Episode 4 Free Speech

Hello and welcome to Free Speech, the show which makes your voice

heard in the national conversation. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I am a fairly honourable... And welcome to Free Speech. We live from

the old in Nottingham. That is the ladies and gentlemen of the jury

giving us their verdict, we want to hear what you think. Just tell Tina

Daheley. Standing up! Good evening to all of you. We want to hear from

you at home tonight. Submit your evidence online. Your answers and

comments will come to me in the studio, where I will make sure they

are heard in the debate. There is also our audience questions page and

tonight we are taking it to the next level. I think you know how it

works. For the past week you have been going to Free Speech on

Facebook, clicking through to the audience questions page and looking

through the questions that have been submitted by you at home. Here are

the top questions before we went live. Tonight, we are doing things a

bit differently in order to give you a bigger chance to vote for what you

want to talk about. We are keeping the leaderboard open for another

half an hour, until 8:30pm. What do you want to talk about? Here are the

options. Should male circumcision be illegal? Like female circumcision,

more commonly known as female genital mutilation. Should there be

stricter punishments for rape? Do high tuition fees and internships

mean younger generations are being treated as slaves, and should

politics be taught as a core subject? Set the agenda. Live

audience voting. Anything Strictly can do, we can do better. Here to

debate your questions is our panel. Archie Bland, senior writer at the

Independent. Ava Vidal, a stand-up comedian. Peter Hitchens, the Mail

On Sunday columnist and author of crime, history. And Anna Soubry, a

former criminal barrister who became the first female defence minister in

2013. That is your panel. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Since 2012, the government has worked to make the justice system

tougher. Is it pandering to the tabloids, or necessary tough love?

This week, Free Speech spoke to former prisoner Daniel Chapman about

his experience. How would I describe prison? As an asylum. Prison works.

It ensures that we are protected from murderers, muggers and rapists.

I grew up in Stockwell in south-west London. My family were poor. By the

time I was 16, I had acquired a gun and I was selling drugs for about

two years. My whole lifestyle, she could not take it any more and that

is when my mum phoned the police. We need to tackle this problem in a

concerted way. Tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime. I got

a three-year custodial sentence. I was very numb until the door closed

and I knew I could not move. I was in for about five months and got

into a fight, they stabbed me with a pen. I was moved to Belmarsh when I

was 18. Some of the worst things I saw in prison, they would mix hot

water with sugar and throw it in your face. Meltdown razors and put

it in a toothbrush and slash your face. I have banned sky TV, banned

18 certificate DVDs. You wanted tougher justice system. We are

delivering a tough -- tougher justice system. The facilities may

not be tough, but psychologically it is the worst thing. I did not think

I would make it university, I did not think I was smart enough. I am a

university now. Studying graphic design. I think it needs to go back

to what it was made for in the first place, rehabilitation. All these

people who say it is not tough enough have not been. How can they

comment? Soap, Daniel's question is does

prison need to be tougher? Ava, you were a prison guard. Does prison

need to be tougher? No, it is tough enough. At the end of the day

everybody who speaks about prison being a holiday camp, everyone who

talks like that has never been. I fire went to a holiday camp like

that I would ask for a refund and compensation. It is not good in

there. Peter, do you agree? Prison is tough in the wrong way. They are

largely by the inmates rather than by authority and they have no

purpose. The government does not really want to have prisons. It only

keeps prisons because the public. Have them. It does not believe in

punishment. As a result, they are warehouses in which people are very

vulnerable to what other prisoners want to do to them. The main

punishment inflicted on people in prison is inflicted not by the state

or the law, but by the other inmates. That is wrong. If they were

properly disciplined and run punitively for the original purpose,

they would be much safer for the prisoners and much more likely to

stop people from committing crime. They are very hard to get into. It

is much harder to get into prison than university. You have to

commit... LAUGHTER

. People are already habitual criminals by the time they reach

prison. Ava? To say the government do not want prisons is untrue.

APPLAUSE In the UK, we are moving closer to

the American system, the prison industrial complex, where big

businesses are using inmates to do a lot of work. The prison I worked in

which I cannot name, and I will not name the airline, but they used to

get the inmates to put the little bikes together, the stuff you get on

a flight, socks, earplugs, things like that, so to say people do not

want prisons and the government don't want it, with the draconian

measures that Chris Grayling is bringing in... ? I too have been to

prison. When I was a criminal barrister are used to represent

defendants far more than I prosecuted. We are just about

getting to a stage where we are getting things in the right place.

Every prison is different. Some prisons are really quite good.

Others not so good. I take the view that if you go to prison, you go for

a good reason. Prison is a punishment. I don't subscribe to the

view it as a holiday camp. It is a deprivation of your liberty. It is a

punishment and it is meant to be a punishment. But it should also be a

place where people are rehabilitated. Some people go to

prison because they need to be there to keep the rest of us safe. You

were not in that category, you did half your sentence, 18 months? If I

may say, you are somebody who has completely turned their life around

and one of the best thing that ever happened to me was when I bump into

an old client who I have not seen for a long time because they tended

to be more heat than she, and prison had worked for them. If people do go

to prison, it sounds perverse, but it is a positive experience for that

human being, so when they come out they do not reoffend and turn their

lives around like you have. Daniel. You have been to prison, did it work

for you or did you turn your life around despite working -- despite

going to prison? Prison did not work for me. From the second I went in,

it made my life worse. It dehumanised me. Do you say you

should not have gone to prison? Now you are who you are, what would you

have done with you at that age? Would you have not gone to prison?

What would you have done? There should have been intervention. There

are personal cases you can relate to, you can't just talk about my

situation. You need to intervene with the personal situation. Debut

in general think people who deal in drugs and carry firearms ought to

have something done to them by the criminal justice system? -- don't

you think. not necessarily, no. To have people from different

circumstances pointing and saying...

APPLAUSE . How are our circumstances

different to yours? How many people in terrible circumstances never

carry drugs and deal -- never carry guns and deal drugs? You must not

make excuses for crime. OK. We are going to the audience now. Do you

think you are talking about rehabilitation, what do you think,

what kind of rehabilitation are you providing for the prisoner inside,

like education? Because most of the time the education is poor quality.

They don't get a good qualification. There is only functional schemes. It

depends when you go. Some people get good education in prisons and young

offenders' institution is as well. The longer the sentence, the more

opportunity people have to study. I would have clients of mine who could

complete their education. Forgive me. I am sure nobody is saying that

nobody should ever go to prison, or are you? You would send a rapist to

prison, or a paedophile. Inaudible. They should have been sent to

prison, guilty of fraud. It was said in the House of Lords. They have

joined the Cabinet. Criminal justice in this country, it targets people

from certain backgrounds at the end of the day. If you have the money to

get a really good lawyer, if you have education, the amount of people

in prison who would hand me a application forms who could not read

or write. That is absolutely unacceptable. If you have a longer

sentence, you have more time to be educated. So send more educated

people to prison. People do. There is a more consistent legal system

that punishes people across the board for what they do. UN

muddying, excuses... It was 20.8 months, four white groups, 14.9

months. APPLAUSE

So send more white people to prison. Fine by me. OK. It is impossible to

follow when everyone talks at the same time, isn't it? Let's stop

doing that. For people at home, let's bring it back to conditions in

prisons. That is what people are talking about online. Prison is like

a holiday camp, prison is seen as hell in other countries. Yes,

prisons need to be tougher, they are like holiday camps. They are in

there for reason, not a holiday. How would you respond? I understand why

-- where they are getting the fact it is like a holiday camp. They are

dangerous places, you have to be paranoid the whole time. There is

loads of stuff going on. It is ridiculous to say it is like a

holiday camp. What holiday camp do you go to? Nobody has said they are

like holiday camps. The viewing audience have said that. Whether

prison is tough enough, I don't think it is. We are talking in the

wrong terms. There is an endless drive towards making prison tougher

in terms of for example banning parcels being received in prison,

making conditions more unpleasant, peripheral stuff that doesn't

matter. The way that prisons should become tougher is they should become

more useful places that educate people. The fact is, I read a piece

last year about Feltham prison, a lot of people said the trouble was

that education is all very well but there is not enough of it. People

are banged up for many hours and that drive them crazy. If you are in

a cell all the time, you are more likely to be violent. The only way

to fix that is resources. Whatever you say, it is the thing that

government has to put more money into it. If you don't change the way

it works, you can't fix anything else.

APPLAUSE The gentleman here? On a lot of

government reforms harm the way people are rehabilitated, taking

away books. They are not allowed to take parcels in from the outside. We

said because we have a problem with drugs and mobile phones going into

prisons, so we changed the rules on parcels. People can still get books

in prison. There are libraries in prison. We all know what is

happening with austerity measures - loads of public libraries are being

closed. Therefore prison libraries are being closed. No-one is thinking

about prison officers. No-one is thinking these are the people who

have to look after these people. Have a guy in a cell who is boiling

rage. You open that door and you could get hot water with sugar in

your face because they are going mad. Prison officers do not want

prisoners not to have television and stuff. If you know the amount of

prison officers who are off with stress, how many take drugs. How

many take drugs into prison? A lot are through prison officers. At the

prison I worked at, they were coming in through pigeons. It is a weird

story. We were in the exercise yard. There were dead prison officer gones

there. We were like, this is OK, it is biblical. A prison officer kicked

one over and people scooped the outside of p pigeon out.

To ban books is ridiculous. It tells you everything you need to know,

that drugs which are available are available in prison readily all the

time. I know you like to applaud fashionable of statements - but the

prisons are not under the authority conoh -- control of the authorities.

Read the report into the prison, which at night was said by the

prison officer to be under the control of gangs. You will see what

goes on. We do not have and we do not, as the Government does not

seek, proper control of prisons. It is easier for them to allow drugs

in. It keeps people constitute pified. There's -- stupified. If you

go to Nottingham prison, everybody knows if you go to Nottingham,

there'll be a sniffer dog there. You get pat-down searches and so on and

so forth. For visitors, it was almost impossible to get anything

through. It was coming in in other ways. Yes, there were inventive

ways. I The idea that Government wants to keep -- the idea that

Government wants to keep people on drugs in prison is nonsense. Why

don't they stop it happening then? They've had a long time to stop

it... There are local prisons, there are category C prison, there are

dispersal prisons - there is a huge difference.

The lady here. You have been patience. The situation in different

prisons is different F there is such a variety in the levels of education

people get in prisons - what is the Government doing about it? I don't

think it is right that the prison which the chief inspector of prisons

said is the worst he's seen ever in his time as chief inspectors, in

Wolverhampton is a young offenders' institution. Why are your most

vulnerable people not getting the provision they need? Understandably,

if you are sent to prison, you would want to go to a prison which is near

to where your family is. The trouble is then you often get gangs going

into a particular problem. You do get some scary people - I am sure

you would agree and extremely bad people in prisons. Having to deal

with it is very difficult. One of the things I agree about, it was

about seen when people were banged up for 23 hours without any break -

that is wrong. We have introduced work - forgive me - I think it is

good, that people when in prison get used to working.

ALL SPEAK AT ONCE I must say it is very different to

what you heard Chris Grayling say. There was a story about him over a

project which was supposed to investigate the incidents of rape in

prison, actually suggested he would like to ban the provision of condoms

in prisons. If that is true, it is being reported on Politics Today -

it is a pretty reliable report - this is the prisons minister who has

no connection to the reality of life in prison and would rather say

something to get an easy headline rather than do something which would

fundamental change the outcomes of people coming out of prison. It is

about making people safer. That is a common theme across the

board. We need to be thinking about the individual. Circumstances

dictates emotions. I myself went to prison. Going to prison, in a sense

ironically changed my life. I allowed it to. The only reason I was

able to do that was I was inspired by some particular individuals.

There is not enough investment in those individuals who want to help

offenders change. APPLAUSE

When people talk about prison being a holiday camp - I am talking from

the perspective of somebody who went to prison. I could not care less

about having a TV - I was concerned about losing my family family... .

When he says, we'll ban SkyTV... You have stuff taken from you. Now what

we are saying is if you want stuff you have to earn it with good

behaviour. I have no problem with it. What I do - what is wrong - you

are right, Sir. It is the deprivation of your liberty and the

other guy talks about people going into prison and doing great work.

Who inspired you? Was it another inmate? We are talking about books

which are being banned from prison. I read a book about an individual -

a gang leader in America, who was sentenced to life and become a Nobel

Peace Prize winner. His book inspired me. It opened my eyes T way

he transsended from being a gang --. The way he turned into this was

through literature. We are not taking books away. When people make

mistakes they have the ability to turn around. I made mistakes. If I

told you my story and what I am doing - if you met me five years ago

I would not have believed I would have been the person I am today. I

am living proof, he is living proof that you can change. Let me ask you

this - would you agree with what Peter said about prison being run by

inmates? It is nonsense. A governor runs the prison. That is end of.

Each prison is different, based on the governor's intention. That is

how it is run. Yes, it is tough. It is tough for both entities. You have

prison officers who exist in the system. They are there as long as

the prisoners themselves. We are human beings at the end of the day.

ALL SPEAK AT ONCE If anybody other than me said it...

Who are prisoners afraid of in prison? The officers? No. They are

afraid of... ALL SPEAK AT ONCE

That is not necessarily true. Don't say it is not true. When you have

worked in one? I have not worked in one. Let him answer Peter's

question. Prison officers are scared of offenders. I witnessed for

myself, yeah - I witnessed a prisoner thrash his cell and flood

his cell. He got taken away. Now, his cellmate came back after a visit

and he was being forced to enter a cell which had been flooded, burnt

out and thrashed. He said, how can you put me in this and where are my

belongs. They said you have to go in the cell. Refused. I witnessed him

get his face punched in by aofficer. Don't sit there and tell me they are

intimidated... I agree with you. The lady here. Why do people come out of

prison with like psychological health problems. If they were not

tough they would come out all right. Prison rates are incredible high.

This idea of prisons being finishing schools - that is what happens you

might go in doing something minor and then you come out and spend your

time with other criminals. It does not necessarily help matters. It is

not true. 78% of young offenders offend. Daniel is the exception, not

the rule. In the category Bmale prison - 52% turnover where people

came back. What I am saying is I find it a little bit dodgy that

people who own big businesses, who have access to the Government and

lobby, then have work contracts in prison it is in their interest to

have people sent to prison. APPLAUSE

OK, we will move on from this debate now. The next question from our

studio audience. What do you want to ask? I would like to ask, following

several murderous acts in several years over which can be described as

evil, for instance the murder of Lee Rigby, should the death penalty be

reinstated? What do you think? I am torn on the subject, really. I

think. It is quite evocative language. Yeah, but I think it

should definitely be stricter punishments for murders which are

random, because it makes people feel not safe. Whereas, yeah, it's a very

definite punishment - the death penalty. The most definite. By

treating somebody who is doing something bad doing something bad

back it is just evilness. It will not get better you kill somebody who

kills somebody. It will never get better that way. I don't agree with

the death penalty. If you impose it on people, then when it comes to

trials, people will not plead guilty. It will drag victims of

crime through the system it is not fair on the victims. Anyone here who

does agree with the death penalty? Yes, the lady here. I agree that the

death penalty should be warranted in cases where the act has been thought

about for a long time beforehand, so it is premeditated. They have

thought about the way they would go about it and they've had a very long

#250i78 to decide whether it is -- time to decide whether it is right

or wrong. Why should the taxpayer have to pay to put, so, say the

murderers of Lee Rigby, there is no question of doubt they murdered him.

Why should we then have them in jail and have to pay for them to remain

in jail for that period of time? I don't believe that you should

murder, you know, you should have the death penalty - this question of

doubt. There's no question of doubt that they killed him. Why should we

have to pay for them? And there's no doubt. How would you respond? The

death penalty is pretty expensive, so in the state... It is because the

reason for that - the reason for that is that capital trials are

very, very expensive. They drag on longer. People end up on Death Row

for a long time. You have appeal stages. It is more expensive. Even

if it was not the case - even if it was the cheapest way, I don't think

it is a question of that. It is a question of whether we want to give

the state the right and the ability to execute citizens. I don't believe

that we should. There's that matter of principal. There is the fact that

it doesn't really work. There is basically no evidence from anywhere

in the world that you can actually show that the death penalty makes it

less likely that people will kill each other. If you don't know it is

working and you know you might execute people who didn't do it. In

the US you have three or four people released from Death Row. If you know

all that, how you can believe that it is a sensible option...

APPLAUSE Peter?

Yes, I think it should be brought back. Some people applauding. Do any

of you want to listen to opinions? Do you just have the views of people

that you think you ought to have? Have you ever thought about it? I

used to be against it, now I am for it. I have thought about it. R First

of all, there is substantial evidence that it deters one very

important thing, it deters - it's in the criminal statistics... Well, if

you ALL SPEAK AT ONCE

If you wait for me to finish my sentence - there is good evidence -

it deters the use of weapons by criminals.

And the death penalty in this country was suspended for two

periods while Parliament thought of getting rid of it in 1948 and 1957.

During both those suspensions the incidents of armed crime went up. At

the end of the suspensions it went down. There is in the United States

that prevents stranger murder. That is where somebody kills the witness

to his crime. Don't interrupt me! The person kills the person he has

raped or kills the person he has robbed. That kind of crime has

increased substantially in the United States since the death

penalty was abolished. You will hear how it operates in the United States

- it doesn't really. It exists as a political fixtion. It is not

actually carried out. We have the death penalty in this country - it

is carried out by the police. They shoot people without any kind of

appeal. The more you don't have a death penalty with due process, the

more you have of that. 60 prisoners a year, on average n the prisons of

England and Wales kill themselves. That is also, as far as I am

concerned a death penalty. I disapprove of long prison sentences.

I think they destroy people's souls. I would rather have a just, swift

execution of a when nows murder than keeping someone in prison that their

soul was destroyed and they took their own lives.

Would anyone agree with Peter? That is such a stupid comment. How

can you applaud that? It is very true. What about the person who has

been murdered? What about the souls of the families who have lost

someone? What about them? Where does that come into the argument? I

support a charity, it is soul destroying for the person who has

taken a family member away by stabbing them 80 times out of cold

blood and you were worried about their well-being in prison. You

don't understand what I am saying. I believe in hanging heinous

murderers. I think they should be hanged by the neck until dead. I

think you may have misunderstood entirely what I said. It is really

difficult, it is difficult when you hear about Lee Rigby. I sat with a

mother, whose son, some of you may remember this story, it was a

terrible murder that occurred in the north of this city and her son was

in the passenger seat and somebody came along and thought that her son

was somebody else and shot him in the back of the head and he was

dead, obviously. She had to go through the court process and she

then had, when he was convicted of murder and received a long sentence,

she had him then turned to her and said, you should have seen what your

son's had looked like when I shot him, and I had to sit with this

woman and explain to her white I do not support the death penalty. When

you hear her raw emotion, she says, I will continue to work, I will pay

my taxes, he will come out of prison in his early 40s will stop my son

meant -- never made his 21st birthday. That is very moving. Even

with that awful emotion I just believe, even though that is the

most wicked thing, like the ream -- like the Lee Rigby murder, I still

think of the society you are judged by the way you treat even the people

who do the most wicked things and that is why I would never believe in

the death penalty. APPLAUSE

When the population is polled about who is in favour of the death

penalty, 58% of young people are in favour of the death penalty and 59%

of people who are older. People are reactionary, people don't think it's

through properly. I am sad to say Peter did make a good point. He

mentioned the fact that police officers have been shooting people

without due process. There is Rodney and Mark Duggan, you have to think

about cases like that. On the other hand, there should not base date

sanctioned murder because too often it goes wrong. You only have to read

a book called the exonerated and people who are the victims, who end

up getting the best -- the death penalty are poor people and

minorities. It is not right. What is happening online? A lot of people

are disagreeing with the death penalty. Going against the

statistics in that poll. Some would agree, the death penalty can not be

brought back soon enough. We need to crack down on criminals, they

deserve punishment. This has come in from Michelle. The death penalty

should never be reinstated. How can anybody have the power to take

somebody's life? It is not your life. You cannot bring back an

innocent life after they have been killed. What if a convicted murderer

was proved innocent? There are several points. The first is this.

Every three years, two people in this country are murdered by a

convicted murderer who has been released. They are innocent people

who died as a result of the failure of the criminal justice system. That

is not seen as an argument for never releasing the victim of a murderer.

An awful lot of people so that -- supported the military intervention

in Serbia, in which bombs were dropped on Belgrade and innocent

people died. All of us support the transport policy, which requires

because of mass car ownership, the deaths of 3000 people every year. We

licensed the deaths of 180,000 innocent babies through abortion. If

you are really -- if you really think that no policy can be pursued

if anybody innocent is going to die as a result of it, I would take that

from a complete pacifist who believed it is all right to have the

country invaded by a foreign power and not resist. If you believe that,

you can lay aside the weapon of capital punishment. But otherwise

you don't have a coherent argument. Politicians advanced this argument

because they are afraid of responsibility. They don't like the

responsibility of having to protect the public from savage people. That

is why Parliament, there has never been at any point a chance for the

public to vote on this. Nobody ever stood at a general election and said

we will abolish the death penalty. It was done by a private member's

bill. Politicians decided amongst themselves they would abolish it

because they did not like the responsibility. People with mental

health problems, all too often we are looking people who have got

mental health problems. We need to think about that, because sometimes

you see people in prison, we keep mentioning Lee Rigby's murderers,

psychologically they could not be sound. Peter thinks we are

disagreeing with him to be fashionable, but if you are

constantly unfashionable, move with the times. The important thing to

say about Lee Rigby, is the death penalty enough to make them suffer

enough for what they did? Probably not. Do we want to have them

tortured before they die? Do we want to have a series of unpleasant

processes? If you make your criminal justice system simply about exactly

what people deserve, you can never do enough. That is not the way to

think about it. Justice is not about revenge. OK. It is time to see what

you guys at home have chosen on the leaderboard. We have closed the

voting. Here is the leaderboard. The top question is from Emily. She asks

should male circumcision be made illegal, like female circumcision?

Should male circumcision be made illegal? Peter? No. One of the

reasons for the confusion about this is the word circumcision has been

used to describe the horrendous operation known as female genital

mutilation, which is not circumcision. It is absolutely...

Absolutely right. It should never be used. Week asked whether the

questioner should keep that language. They said yes. You would

not use racist language. It is not female circumcision. You should

never use it. It is the most appalling assault on women, to take

away... We said FGM, when we set it out at the beginning, we need to

phrase questions the way people ask them. That is hate speech, illegal.

Your viewer used the term, it confuses people. Male circumcision

is a different thing. I personally would not want to circumcise any

child of mine. In my own childhood, it was a very medically fashionable

thing to do. It was done to a lot of people in my generation. Everybody

here knows also that it is a religious requirement for Jews and

Muslims, pretty much, arising from a passage in Genesis which both faiths

refer to. For them it is a very important sign of the faith. If you

start talking about making it illegal, you are possibly using it

as an excuse to say unpleasant things about a religious minority,

which one should be careful of. My answer is, no, it would provide huge

difficulties, conscientious difficulties for Jews and Muslims.

It would be almost certainly unenforceable and would take away

the possibility of doing something about female genital mutilation.

Anna? I am cross because we know that people in the past have used

language which is wrong and as we mature we grow up as a society, we

get rid of it. To call it female circumcision by people who supported

it, to try and give it some sort of credit, when in fact it is the most

appalling assault, both psychologically and physically. It

is done in order to take away that young child's's future enjoyment of

sexual intercourse. That is why it is done. It has terrible scarring,

literally physical scarring and mentally scarring. I am really

pleased when I was a minister in health, we really tried to get on

top of this and we are trying to bring prosecutions. In stark

contrast to male circumcision, which is often a medical thing done for

good medical reasons, it is practised by some religions, it is

totally different to female genital mutilation. Let's get that clear.

APPLAUSE A gentleman disagrees? We have to

make a distinction. Male circumcision is not objectively

wrong. Consenting adults, infants who require it, it is permissible,

but to systematically laments circumcision among infants for

purely religious regions -- reasons this barbaric. It is... In a secular

country we should not allow religion... This is off the top of

his head. Domain the genitalia... Week get the idea. I am not an

expert in male circumcision but I don't think it is done, what happens

with female genital mutilation, that is the most appalling thing, to take

away a woman's enjoyment of sexual intercourse. They are totally

separate. I don't think, I am not Jewish or a Muslim, there must be

people in this audience who can tell us why it is done, but it is not

done to prohibit somebody in their sexuality. In fact it does. I agree

with everything that Peter and Anna said and it is a problem to put them

in the same space because you appear to be treating them with equivalent

seriousness. FGM is a huge, barbaric problem. Male circumcision is a

different thing. Having said that, you should not make male

circumcision illegal. There should be more space within Islam and the

Jewish community for gesturing whether or not these have to be an

essential part of their religion. Would I want my child to be

circumcised? Absolutely not. I would not do it to an adult, therefore I

would not do it to a child. I have done work with daughters of Eve, who

campaign against FGM, they are brilliant ladies, and I spoke to

them about it because having a child and speaking about male circumcision

and what they have said is even though it is not the same they

personally don't think it should happen to males or females. A lot of

people are desensitised to the issue because it is in our culture. The

fact is, what sane person looks at a newborn baby and thinks, what a

bundle of joy, pass me a knife, let me slice of the fork skin. You are

making faces, why do you find... -- the foreskin. For some young babies

it is a medical procedure. Men in this room have been circumcised, you

are getting worried, sir, but seriously, some people circumcised

because you need to be circumcised because you have problem with your

foreskin. How would you respond to these people online, who are sharing

their stories. I am circumcised and hated. I have my whole choice to an

intact body removed at birth, say no to circumcision. I am angry because

part of my body was removed without consent. My parents did nothing to

protect me. This from Ray, I was circumcised as a child and it caused

the numerous problems. It should not have been legal to do that to me

without my permission. How do you respond? There is no expert on

circumcision. I consider myself an expert. I was circumcised. I don't

suffer from any psychological harm, because a lot of people circumcised

when they are babies and it is a voluntary act. If you take away the

responsibility from the parents, you should also take away the

responsibility to send them to school, to do this and that. Saved

my life, maybe, it saved my life, because I could have got AIDS or

HIV, maybe other things that people could get, so why do people think

this is... It isn't medically inconclusive whether there are

benefits. You make your point very powerfully. And very movingly. You

plainly believe it very strongly. I think what you have said deserves

very much to be heard and considered by everybody and makes me think when

I hear it and would make anyone think when they hear it. You need to

listen to those particularly in the Jewish and Muslim faiths who might

argue the opposite to you, with equal passion, and with equal

conviction, that they are right. Under those circumstances, is it

possible in a free society to make a law of the kind which you require?

There is too much disagreement. Also too much danger of what might turn

out to be covert religious persecution for that to happen. You

may say if we argue about this long enough that among Jews and Muslims

living in our society there will come about a movement against it and

that might not be a terribly bad thing. But I do not think that

banning it by law would achieve that or bring it forward. You should

consider there is more to this than what you have said. OK. A lot to

think about. We will go to the final question. Should there be stricter

punishments for rape? Let's start with you. It share shares certain

car ris ticks that it is kind of the wrong question. Only 3% of rapists,

or rape cases end newspaper a successful prosecution. How can we

bring that number up? I think rape case, certainly there is a very - it

is very clear, rape is rape. There is no distinction between different

types of rape as far as the action goes. With any crime it is possible

to distinguish, with mitigating factors and I think we have a legal

system that deals with that successfully. The part it does not

deal with, is actually getting rapists prosecuted successfully and

having them sent to prison. APPLAUSE

The gentleman up here. Your main point there was only 3% of rape

accusations end up with somebody being successfully prosecutes and

that should go up. Maybe the other side is that perhaps there's some

evidence of good work there that there are a lot of false

allegations. There is no evidence there is a higher number of false

accusations... I am not saying a higher number. To blanketly go - we

need to increase this, it should be higher is leading to people being

accused more. If you think we should reduce the success of all

prosecution events to 3%... If you are saying that rape is this special

case where... I am not making a case for a special case. You kind of are.

There is another argument, there is a low prosecution rate... As far as

punishment goes there - if someone is accused of rape, at the moment -

their name can be made public. The accuser's name can't. That person's

reputation - they could lose their job. They could lose a family, and

they may not have done anything. It is very odd that you don't...

Nobody makes these arguments about any other crime apart from rape. I

think that is odd. Rape is often the most difficult case to prosecute.

When the issue is consent, so you have two people - it tends to be a

man and woman, who are known to each other - it is not denied that sexual

intercourse took place, but the issue is consent. They are very

difficult to prosecute. The maximum sentence for life is -- for rape is

life. In my experience, judges get it right. If you are convicted of

rape after trial, you could expect to go away for at least five years.

At least five years. And then, as many people in here will know from

their experiences, there will be certain circumstances where it is

higher and higher. My experience, judges get rape and they know how to

sentence and they dish out, quite rightly, tough sentences. It is one

of the most serious, appalling crimes which can be committed. I do

realise obviously that rape is very hard to convict, but, you know,

surely 3%, that is not really high... I thought it was higher than

that. That is not very high. Surely there should be stricter laws,

considering it is one of the worst crime to commit, because you don't

give consent to give sexual intercourse. Repeat offender, if

they are not caught in time, it will be worse. Surely the Government

should be able to clamp down on the laws to make it harder for people

not to get away with it and put them behind bars. I think nobody is

arguing about the horrible nature of rape or the need to punish convicted

rapists. What seems to be behind this is a willingness to set aside

the greatest protection that our liberty has - which is the

presumption of innocence. No-one can put you in prison in this country

until they have proved, to the satisfaction of a jury, that you

have done what you are accused of. It is very difficult to do that in

the case of rape, because it is often the case of one person's word

against another. Some of you will have sat on juries. All of you

probably will. When we aagreed to send somebody to

prison and ruin his life forever, then you have to think very hard

about whether and what you believe. How you can get rid... I would pay

almost any price to preserve jury trial on the presumption of

innocence, because they are the absolute, solid bedrock of the

liberty. More valuable than democracy, more valuable than

anything else in keeping the state too powerful. It may be you one day

who is more easily convicted as a result. Then you'll know what it

means. You are blaming the victim there. You are the person that is

installing rape culture into this country. The reason there is such a

small amount of people that are convicted is because people don't

report it because of rape culture. There needs to be a change in the

attitude of people. Poor people who are convicted of rape - how their

lives are ruined. Forget about that - the victim has to live with that

for the rest of their life. Yet, you are saying the person who has done

it - oh, they will go for prison for five years - that is so hard for

them to do. There is a footballer who has been convicted of raping a

19-year-old girl. Do yacht name him, please. -- do not name him, please.

He heed a so many people go, he his life has been ruined because he's

raped this girl. We will move away from specifics. It does not proved

right... This is one of the most sexist countries because of the

crucial sexism. It is disgraceful. We need to look at preventative

causes of rape and look at the breakdown of the family and fathers

not being around and the way that people treat women. Men in society

and that needs to go back to the family unit being re-established and

being important and being supported by the Government. The lady with the

blue hair. Before I got interrupted, basically people are terrified of

coming forward when they have been raped. We need to get rid of that

for people to be convicted properly. Because, well, who on earth would

want to go through being asked how much you have drunk, what you were

wearing, what you were doing when it has nothing to do with it whatever.

APPLAUSE I absolutely promise you, you do not

get asked those questions now. I have someone I know who has been

asked that. It used to be the case that there were people who would be

asked, what were you wearing? Somebody drink plays a part, if you

are saying you cannot remember this, that or the other. The idea that you

would be asked what you were wearing. This was a year ago and she

was asked about that. I will happily talk to you about that. Judges and

barristers do not ask those questions. You are right. I would

put that into the mix. Just stop and think about it, for somebody to go

forward and to make an allegation of rape, how likely is it that they

would actually make that up when they know what will happen when they

do have to go to court and have to relive it? And the idea that people

make up rape is absolute nonsense. They do get anonymity. The other

important thing to say, is however well judges, lawyers and police

officers behave, we talked about the idea of rape culture - there is real

truth oh to that. It is ultimately juries who decide. It is right it is

vital to preserve the primacy of jury trials and treat them with the

seriousness they deserve. But, if you have a culture in which rape is

constantly questioned in a way that we really don't question people who

claim any other crime has been committed against them. We don't say

if you are walking down the street and mugged, well you should not have

had money in your pocket! We say on the other hand, you still hear

people about wearing short skirts as somehow a contributory factor. Can

we bring in views of people at home. Oliver says:

Interesting. I just think, you know, as ar chi

said it is very -- Archie said it is a very emotive question. Sometimes

people rape several times. Because rape victims feel ashamed. Sometimes

when somebody else has come forward it allows others to come forward. If

we look at cases of child abuse. There is almost safety in numbers.

It is a hard balance to strike. The lady here. People are, people don't

come forward because the sentence is not long enough. Life is not life.

Life is, OK, so I'll be good in prison and they'll let me out.

That person has to live with that for the rest of their lives. Like, I

am not talking from experience, but the rapist gets to walk free. You

feel punishment should be stricter. When you get life, you are given the

license of 99 years. You can be recalled to prison absolutely any

time. If you are seen with the wrong

person. People don't understand that when they say life not being life. I

disagree. They should not be let out because they are in prison for a

reason. I am not sure it works like that. I don't think people make the

decision about whether or not to report a crime based on the length

of a sentence that the person will get. What they... I am not saying

they don't care about it massively. It is a contributing factor though.

They want the person to be caught and found guilty. If they do not

think there is a pros eblingt pect -- pross pect of that, that is the

thing that -- prospect of that, that is what persuades them. We are

talking about such a sensitive subject. There are so many factors

to consider. The point the lady with the blue hair made - why should

victims be asked such personal questions? The defending barrister

has to make sure that beyond reasonable doubt a case has been

proven. If the questions are not asked, how can we rely on the

judgment made at the end. It is difficult from every angle. We, as a

society, have to work out how to make this better for the victims and

better for the judicial system. 3%, quite frankly, is not good enough.

Absolutely right. That is unfortunately all we have time for.

We'll be off air now until the autumn. We are. Thank you for all

your comments and tweets. We hope nothing contentious happens in the

next few months. See you in September. Good night.

Are you sure you want to know what this is all about?

I want my daughter. What are you going to do, start shooting people?