ITN because I really wanted to prove my worth and immediately there was rumours started going around well why would I have this job so I really had to prove myself and rumours like that which were completely untrue rumours about what?

18:50a suggestion that a boss had a sleeping your way to the top I mean this is like straight out of Rivals isn't it? I mean this is the TV this is a Disney Plus dramatisation of the Jilly Cooper novel about television franchises in the Cotswolds. I mean this is straight out of Rivals. I've never actually spoken about this so you're getting an exclusive but when I heard these rumours and I was seeing someone at the time I was actually going out with a colleague who was not doing the same job as me and would not have benefited my career in any way, shape or form and I actually confronted the person who was spreading the rumours who I didn't ever meet and he worked in a different office and he's got a pretty senior job right now if I'm right and I phoned him up and said why on earth are you spreading these rumours and he said well you're spot out for dinner I said he was persuading me to stay there because I'd been offered these other jobs which I turned down oh but you were at the polo with him I said my agent is involved with this polo match and he goes to every year I had a man with me at this thing and that rumour followed me around even when I came back from the states I was talking to someone who used to work there I ended up leaving that job over this issue and because the rumor wouldn't well no I made a complaint to HR and apparently you don't do that and I really was the golden girl on this job at the time I'd done the top story for lunch I was supposed to repackage it that night and my contract was up for renewal and I'd been told you know a week before yeah oh god of course yeah you're blah blah blah blah and then I got pulled in by a manager I never had any dealings with and he said this is going to come as a shock but this is not working out so I don't you were fired because you made an HR complaint no one told me why I just got told it was not working out and then luckily though I'd classic I'd recently turned down another job so my agent called them up and I was back I was working there a few days later so it all worked out but it was it was a real shock to me and even my agent couldn't get to the bottom of it and I think it was because I complained and it was a it was a horrible point in my life.

21:02It sounds incredibly cowardly. I would love to go up to that man and smack him in the face because you know the damage he did to my career and I do still think it's a boys club in newsrooms I really do and I experienced that many times when I was the most qualified and a particular specialism of crime and not being sent on a story but a man who was not a specialist and then me going up and saying look I'll go I'll be the tea girl I don't care I'll do the night shift and you know getting pretty upsetting responses and you know from men about what are you complaining about we sent you to Shetland last week you know and what can you Just what, you know, this is very historic now, but what newsroom were you in?

21:48What network were you in when that happened? It was ITN. ITN. I've never spoken about this before. I'm a bit nervous. It was an unpleasant experience for me because I loved working there. And I will say there were some really amazing people there, really amazing colleagues I'm still friends with and bosses. There were some great people. And I don't blame the boss of the room was about. I told him that I'd, you know, made the complaint to the guy. And he said, oh, God, if I had a pound for every time I'd been accused of having an affair, you know, with one of the female journalists, you know, I'd be very rich.

22:19But it was damaging. Well, I'm very sorry that happened. And they lost a very, they lost a talent. And I'm sure they regret it. After about a decade, you went to America, though. Yeah. You never stopped moving about. Well, it was Canada first. And everything in my, I, people say, you must be really ambitious. I'm not. I just focus on what I'm doing that day. I say I'm a person who would, I'll never do a marathon. this is just a kind of example but I'd set out to run a mile do a marathon but I do that professionally I'll set out to do this and I'll end up doing something way bigger so what happened was I was at channel five I had my own show I ended up being the the 7pm presenter because Natasha Kaplinsky went off and had a baby and then didn't want to do that show so I was very lucky loved working there amazing team we all still talk about the golden days of channel five but then all the news programs were being reduced or removed my program was going to go I knew I was going to leave and then one of my friends tragically was diagnosed with terminal cancer so I left my job early and went back to Scotland to help her mum take care of her and she passed away and I told her that I'd loved Vancouver on holiday and she was encouraging me to move there so in her honour I then moved to Vancouver.

23:30You honoured her memory by moving to Canada. Yeah because she'd lived all over the world she did more in 35 years than most people did in a lifetime while there I met some production companies my friends a director over there pitched some ideas realized I just need to move here and within I think two months I got a commission with the Oprah Winfrey Network so I then presented a health investigation series the whole idea behind that show was inspired by my friend who died because I learned about toxic things that are in our products so the whole show was based around that we all know about food but actual chemicals that are in shampoos etc so it was a health investigation series I did that and then the kind of natural thing after that was I didn't plan on moving to LA but I went to a documentary conference down there and then I ended up moving to LA and I was there for quite a long time I did more producing stuff there I did a lot of development things there I'd actually just started recording a podcast there and then my mum got ill and I moved back to the UK around about 2018 and that's when I went back into the murder scene again I needed something I could work on while being there for my mum so I knew I could edit I knew the story I wanted to do I went back and did my very first big murder case and I did the 20th anniversary I didn't know how to do a podcast but I did it and it went straight to number one and then I name check it so yeah yeah so my my series if people want to go and find it so the storyteller um the the so there's murder most foul naked villainy and violent delights I've done that in the wrong order murder most fouls first one and then violent delights naked villainy um and my next one is the narcissist playbook which i'll get onto in a minute but so i ended up kind of specializing doing podcasts one of them's going to be turned into a drama and the third one um i was i'm the first journalist in the uk that was allowed to record and broadcast a full murder trial um and that's the one i said that we'll do the full circle it was a documentary one of the documentary um murders and it was 2002 it was an they're all unsolved and I went and found the prime suspect who was living in Holland and I there's a video of me when I'm 22 chasing after him saying Mr Harrison did you murder your ex-wife and the that case was they knew who it was from the day it happened but they didn't have enough evidence he was a scientist he knew how to do it and get away with it however our documentary led to the police reinvestigating the items for DNA and then I didn't know they then and they did get something but the crown office and procurator fiscal service didn't feel it was enough they tested again and then we ended it ended up being someone in the crown office that believed in the case and a cold case crew really down to one police officer who really pushed for it and they showed them my interview with the sister of the lady who died and that's what got across the line to show there was still public interest and a reason to take this to court and it went to court and he is in jail.

26:29And that was one of the proudest moments of my career. So 45 years on from the murder, 20 odd years on from when I did that documentary and to be the one to do that, it was a highly emotional time for me. Well, congrats. The scientist is in jail.

26:50Talk about the narcissist playbook and then we will talk about your own brush with what could have turned much nastier than it than it did although it sounds very nasty the fact that you were stalked yeah so the narcissist playbook yeah so i was doing the case i just mentioned there i was in the middle of doing that i met a filmmaker because i've been back and forth to la uh the last few years i met this guy and he said we're doing this documentary it's into narcissistic personality disorder we've got so much stuff would you do the podcast and i said sure didn't hear anything for a while and then they came back and said actually we need you in the documentary we need you to go after someone and we think that you might be the person to do it because you're a crime journalist, etc.

27:31I think being female was also one of the helpful things because I had to do an interview with someone who they wanted to go after. He'd already denied them the interview, so I had to be clever about it. So that was how I ended up involved in this. So I'm not only doing the companion podcast, which I've got 34 episodes, about 20 of them. 34 episodes. Yeah, and about 20 of them are just on this investigation into this serial predator. And it is a wild ride. It is horrible. When can we listen? Very soon. So the early bird release for the film is actually May 30th. And it's going, you know, you have to pay to watch it online, basically.

28:17The general release is going to be, I think, about a month later. And my podcast will be out then. And for the first time, I'm doing a video version of it. I'm also interviewing all the people who are in the documentary. So we've got Evan Rachel Wood, her experience with her ex Marilyn Manson. We've got a man who was married to a female narcissist. We've got a diagnosed male psychopath. We've got a female narcissist. We've got a diagnosed male narcissist who's got a twin who's the most empathetic. It's the most comprehensive deep dive into narcissistic personality disorder. So you're doing a kind of big deep dive into that, but you're also foregrounding this particular predator.

28:51Yes, this particular predator who we expose in the film, whose name is not yet being released. you you came you have a house in the country in in is it the Cotswolds yeah in within the Cotswolds region basically what happened Covid I was back in the UK mum would be nil Covid I got stuck in London decided I needed to go to the countryside rented a house fell in love with Wiltshire and then ended up buying this dream home which did turn into a nightmare I renovated all myself I'm very DIY I'm highly independent so I have to just do everything myself so I was like knocking down walls and ripping up floors and I had help where I could hire someone so I renovated my dream home and sadly yeah my my uh my next door neighbor uh became unhealthily interested in me which led to eventually me leaving my home the police investigating him and me you know the table being turned that I've reported on crime you know most of my life and then to be a victim of crime and to go through that process and to be honest not have a great experience uh two female community officers amazing brilliant passed it on to a male officer it went horribly wrong to the point where an inspector had to intervene and pull that guy off the case because he went and had a cup of tea with him and said he seems quite reasonable and also told me he wouldn't be my go-between uh it was it was very bad um i had to put six foot high fence in cameras and I captured things way beyond what were in the court case and uh I mean this this has been revealed before but he was a captain he's he he triggered my motion sensors with no clothes on um going over the boundary I'm looking like he was about to climb my fence he was your next door neighbor yeah yeah he he he had a partner didn't he yeah she was away all day they eventually split up for quite some time and he's just come into your house yeah I didn't realize he had a key to my home and I'm sorry yeah he'd had a key so the previous owner the home was empty when it was for sale and he'd been looking after the garden I didn't know that until afterwards but he was convicted and not much happens to stalkers he got maximum community service and a fine I lost my home my safety my my sense of safety I couldn't live in the home I had to leave it sitting empty I eventually made it made a holiday rental but that wasn't you know where it is it's like people might go there for a weekend it wasn't like it made me money um I moved abroad while I was waiting for the trial um it it had such a massive impact on me and I think people I didn't understand the impact of stalking uh I had complex PTSD triggered every time I saw a white van so you can imagine being in the UK what that did to me every time I saw a white van I had to check the number plate check the driver but I've already gone into fight flight freeze um I made myself small I have a habit of wearing very baggy clothes covering myself up I wore baggy clothes when I was renovating the house I was never dressed in a way to entice or provoke him let me be clear I was in animal onesies covered in dirt and whatnot I'd you know I felt a little bit conscious I think because I could tell there he knew what I did as a job I didn't know he knew that because he'd been telling my neighbor so that tv presenter's moving in so yeah anyway that was a horrible period of my life and i have now took years i couldn't sell the house uh because i got told it was unsellable they state it because he was living next door still and you have to legally and morally i feel tell people who are going to buy it so i told the estate agent when i did eventually put it on the market and i said you cannot let a woman on her own come and see this house um i didn't feel that was the right thing to do so i eventually sold it to a couple who were not in fear and I will I literally don't even want to go to that part of the countryside my brother lives out there one of my really good friends and I've just said I'm sorry I can't I can't come there I get I get panicked when I drive out in that motorway so it's very sad and I'm sure one day I'll get over it but I find it difficult to speak about because I worry that I'm putting you'll trigger him in some way exactly so but let's talk about the generality of it uh that how common it is and how the police deal with it and how yeah how potentially lethal stalking is yeah i think somebody you who you interviewed says stalking is murder in slow motion yeah that's laura richards who's a former fbi agent and she's former uh head of homicide prevention of new scotland yard she's also does kind of what i do now with podcasts investigations uh laura set up paladin national stalking advocacy and she's been a victim of it as well and murder in slow motion is is a very accurate term if you look at a lot of femicides go back a bit and it's there'll be stalking and there are very very few cases that get convictions um i haven't looked up the the stats recently but at one point it was um i think only six percent of cases actually go to you know to a point of investigation or arrest or you know that doesn't even mean court and then it was an absolutely minute amount that actually get convictions very very few go to jail i don't actually think they should be some of them should be if they're an absolute danger but i think what needs to happen is a multi-agency approach and what we need is mental health specialists because it's a mental health issue i'm not excusing that when people have an unhealthy obsession when they're behaving in a way that's criminal there's something not right there and there needs to be intervention there's been some trials in a few police forces in England where as a punishment they have to go through some sort of mental health support to understand what they're doing is wrong and I think there's been some success there.

34:39The issue with jailing them they're then in a box if you like in a cell with nothing else to fixate upon apart from you. So they come out and it's redoubled. I think you've suggested or you and Laura together maybe the idea of a stalking register. Oh yes. Why can't We have one. It seems like a total no-brainer. An absolute no-brainer, and it's one of the most frustrating things ever. I mean, Laura's been trying to get this for decades, and I joined her campaign and, you know, trying to get... And at one point, it looked like it was happening, and then there was a sort of U-turn, and then... I mean, it makes absolute sense.

35:17There is... I mean, there's not much of a punishment for stalking unless there's another element. A friend of mine, Denise Wells, she was stalked as well. Her one got jailed, but only because he set fire to her wheelie bin, which led to an arson charge. To have a register, which means it makes it harder for them to apply for jobs, harder for them to get a home, they are on a list. That would actually put them off. And I think as well, very important for the police to have information because they move, they'll move, you know, there's cases which have ended in murder where someone stalked someone in Scotland and moved to England and moved back again and they don't have the information linked up.

35:53A stalking register is absolutely crucial as part of prevention. So there's at least a deterrent there for stalkers, because at the moment, I just don't believe it is. And also the stats suggest that it's only if you're serious about women's safety, as this government says it is, one in five women will experience stalking at some point and two women a week killed by stalkers in the UK. Come on, everybody. Now, we've got to move on to you've talked about being stalked. And I have to say, I have such sympathy with you for that experience. In terms of difficult times, is that the most difficult time?

36:32I know you've just been through a bereavement that I completely get. But other people might say, oh, it's just a dog, you know. But I know you've lost your dog in the last two weeks. And you can't even look at me. You're thinking about boo, aren't you? Yeah. If you'd asked me before, I would have said definitely that's the hardest thing that I've gone through, the stalking and the court case, to be honest, and all that kind of stuff. All the gaslighting in a courtroom and all the awful things that happened there. And were you wearing nail varnish sort of things? Oh, no, I was as plainly dressed as I possibly could be.

37:06Yeah, no, no, but the way that you're made to feel that it's all your fault. Yeah, yeah. Whatever happened to you was your fault. Yeah, that without doubt would have been. and then that has been absolutely blown out of the water by so I rescued my little dog it's actually 11 years next week that I would have adopted her she was abandoned in LA and she was 7 months old and my little dog Boo which is short for baby unicorn partly because she looked like a little unicorn and also unicorns the national animal of Scotland she has been the best thing that's ever happened to me in my life she has got me through you know miscarriage moving countries multiple times heartbreak job struggles all sorts of things my mum being ill um and she's been my absolute rock and I wouldn't have got through all those things and yeah I just I just was in London recently for BAFTA screening of this new film that's coming out and I went home thought she was a bit skinny and got a vet appointment and long story short I had I got told at two o 'clock on a Thursday that they either had to open her up there and then and she might die in the operating table or I had to take her home and love her as much as I could so I chose I didn't feel there was a choice the right thing to do was to because her survival was was pretty slim and even if she did it'd be very short I yeah the the hardest thing and I had to even change the appointment the next day it was supposed to be lunchtime I realised in the morning things were bad and I had to take her in earlier.

38:36I went in I held her and had her face in my hands and I looked directly into her eyes until her life you know went out of her eyes and I just said I love you and you're so brave and to be with her in that moment was so special and it was actually a beautiful peaceful death and then my father drove me to the crematorium because I didn't want it was a Friday it happened two weeks ago today and I didn't want her in a vet's office in a box so we drove her up and I I had her in my arms in her dog bed, wrapped in a blanket, popped off at the coast and I took her into the sand dunes because she was a beach dog.

39:09And I sat with her in my arms, took her back to the beach and then had to take her to the crematorium. And then I basically left immediately. I haven't been home. I got in the car, drove to Edinburgh, stayed with a friend, drove to Lancaster, stayed with a friend and now London. And I'm going to have to face going back next week. So this is without doubt the hardest thing I've ever gone through. she's she was my little soulmate my companion my my everything my dopamine and oxytocin fix every day when you know the the project i've been working on for the past you know um coming up two years it is dark it's involving rape it's involving horrific uh abuse um i you know i needed uh her to be the lightness for me in fact she's she's in the documentary so uh that that's yeah this is the hardest moment right now this is the first professional thing I've done since she died this is the first time I've tried to put on normal clothes and put makeup on and I've managed to hold it together until now but yeah, losing her is without doubt the worst thing that's ever happened to me

40:18I'm very very sorry about Boo Isla, we've got to leave it there on that rather sad note you will honestly you will find another boo in your life and we see you will grieve for boo but there will be another boo in your life thank you for being this week's difficult woman thank you for having me i'm sorry everyone to end on a lacrimose note but that was where the conversation ended and i know difficult women listeners will understand and send her a virtual hug thank you for listening to another episode of my Difficult Women podcast. Don't forget to subscribe and download wherever you get your podcasts to make sure the latest episode is always ready to go every Friday afternoon.

41:02Bye.