:00:07. > :00:12.They started as a vital part of a woman's right to choose. Now
:00:12. > :00:22.Britain does almost 200,000 abortions a year. Should we make it
:00:22. > :00:37.
:00:37. > :00:40.Good morning and welcome to Sunday Morning Live. MPs vote this week on
:00:40. > :00:44.making women have independent counselling before they can have an
:00:44. > :00:48.abortion. A timely halt to terminations or turning the clock
:00:48. > :00:52.back on women's rights? Police are gearing up to remove 400
:00:52. > :00:56.travellers from an illegal camp. The council says it has a perfect
:00:56. > :01:00.right to bulldoze their homes. Opponents say it is racist. Whose
:01:00. > :01:04.side are you on? The number of people we put behind
:01:04. > :01:08.bars is the highest in history. The Government says locking up
:01:08. > :01:13.criminals reduces crime and delivers justice. A former BBC
:01:13. > :01:17.presenter who has done time for the assault says the opposite is true.
:01:17. > :01:20.I believe it is time we stop sending so many people to jail.
:01:20. > :01:25.Prison places should be saved for just the most violent and serious
:01:25. > :01:32.of criminals. My guests have not made their names
:01:32. > :01:38.be pulling any punches. Lowri Turner is a Fleet Street journalist
:01:38. > :01:42.and her son calls for Joseph sterling. -- Joseph Stalin. Richard
:01:42. > :01:48.D North likes throwing right hooks at the left. And Patricia Casey is
:01:48. > :01:52.a professor of psychiatry who treats women post abortion and has
:01:52. > :02:02.spoken publicly about her pro-life views. We would like you to give
:02:02. > :02:08.
:02:08. > :02:12.your views, through Twitter, Skype In 2011 it is a shocking claim that
:02:12. > :02:17.women are being railroaded into abortions in private clinics, so
:02:17. > :02:20.said MPs this week we want to change the law. They want women to
:02:20. > :02:25.get independent advice before going through with a termination. Critics
:02:25. > :02:30.say this just means more hoops and anguish for women to go through at
:02:30. > :02:37.a vulnerable time. Running at almost 200,000 a year, are too many
:02:37. > :02:42.abortions now a very poor form of birth control?
:02:42. > :02:47.In the year after abortion was first legalised in 1967, just under
:02:47. > :02:52.50,000 were carried out. Last year, almost 200,000 were performed in
:02:52. > :02:56.Britain. Some say this rise shows a life-changing decision has become a
:02:57. > :03:01.lifestyle choice. Before a woman can have an abortion, the law
:03:01. > :03:05.requires two doctors to agree there is a risk to the mental or physical
:03:05. > :03:09.health of the mother or child. Some MPs and anti-abortion campaigners
:03:09. > :03:14.are worried that private abortion clinics are giving advice which
:03:14. > :03:19.encourages women to terminate the pregnancy. On Tuesday some MPs want
:03:19. > :03:23.to pass a law to ensure that women wanting abortions must first see
:03:23. > :03:27.independent advisers. They hope this could prevent 60,000 abortions
:03:27. > :03:32.every year. Opponents say this would make it harder for women to
:03:32. > :03:35.get an abortion but is that a good thing? Many religious groups are
:03:35. > :03:40.united in their belief that abortion is murder and they want to
:03:41. > :03:46.ban it. Others believe that NHS waiting lists already make it too
:03:46. > :03:50.hard to get an abortion and that the new law will allow faith group
:03:50. > :03:55.to try to persuade women not to terminate, making a difficult
:03:55. > :04:02.decision even harder. As abortion now become just another form of
:04:02. > :04:06.contraception? Or should we stand by a woman's right to choose?
:04:06. > :04:10.Professor Patricia Casey, you are a psychiatrist and a Catholic, as you
:04:10. > :04:15.are also against abortion. It is a hard decision for a woman to make.
:04:15. > :04:19.Do you think it should be harder? think the question is misplaced.
:04:19. > :04:24.What I would like to see would be a reduction in the number of women
:04:24. > :04:29.seeking abortion. I think women deserve better. Do hundred thousand
:04:29. > :04:35.abortions every year, one-third of them repeat abortions. -- 200,000
:04:35. > :04:39.abortions. We know from research published in the British Journal of
:04:39. > :04:42.Psychiatry that abortion for some women is traumatising. It is a
:04:42. > :04:47.life-changing event and it can be deeply distressing emotional. It
:04:47. > :04:51.can cause psychiatric illness. I think we need to give women more
:04:51. > :04:55.options. We need to be honest about the options so they can make
:04:55. > :05:05.informed choices. That is the question for our text message vote
:05:05. > :05:13.
:05:13. > :05:18.this morning. Should we make it We will show you how you voted at
:05:18. > :05:22.the end of the programme. So you don't think it should be harder?
:05:22. > :05:27.You think other options should be easier? I think other options
:05:27. > :05:31.should be easy and women should be offered independent counselling.
:05:31. > :05:34.People who I have treated for depression and anxiety disorders
:05:34. > :05:39.after abortion tell me that they are not given the information that
:05:39. > :05:43.they would have wished to have. One lady became actively suicidal after
:05:43. > :05:48.an abortion and she said to me that nobody told her it would be like
:05:48. > :05:53.that. Time and again, women tell me the same thing. Adoption is not
:05:53. > :05:57.discussed. Keeping the baby is barely mentioned. They are not
:05:57. > :06:01.given the information about mental health. Are you talking about women
:06:01. > :06:07.that have had this experience within the UK? Yes. Let's talk to
:06:08. > :06:13.an abortion adviser from the Marie Stopes Clinic, the medical director.
:06:13. > :06:20.Is it already hard, Dr Franklin, for women to get the information
:06:20. > :06:23.that they need before an abortion? I think we do our best to make sure
:06:23. > :06:28.that information is available to all women. We certainly provide
:06:28. > :06:33.that information at Marie Stopes. The important thing is that the
:06:33. > :06:36.information is impartial and non- judgmental, and non directive. I
:06:36. > :06:42.think the more of that sort of information that women can have
:06:42. > :06:47.before they make this very difficult decision the better.
:06:47. > :06:51.you think that once they have had the counselling that women are
:06:51. > :06:55.saying this as an easy option, an alternative form of birth control?
:06:55. > :07:00.There is no evidence from the women but I see in our centres every day
:07:00. > :07:03.that this is an easy option. This is a difficult decision for all of
:07:03. > :07:06.the women that have to make it and I think we should respect that and
:07:06. > :07:10.the difficulties that they have. We certainly offer counselling both
:07:10. > :07:14.before, and if they are due to proceed with the abortion, after as
:07:14. > :07:19.well. They can have as much of that as they would like to support them.
:07:19. > :07:27.This is not an easy decision for anyone. Can I say that when I have
:07:27. > :07:31.dealt with people that have had abortions that have returned to the
:07:31. > :07:36.abortion provider, full of anguish, they have been told you should not
:07:36. > :07:40.feel guilty, it was just a clump of cells. It is that that point that
:07:40. > :07:46.they often go to their GPs and GPs refer them to people like myself. I
:07:47. > :07:51.am not the only psychiatrist treating people in this area.
:07:51. > :07:56.that a problem. Various things occurred to me. If a woman goes to
:07:56. > :08:02.Marie Stopes, somewhere that is known for providing terminations,
:08:02. > :08:06.on the whole, her mind is made up. You can now do home pregnancy tests,
:08:06. > :08:09.so you would have done the test yourself at home. You don't want to
:08:09. > :08:13.find out whether you are pregnant and what you should then do. When
:08:13. > :08:17.it comes to making that decision, surely the people that are
:08:17. > :08:21.important in that decision are the father... We have not talked about
:08:21. > :08:26.the men at all. We have only talk about the woman's decision.
:08:26. > :08:32.Frequently it is the man's decision, too. And also her family. The idea
:08:32. > :08:37.of these poor, vulnerable women, going to these wicked, evil
:08:37. > :08:43.abortion providers, being strong- armed into having an abortion, to
:08:43. > :08:48.me that doesn't seem honest in terms of how women are today. Women
:08:48. > :08:52.are quite proactive. It is not free to go to Marie Stopes. You have to
:08:52. > :08:56.pay and therefore you kind of know what you want. I think that if we
:08:56. > :09:01.are having escalating numbers of terminations, then the question is
:09:01. > :09:06.not whether you should make it easier, but what is going wrong
:09:06. > :09:10.with contraception elsewhere? And what about the men in this? There
:09:11. > :09:15.is a strong sense of women being punished. My friend here obviously
:09:15. > :09:20.treats people, and people have had an abortion and then gone on to
:09:20. > :09:23.feel anxiety, but what about the women who have the baby and a post
:09:23. > :09:27.natal depression? They have to be treated as well. What about the
:09:27. > :09:31.women with hopes and dreams of an education and a career that have to
:09:31. > :09:37.be put aside because they are pregnant? Depression caused by
:09:37. > :09:39.anything, abortion or post natal depression, can be treated. The
:09:39. > :09:45.difference with the abortion is that the decision once you have
:09:45. > :09:49.made it cannot be changed. The baby is gone. The baby is dead. There is
:09:49. > :09:53.no way back. For many women, that is something that they live with
:09:53. > :09:57.for the rest of their lives. A lot of women feel immensely relieved
:09:57. > :10:00.that they have made a difficult decision. There are very high
:10:00. > :10:04.figures for the number of babies, and we are talking about embryos,
:10:04. > :10:10.not fully formed babies, the number of babies that are lost naturally
:10:10. > :10:14.is very high. Nature causes a lot of women to lose the baby.
:10:14. > :10:17.issue is not really about whether abortion is good or bad. Clearly it
:10:17. > :10:21.is a very bad form of birth control but it is one that women opt for
:10:21. > :10:24.and maybe it is too late to cancel them. Maybe it should have happened
:10:24. > :10:28.earlier about why they are getting pregnant in the first place. The
:10:28. > :10:33.issue this week is about whether Marie Stopes should be locked out
:10:33. > :10:37.of counselling because they are provider. So far as I understood it,
:10:37. > :10:40.and hearing from people that have been to Marie Stopes, they have a
:10:40. > :10:45.good record of counselling. If they are providing good counselling and
:10:45. > :10:49.good advice, then so be it. Divorced women to go trotting round
:10:49. > :10:55.some anti-abortion type places, let's say, to hear their point of
:10:55. > :11:02.view first, seems to me a little wrong. I want to speak to Nadine
:11:02. > :11:05.Dorries, the MP who has sparked this row in recent weeks. Your
:11:05. > :11:13.amendment is all about getting women what you call independent
:11:13. > :11:17.counselling. Is the aim to make it harder to get the termination that
:11:17. > :11:21.they have approached the clinic for? Can I correct the
:11:21. > :11:26.misinformation that has been spoken on the programme? At Marie Stopes
:11:26. > :11:31.to do not have to pay for the abortion. 96% of abortions are paid
:11:31. > :11:36.for at the NHS and not every woman who goes to Marie Stopes or any
:11:36. > :11:39.other abortion provider has made up her mind. 15% decide not to go
:11:39. > :11:43.ahead and actually leave Marie Stopes. They have not made up their
:11:43. > :11:48.mind when they get there. Your other commentator, it is not
:11:48. > :11:53.actually about driving women into the hands of other groups. This
:11:53. > :11:58.amendment is about simply making an offer to a woman of independent
:11:58. > :12:02.counselling, and if she wants she can take it. If she does not want
:12:02. > :12:05.to, she does not have to. The kind of women that will accept that
:12:05. > :12:12.offer will be the women that are having doubts. That is all it is,
:12:12. > :12:17.an offer. Just to get back to my original point, and the point we
:12:17. > :12:25.are asking viewers to vote on this morning, is the idea behind it to
:12:25. > :12:28.reduce the number of terminations by making it more challenging,
:12:28. > :12:32.asking more women to change their minds, are you trying to make it
:12:32. > :12:37.harder for women to get an abortion? We are not trying to make
:12:37. > :12:43.it harder at all. Most abortions take place between 7 and 14 days.
:12:43. > :12:45.The counselling would be delivered within 24 to 48 hours. Those women
:12:45. > :12:50.that accept the offer of counselling will be those that have
:12:50. > :12:53.doubts. Whether they go ahead or not, there will be no delay
:12:53. > :12:58.whatsoever. They will still have the abortion at the same point in
:12:58. > :13:04.time that they would have before. This is simply an offer for those
:13:04. > :13:09.that may need additional help. need to put that to Dr Franklin,
:13:09. > :13:13.medical director of Marie Stopes. Independent counselling might
:13:13. > :13:19.encourage more people that have not made up their mind to make a
:13:19. > :13:23.different decision. I would like to make a couple of points. The
:13:23. > :13:28.majority of women at that come to Marie Stopes have made up their
:13:28. > :13:32.mind and have decided that they want an abortion. In those cases we
:13:32. > :13:35.still offer women the opportunity to talk to a counsellor. Just
:13:35. > :13:39.because you have made up your mind does not mean that there are no
:13:39. > :13:42.issues that you want to discuss. That is important and we make that
:13:42. > :13:52.offer. The counselling that we provide is impartial, non-
:13:52. > :13:57.
:13:57. > :14:00.judgmental and non-Dai Rector. -- non-directives. Our councillors are
:14:00. > :14:04.all members of an official organisation and council according
:14:04. > :14:07.to the guidance of that organisation. It is tempting to
:14:07. > :14:13.talk to women that have been through this experience. Margaret
:14:13. > :14:23.joins us on the webcam. In the past, you have been through two abortions.
:14:23. > :14:29.One of them left behind a twin who is now in her twenties. What do you
:14:29. > :14:39.feel, looking back, about how easy it was to access those
:14:39. > :14:40.
:14:40. > :14:48.Well, it wasn't difficult to access the abortion, but I really want to
:14:48. > :14:53.quote Homer the fact that you can be outside of of the situation and
:14:53. > :14:58.think what he would do if you're ever faced with a crisis pregnancy.
:14:58. > :15:03.-- what I really want to put over his. But a life, maybe for the
:15:03. > :15:07.first time, is out of your control, and it is not as logical as those
:15:07. > :15:13.who are providing the abortion and those who support abortion would
:15:13. > :15:17.say it is. I felt like a headless chicken, and I was terrified,
:15:17. > :15:24.frightened. What was I going to do? What was going to happen in my
:15:24. > :15:31.life? I was ask two questions in the so-called counselling, are you
:15:31. > :15:39.in a supportive situation, and can you cope? My answer was no, and
:15:39. > :15:45.they said I could have an abortion. Is it a baby? That is the only
:15:45. > :15:49.question I asked. They said no, it is only a blob of cells. Well, I
:15:49. > :15:54.regret that I aborted two children. They were not just for once, they
:15:54. > :15:58.were my children, and I did not realise that. Because of the fear
:15:58. > :16:01.and panic, I did not realise until after the second abortion. What
:16:01. > :16:06.would have been the moral difference between avoiding that
:16:06. > :16:11.more of cells, as somebody called it, and having used more effective
:16:11. > :16:14.birth control at the point of contraception? I mean, Margaret is
:16:14. > :16:24.regretting the loss of a baby, the loss of a child that would have
:16:24. > :16:24.
:16:24. > :16:29.grown up. Well, I mean, that losses kind of hypothetical. An act of
:16:29. > :16:33.contraception earlier would have led to the same loss of that baby.
:16:33. > :16:40.Well, I would say the majority of the 200,000 women that are having
:16:40. > :16:45.abortions are not using contraception. You are putting your
:16:45. > :16:50.logic to situations in life where people are not thinking about
:16:50. > :16:55.contraception. People are a emotionally wounded today. There is
:16:55. > :16:58.not one of us working that do not have some emotional issues. That is
:16:58. > :17:03.the area that you are not understanding. You cannot apply
:17:03. > :17:11.logic to people out there that are drunk and having sex, taking the
:17:11. > :17:15.risk. That is the reality. Margaret, I want to talk to Lucy, who has
:17:15. > :17:21.also been through the experience. We appreciate you staying with us.
:17:21. > :17:26.Lucy Cavendish, you are a mother of four children, but you have been
:17:26. > :17:30.through two abortions. Do you feel a emotionally affected by them?
:17:30. > :17:34.Without wishing to sound particularly callous, I do not feel
:17:34. > :17:39.a emotionally affected by them. I really do not want to get into a
:17:39. > :17:43.debate about when a baby becomes a baby, and obviously I now have four
:17:43. > :17:47.children, so I am aware of the process of pregnancy. Lots of
:17:47. > :17:52.people use contraception, I used contraception, but it did not work,
:17:52. > :17:57.and I ended up with two crisis pregnancies, as they call it, in my
:17:57. > :18:01.early 20s. For a variety of reasons, I chose not to go ahead with them.
:18:01. > :18:05.I think those were the right decisions for me at the time. For
:18:05. > :18:09.no woman is this an easy decision. It is a really difficult, really
:18:09. > :18:13.hard decision, and I absolutely do not believe that the majority of
:18:13. > :18:16.women use it as a form of contraception. You can take the
:18:16. > :18:20.morning after pill, there are a million and one things you can do
:18:20. > :18:24.now. You have to think about where you are in your life. At the age of
:18:24. > :18:28.20, I honestly do not think I could cope with having a baby, bringing
:18:29. > :18:33.up a baby, and I was finishing my studies, and I still stand by that.
:18:33. > :18:37.Do I go back and think, I could have done it differently? I do not,
:18:37. > :18:42.and I am not one of those women who has been psychologically really
:18:42. > :18:46.affected by it, because that is what I believe. Let's talked to
:18:46. > :18:53.Anne Widdecombe. Your stance is very public and clear to people.
:18:53. > :18:58.Let me ask you this, it is an individual woman's choice, and
:18:58. > :19:03.obviously someone choose to do it and then regret it, but why should
:19:03. > :19:08.the state make it harder, then, for all women? Well, you are talking as
:19:08. > :19:14.if there's only one person involved in this. Of course, there are two.
:19:14. > :19:18.The unborn child needs a voice. You cannot say, as the last contributed
:19:18. > :19:22.did, say that you cannot argue about when a baby becomes a baby.
:19:22. > :19:26.That is exactly the issue. If a woman has a child and has just
:19:26. > :19:31.brought it into the world, no matter how awful the circumstances,
:19:31. > :19:36.she has no power at that point over that child's life. It is accorded
:19:36. > :19:40.full civil rights. You have to ask where you have a situation where
:19:40. > :19:46.you can have two children of equal age of gestation, absolutely equal,
:19:46. > :19:50.one has been born prematurely and his in a cot with medical resources,
:19:50. > :19:55.and the other, who is just as much a baby and just as much developed,
:19:55. > :19:59.is being taken from the womb and destroyed just because the woman
:19:59. > :20:03.has decided she does not want it. Now, that does not mean that and
:20:03. > :20:06.not sympathetic to people who find themselves with an unwanted
:20:06. > :20:11.pregnancy. I am very sympathetic, and there are lots of things we
:20:11. > :20:17.should be doing to address that and to support the woman in those
:20:17. > :20:22.circumstances. Asking me to ignore completely the life of a child is
:20:22. > :20:27.actually asking me to ignore the most fundamental responsibility.
:20:27. > :20:32.have to say, where is the father? We are not talking anything about
:20:32. > :20:37.the far this year. I have got two sons, my eldest is 11. Let's say he
:20:37. > :20:40.gets his girlfriend pregnant at the age of 17. I will be marching head
:20:41. > :20:45.down to marry Stopes, because it would be his life that would be
:20:45. > :20:48.destroyed as well as hers. The idea that women, on the one hand, the
:20:48. > :20:52.whole point about the sexual revolution is that women should be
:20:52. > :20:58.able to enjoy sex and men should have won and sexually available to
:20:58. > :21:03.them. If that is the world in which we live, unwanted pregnancies will
:21:03. > :21:06.occur. We have talked about the emotional effects on women, and we
:21:06. > :21:10.have talked to a woman who feels clearly devastated by what happened
:21:10. > :21:15.to her, but isn't the answer to give more emotional support to
:21:15. > :21:20.vulnerable women and not to make them feel guilty about what is
:21:20. > :21:26.happening? I would concur with what Anne Widdecombe says. There are two
:21:26. > :21:31.people, in fact three, there is the father, the woman and a baby. We
:21:31. > :21:37.need to keep all three in our sights. Now, in relation to the
:21:37. > :21:41.woman, of course, the woman needs support, and before the abortion
:21:41. > :21:45.she needs accurate information so that she is not the worst in to it.
:21:45. > :21:49.I frequently deal with people who have been coerced by boyfriends or
:21:49. > :21:57.parents into having abortions when they actually do not want them, and
:21:57. > :22:00.that really is a recipe for disaster. These women need careful
:22:00. > :22:05.counselling and needs sensitive management. But does that
:22:05. > :22:10.ultimately make it more difficult? At various points in history,
:22:10. > :22:14.society has said that human beings were not too much. It happened with
:22:14. > :22:20.slavery, it happened with women, and we were not let it happen with
:22:20. > :22:25.relation to babies. In my experience, women often suffer a
:22:25. > :22:29.great deal from having had abortions, and some of them, as he
:22:29. > :22:34.said, are socially colours. But the issue in Parliament, the thing that
:22:34. > :22:40.is being discussed is that I thought they were being told that
:22:40. > :22:44.they had to go through counselling. This amendment in parliament, the
:22:44. > :22:48.proposal seems quite reasonable. In any case it is already offered. I
:22:48. > :22:54.do not understand this week what the fuss is about, because Marie
:22:54. > :22:58.Stopes say that they always offered his independent counselling. Nadine
:22:58. > :23:02.in Parliament wants to insisted should be offered. Let me let the
:23:02. > :23:07.viewers have a say on this. Simon says, abortion should be avoided. I
:23:07. > :23:11.was adopted and found my birth mother at 24, they considered
:23:11. > :23:16.abortion. I have a life and have done my best to make the most of it,
:23:16. > :23:21.and others deserve the same opportunity. Alison is in Northern
:23:21. > :23:25.Ireland and says, I had an abortion 20 years ago. I have not gone on to
:23:25. > :23:29.have another child, I have been left scarred. If you are all enough
:23:29. > :23:34.to have sex, you are old enough to deal with the consequences. Sylvia
:23:34. > :23:37.from Hertfordshire, I have at two abortions, I received excellent
:23:37. > :23:40.consultations that were very neutral, and if we make abortions
:23:40. > :23:44.harder, we will return to backstreet abortions that were so
:23:44. > :23:54.dangerous. That is our text poll today. Should we make it harder to
:23:54. > :24:08.
:24:08. > :24:12.It is a stand of that may yet turn violent. The law says the Dale Farm
:24:12. > :24:16.travellers have to leave and their homes be destroyed. The travellers
:24:16. > :24:23.say the eviction is racist, and they are digging in. Who you think
:24:23. > :24:29.This is one of the largest unauthorised travellers' sites in
:24:29. > :24:33.Europe. To the 400 travellers who face being convicted, it is home.
:24:33. > :24:37.This eviction in Essex in 2004 is what the travellers fear is about
:24:37. > :24:42.to happen to them. The council says the eviction is purely a planning
:24:42. > :24:45.issue. The travellers only site but have built on it illegally. The
:24:45. > :24:48.judges have agreed the council have the right to demolish their homes,
:24:48. > :24:53.as they would with any other group of people, but the travellers say
:24:53. > :24:58.their treatment is racist. On Friday, the United Nations
:24:58. > :25:02.intervened to say the eviction could be a human rights violation.
:25:02. > :25:06.Irish travellers are historically a nomadic people with their own
:25:06. > :25:10.language and distinctive culture. They say they are stereotyped as
:25:10. > :25:13.dirty and criminal and often discriminated against. Many have
:25:13. > :25:18.now settled, but there is a lack of legal sites, which leads to
:25:18. > :25:23.conflict with local villagers. have had to put up with it for 10
:25:23. > :25:28.years. If anybody came here and put up with this for 10 years, I do not
:25:28. > :25:32.think they would last one week. the year 2000, Irish travellers
:25:32. > :25:36.were recognised under English law as a protected ethnic minority, and
:25:36. > :25:40.those at Dale Farm say their eviction is ethnic cleansing.
:25:40. > :25:45.Forgive us our sins... It is not happening, we are here to fight,
:25:45. > :25:48.and we are going to fight it. this alternative lifestyles deserve
:25:48. > :25:55.special protection, or are they doing something illegal and asking
:25:55. > :26:00.for special treatment? Well, let us know what you think. You can make
:26:00. > :26:03.or point on Skype and joined the conversation on Twitter. The
:26:03. > :26:08.details will be on screen. Jake Bowers is the editor of Travellers'
:26:08. > :26:14.Times and a Romany gypsy. He joins us in the studio. Good morning. Is
:26:14. > :26:18.it raises? I think it is undeniably motivated by racism. To have it
:26:18. > :26:23.that amount of people on the guise of a planning dispute is undeniably
:26:23. > :26:27.racist. Aren't they just enforcing the law? They are enforcing
:26:27. > :26:30.planning law, but it is a smokescreen. If you go down there,
:26:30. > :26:33.the people are prepared to leave, but the issue they are fighting is
:26:33. > :26:39.that they should not have to move out of the district. There are
:26:39. > :26:41.other bits of land which is publicly owned when they have but
:26:41. > :26:46.in planning permission, which Basildon Council could look at.
:26:46. > :26:50.They have refused to look at it. The thing that is racist is to
:26:50. > :26:54.affect people to set a quota on a particular race of people and say,
:26:54. > :26:59.we have enough gypsies in this area. He would not be able to apply that
:26:59. > :27:04.to any other ethnic group foot. You would not be able to go to
:27:04. > :27:09.Leicester and say, we have enough Pakistanis here. Where is your
:27:09. > :27:13.evidence of this quota? I heard it from the former head of the council
:27:13. > :27:17.has said, we have enough gypsies in our area, and that has continued in
:27:17. > :27:21.the current leadership of Basildon Council. He might be talking about
:27:21. > :27:25.the fact that there is already a welcoming, tolerant attitude to a
:27:25. > :27:30.large number of people from that community. That is not the same as
:27:30. > :27:34.saying there is a quota. In effect, it is a quota. He said, and the
:27:34. > :27:41.council has stood by this, that there are already enough gypsy
:27:41. > :27:45.sites in Basildon. That is what he claimed. It is on the public record,
:27:45. > :27:50.that is what he said. But we are talking here about a site which has
:27:50. > :27:54.no planning permission, so that is an enforcement of the law, pure and
:27:54. > :27:57.simple, isn't it? You have to look at it in the context of the
:27:57. > :28:01.legislative framework which has led to it. Nomadic life in this country
:28:01. > :28:05.has been outlawed since 1994. They are not enough public sites.
:28:05. > :28:08.Getting planning permission is pretty much impossible. When you
:28:08. > :28:13.find that your traditional culture is outlawed, yes, you have to break
:28:13. > :28:16.the law and order to survive. Richard, this is not simply a
:28:16. > :28:21.planning issue, this is not simply enforcement of the law. There is
:28:21. > :28:26.something more sinister going on here. It is a nice move of Jake's,
:28:26. > :28:29.and it is a good move. I think it is a straightforward planning thing
:28:29. > :28:31.that Irish travellers have been very clever over the years in
:28:31. > :28:35.buying land very cheaply as a paddock and then turning it into a
:28:35. > :28:39.building plot. You and I could do that, we would be multi-
:28:39. > :28:44.millionaires. It is a good ruse from that point of view, and I
:28:44. > :28:47.understand why they do it. Hold on. Housebuilders do it all the time.
:28:47. > :28:51.No, they don't, because they have got to get planning permission and
:28:51. > :28:54.can only do it implausible places. Irish travellers do it where they
:28:54. > :28:57.would never get planning permission. The idea that there should be a
:28:57. > :29:03.quota, now, I think there is something in it, that people are
:29:03. > :29:06.saying, we have got enough Irish travellers, thank you very much,
:29:07. > :29:10.because this traditional way of life, it is no longer traditional,
:29:10. > :29:15.because they are moving, not moving, they are in a hinterland, staying
:29:15. > :29:18.put and not staying put, which makes life for their children
:29:18. > :29:22.difficult and gives them poor prospects and so on. But sure, I
:29:22. > :29:27.think councils are well within their rights to say, there is a
:29:27. > :29:33.strict limits to the amount of land and tolerance that our neighbour
:29:33. > :29:38.that will provide. This way of life, unlike Pakistanis or others,
:29:38. > :29:42.imposes a real strain. People do not like... People do not like
:29:42. > :29:52.having Irish travellers there. That is not a pretty thing, but it is
:29:52. > :29:54.
:29:54. > :30:02.These are separate sides, not integration into a community.
:30:03. > :30:06.is the tip of the iceberg. For Irish travellers, being nomadic is
:30:06. > :30:12.an essential part of their identity. It is not chosen, it is not
:30:12. > :30:16.debatable. It is like finding men attractive if you are homosexual,
:30:16. > :30:23.it is a key part of their identity. That is like a coal miner saying
:30:23. > :30:27.they have the right to dig coal forever. You are confusing a
:30:27. > :30:31.lifestyle with a key part of an identity. You are right winger. You
:30:31. > :30:36.should believe in family values. They want to stay there so they can
:30:36. > :30:40.look after their old people. You should be fighting this. For people
:30:40. > :30:45.that say this is a lifestyle, my knowledge of travellers and gypsies
:30:45. > :30:49.is from Big Fat gypsy Wedding, OK? As far as their traditional
:30:49. > :30:53.lifestyle goes, it does not look very traditional to me. There seems
:30:53. > :30:58.to be picking and choosing going on. When it is useful to be regarded as
:30:58. > :31:01.a traditional ethnic group, OK, but when you want to listen to
:31:01. > :31:05.Christina Aguilera and get married in pink chiffon, then that goes out
:31:05. > :31:09.the window. Looking at the amount of flat-screen TV's and the amount
:31:10. > :31:14.of money they appeared to have, if I was a local person and I had
:31:14. > :31:18.wanted to convert a building in my garden into an office, and it had
:31:18. > :31:23.been turned down, and then I saw Dale Farm, I would be livid because
:31:23. > :31:30.for the rest of us it is about fair play. The rest of us want to live
:31:30. > :31:35.by certain rules. Some of these people are terminally ill, and
:31:35. > :31:39.they... A lot of them are not terminally ill. The few are drawing
:31:39. > :31:47.your knowledge from that TV programme then you need to visit
:31:47. > :31:51.them. The -- if you are. There are laws that we have to live by and it
:31:51. > :31:54.appears to the outsider that certain among gypsy traveller
:31:54. > :31:59.communities think they do not apply to them. Why are they in the UK
:32:00. > :32:04.when they are Irish anyway? Let's put that to can be Sheridan from
:32:04. > :32:06.the gypsy Council. Is there a certain amount of opting out from
:32:06. > :32:13.the law of society because travellers consider themselves
:32:13. > :32:16.separate? Absolutely not. Firstly, enforcement is discretionary. There
:32:16. > :32:23.is no reason at all for Basildon to continue with this massive abuse
:32:23. > :32:27.and the obscene amount of money. It is discretionary. Dale Farm, like
:32:27. > :32:33.it or not, was a former scrapyard, with all the evidence for that.
:32:33. > :32:38.One-third of that site remained a scrapyard. As Richard is saying, he
:32:38. > :32:43.is trying to alienate Irish travellers. Everybody at Dale Farm,
:32:43. > :32:48.except for the people in their 70s, hold a British passport. Sorry to
:32:48. > :32:52.tell you that, they are British citizens. 103 children go to the
:32:52. > :32:58.local primary school. They will be forcibly stop from attending school.
:32:58. > :33:03.Their circumstances and prospects will be stopped by Basildon council,
:33:03. > :33:08.the MP, at David Cameron and the coalition. This is obscene. We are
:33:08. > :33:13.not above the law. I put in planning applications, I put in
:33:13. > :33:19.work behind the scenes. I identified the Brownfield sites,
:33:19. > :33:26.and my applications have not been heard. I have a public inquiry on
:33:26. > :33:31.November 22nd. Please let us have a chance to find sites for all of the
:33:31. > :33:35.travellers at Dale Farm. Everybody is willing to leave. The site is
:33:35. > :33:39.killing them. Four people are in hospital at the moment. It is
:33:39. > :33:45.obscene. People will die because of the stress, no doubt about it.
:33:45. > :33:49.Please listen to common sense and let me deliver. The business of
:33:49. > :33:53.being British and playing strongly to an ethnic card is at least a
:33:53. > :33:58.little peculiar. If you want to claim to be British, then get with
:33:58. > :34:02.the British way and live in houses like the rest of us. So you cannot
:34:02. > :34:06.be black and British, Asian and British? How ridiculous. You can be
:34:06. > :34:11.that no other group is pressing for such extraordinary rights. No other
:34:11. > :34:16.group has been so aggressively marginalised over the years. Their
:34:16. > :34:19.entire way of culture... Of but hold on. About the business of the
:34:19. > :34:24.school. I have read the Ofsted report for their primary school.
:34:24. > :34:28.Somebody is failing those kids. They go in not equipped for primary
:34:28. > :34:33.school. They are then moved in and out very quickly and they rotate
:34:33. > :34:37.around. They've virtually have their own private school there. It
:34:37. > :34:41.should be a wonderful place of education but because of this
:34:41. > :34:45.travelling thing, and maybe because the ideal of education is not taken
:34:45. > :34:48.very seriously, actually the kids don't do very well. They have
:34:49. > :34:53.prospects of gypsies is not very good. This travelling thing is not
:34:53. > :34:56.awfully good. That is maybe why so many people from his Irish
:34:56. > :35:02.travelling community actually want to do their own bricks-and-mortar
:35:02. > :35:06.but they will not do it on the terms that the rest of us have to.
:35:06. > :35:10.Presumably the alternative is to be on the housing list. That would be
:35:10. > :35:14.something the council could provide. As far as I understand it, they
:35:14. > :35:22.have been offered bricks-and-mortar. For the people that I have spoken
:35:22. > :35:26.to, I remember one brave old lady, she is clinging on to live in a
:35:26. > :35:29.horrible situation, because she is surrounded by her brothers, sisters,
:35:29. > :35:34.grandchildren. There is an incredibly supportive community
:35:34. > :35:38.atmosphere. That is the one thing that is probably keeping her alive,
:35:38. > :35:44.to be frank. She deserves to live as part of that extended family
:35:44. > :35:48.network, if not there then someone else in the district. Robin Page is
:35:48. > :35:50.chairman of the Countryside Restoration Trust. Is there a
:35:50. > :35:56.danger that people in the countryside are dealing with
:35:56. > :36:00.gypsies as a blot on the landscape, when actually they are human beings,
:36:00. > :36:06.and perhaps perfectly reasonably, they want to live the way of life
:36:06. > :36:10.that they have chosen? First of all, I cannot live any sort of life that
:36:10. > :36:16.I happen to Jews. I have to begin with society. The first question
:36:16. > :36:22.you ask, is why they are here. Are there no hospitals and schools in
:36:22. > :36:27.Ireland? If I went to Ireland, could I live wherever I like? The
:36:27. > :36:31.answer is no. In Ireland it is a criminal offence to illegally
:36:31. > :36:35.occupying land. Let's deal with this once and for all. Most of
:36:35. > :36:42.those children were born in this country. You said that question
:36:42. > :36:47.needed to be asked. Let him answer it. Let me have a say first. It is
:36:47. > :36:51.a civil offence here. That is why they are here. The people that are
:36:51. > :37:01.pleased to see them here are the guard in Ireland. I have spoken to
:37:01. > :37:02.
:37:02. > :37:08.them. You go on Tuesday it is a -- to say it is they race in but it is
:37:08. > :37:12.not. There DMI is the same as ours. You may know about the countryside
:37:12. > :37:16.but you don't know about race. It is not defined by DNA. I have the
:37:16. > :37:21.right to speak on the programme, not play tennis with you. It would
:37:21. > :37:25.be fair to allow him to answer the question. I think the result of
:37:25. > :37:33.this will be very messy. It will be a compromise. The British people
:37:33. > :37:36.will cut the Irish travellers more slack, probably, than they ought to
:37:37. > :37:42.or public opinion would like. It is going to be messy but I don't think
:37:42. > :37:47.it is helped by playing this ethnic threatened people card. There will
:37:47. > :37:50.be give and take on both sides and it will be very messy. Lots of
:37:50. > :37:54.ordinary English people that play by the rules and actually take the
:37:54. > :38:01.pain of the rules are going to be extremely hacked off by the outcome.
:38:01. > :38:05.Frankly, I think it would become the travellers to be a little more
:38:05. > :38:11.graceful in saying that we do play the system. I have heard that the
:38:11. > :38:14.local council have offered to house those that they legally have to. So
:38:14. > :38:18.if you are a family with children under a certain age, the council
:38:18. > :38:21.has to provide something. And speaking from outside this culture,
:38:21. > :38:25.it does not occur to me to demand that the council provide me with a
:38:25. > :38:29.home. It doesn't. That is not actually what they are asking for.
:38:29. > :38:33.They want the right to provide their own homes on their own land.
:38:33. > :38:37.But to be able to do that they have to get planning permission, and
:38:37. > :38:43.like the rest of us they are either occupied illegally or they move on.
:38:43. > :38:48.They have had 10 years of illegal occupation. There are key moment in
:38:48. > :38:52.history of every minority. For women it was getting the vote and
:38:52. > :38:56.for black people it might have been getting Barack Obama in two offers.
:38:56. > :39:01.The gypsy people at Dale Farm are the equivalent of Gandhi, Martin
:39:01. > :39:04.Luther King and the suffragettes and what they do. Anybody that
:39:04. > :39:08.believes in the diversity of human rights should go down on Saturday
:39:08. > :39:14.and stand up for them and make sure it is the last time a council can
:39:14. > :39:17.dedicate one third of its budget to removing a certain people. Do the
:39:17. > :39:21.people of Dale Farm have the support of the people round and
:39:21. > :39:25.about, that is the litmus test? I'm afraid we have to leave those
:39:25. > :39:28.questions hanging in the air because we are out of time. You can
:39:28. > :39:34.continue talking about that on our website and we encourage you to do
:39:34. > :39:37.Coming up on Sunday Morning Live. They were bursting at the seams
:39:37. > :39:41.before the riots, now our prisons are groaning with the highest
:39:41. > :39:45.numbers in history. A previous BBC News reader who was convicted of
:39:45. > :39:50.assault says that prison does not work. Does he have a point? You can
:39:50. > :39:57.join in the event by webcam, by the phone, and on line. And should we
:39:57. > :40:03.make it harder to get an abortion? If you think we should, text the
:40:03. > :40:10.word vote followed by yes. If you disagree, follow it by no. You have
:40:10. > :40:17.about five minutes before the poll closes.
:40:17. > :40:21.Before we let Jake Bowers go, it is time to chew over the moral moments
:40:21. > :40:25.of the week. You are concerned about the nurse accused of killing
:40:25. > :40:31.patients with insulin, who has been released by police without charge.
:40:31. > :40:36.This is Rebecca Leighton, of course. What does she face? I think she has
:40:36. > :40:40.been portrayed in the media as being the next equivalent of Harold
:40:40. > :40:45.Shipman, this deadly nurse going round injuring people. Her name has
:40:45. > :40:48.been dragged through the media. In this country we have a wonderful
:40:48. > :40:53.concept of innocent until proven guilty. I fear for her. She has
:40:53. > :40:57.been released but there is still this question hanging over her head.
:40:57. > :41:01.She deserves that principle to be applied to her. Richard, you are
:41:01. > :41:06.concerned this week about a tobacco company, Philip Morris, trying to
:41:06. > :41:11.get hold of research that has been done on teenage smokers' attitudes
:41:11. > :41:15.to smoking which a university is resisting handing over. I am all
:41:15. > :41:19.for it being released to the tobacco company. On the grounds
:41:19. > :41:24.that if it is public information, if it passes that test, it is just
:41:24. > :41:28.knowledge. We start saying that if Joe Bloggs can get this information
:41:28. > :41:33.but a wicked tobacco company cannot, then we are privatising knowledge
:41:33. > :41:37.in a bad way. Nationalising it and then looking it up. It is a freedom
:41:37. > :41:40.of speech thing. They have every right to know this stuff.
:41:40. > :41:44.professor in charge says it is deeply concerning that they are
:41:44. > :41:48.trying to get the data and it has implications for academic freedom.
:41:48. > :41:55.It might well make the tobacco company cleverer at selling
:41:55. > :42:01.cigarettes to young people. That is just off. Knowledge is tough. --
:42:01. > :42:04.that is just tough. You have to toughen up if you live in a society
:42:04. > :42:09.filled with cigarettes and drugs. But we cannot give that knowledge
:42:09. > :42:12.to everybody else but not a tobacco company. Not least because Joe
:42:12. > :42:16.Bloggs could write in and then be paid by the tobacco company to have
:42:16. > :42:20.the information anyway. Surely the Freedom of Information Act was for
:42:20. > :42:28.individuals and human rights. It is obnoxious to me that a corporation
:42:28. > :42:33.claims to have the same rights of an -- as an individual. But the
:42:33. > :42:40.company is just a group of individuals, even if they are
:42:40. > :42:46.flogging tobacco. The best film I have seen is about a funny PR man,
:42:46. > :42:52.Thank You For Smoking. Of course we should sit down with these people,
:42:52. > :42:57.they are ordinary tax-paying people. A new free school being set up,
:42:58. > :43:02.staffed by the army. It is going to be in Manchester. These a former
:43:03. > :43:05.military people. Anybody that had their shop looted recently will be
:43:05. > :43:10.wishing that those hoodies could be sent straight to the school but
:43:10. > :43:16.there is no sense of compulsion at the moment. It is whether parents
:43:16. > :43:22.want to send them. I'm not sure it has even been set up yet, has it?
:43:22. > :43:26.could threaten my children with it, fantastic! If you don't behave, I
:43:26. > :43:31.will send you there! Teachers should be teachers and soldiers
:43:31. > :43:35.should be soldiers. Should we make it harder to get an abortion, that
:43:35. > :43:38.is the question we have asked. The opinion poll is closing so please
:43:38. > :43:45.don't text in because you could still be charged and your vote will
:43:45. > :43:49.not count. We will bring the results at the end of the programme.
:43:49. > :43:54.Figures out this week show only 20% of convicted knife criminals are
:43:54. > :43:58.going to prison. That is a long way from Government advice to jail
:43:58. > :44:03.anyone caught carrying a knife. What difference would prison make?
:44:03. > :44:07.Not a good one, says Ashley Blake, a BBC presenter until a violent
:44:07. > :44:15.assault saw him sacked and jailed for nine months. He said that his
:44:15. > :44:18.time behind bars was not time well We have more people banged up
:44:19. > :44:23.behind bars than ever before. I believe it is time to stop sending
:44:23. > :44:28.so many people to jail. Places should be reserved for the most
:44:28. > :44:32.violent or serious criminals. Prison is the ultimate university
:44:32. > :44:37.for crime. I have just done nine months inside, where I learned how
:44:37. > :44:40.to burgle a house, cultivated marijuana, organise an armed
:44:40. > :44:46.robbery, how to market and distribute Class A drugs, and how I
:44:46. > :44:50.could avoid getting caught for it. It is my belief that far too many
:44:50. > :44:54.people are being sentenced for crimes which do not warrant
:44:54. > :44:58.imprisonment. I would say I am a classic example. I was found guilty
:44:58. > :45:02.of a crime, and I unreservedly accept that punishment is needed
:45:02. > :45:06.for anyone who breaks the law. But surely my time would have been
:45:06. > :45:10.better spent in the community, giving something back, rather than
:45:10. > :45:16.costing the taxpayer tens of thousands of pounds keeping me at a
:45:16. > :45:20.Majesty's pleasure. Most prisoners reoffend within the first two years
:45:20. > :45:23.of being released. The current system clearly is not working, so
:45:23. > :45:28.let's stop spending money on banging people up who could be
:45:28. > :45:34.better punished in the community, doing good.
:45:34. > :45:40.Let's Jain Ashley, back to a BBC studio. Welcome back. You can make
:45:40. > :45:45.your point by webcam, tax, e-mail online. Do you feel punished by
:45:45. > :45:50.your experience? I certainly feel punished, yes. So it worked in that
:45:50. > :45:55.sense. Yes, I guess it did, but it was the loss of liberty, not being
:45:55. > :46:00.able to see family, friends and loved ones, that was the worst part.
:46:00. > :46:04.But in terms of a deterrent, prisons do not work. In terms of
:46:04. > :46:09.rehabilitation, rehabilitation in prison is a myth. It is just a myth.
:46:09. > :46:14.How on earth can you rehabilitate somebody in a system like that? It
:46:14. > :46:18.is a warehouse. But you feel punished but you do not feel
:46:18. > :46:21.rehabilitated. Or are you talking about other people you mad? I am
:46:22. > :46:27.talking about myself. There are three reasons to send somebody to
:46:27. > :46:32.prison. That is for punishment, protection of the public and
:46:32. > :46:34.rehabilitation. Absolutely, protection of the public. If you
:46:34. > :46:42.tick the boxes on those three categories, you should go to jail,
:46:42. > :46:47.but rehabilitation, I witnessed grown men requests to acting like
:46:47. > :46:51.seven-year-olds with in a classroom. That is not rehabilitation. Any
:46:51. > :46:55.courses that are offered, any education, vocational courses that
:46:55. > :47:00.are offered are meticulous, because the prospect of getting a job once
:47:00. > :47:03.you have been to jail is very limited. Glyn Travis is from the
:47:03. > :47:08.Prison Officers' Association. It might work for some in terms of a
:47:08. > :47:11.punishment, it might work as a deterrent, but it is not
:47:11. > :47:18.rehabilitating prisoners, and actually it is making it harder for
:47:18. > :47:22.them to work again. Well, it is a very open-ended question, does
:47:22. > :47:26.prison work? I believe that the present system does work. Could the
:47:26. > :47:32.system be a lot better? Yes, it could. Listening to Ashley, he is
:47:32. > :47:36.quite right. Far too many people are sent to prison, but ultimately,
:47:36. > :47:41.what the judiciary is for is the first point, which is to protect
:47:41. > :47:44.the public. In Ashley's case, I do not know the circumstances to his
:47:44. > :47:48.offence or anything, but obviously a magistrate thought that society
:47:48. > :47:52.needed to be protected, they needed to send Ashley to prison. Because
:47:52. > :47:57.of the length of sentence, there is not sufficient rehabilitation
:47:57. > :48:02.programmes available. Therefore, he is quite right in a sense, when he
:48:02. > :48:06.says that prisons can and often are a human warehouse because of the
:48:06. > :48:11.ineffectiveness of the sentence. you think that there are too many
:48:11. > :48:15.people in prison and that the only people who should be in prison are
:48:15. > :48:19.the people from whom the public needs to be protected. The only
:48:19. > :48:24.people who are in prison are the people that magistrates and judges
:48:24. > :48:28.deem society has lost trust with. I mean, we have just witnessed the
:48:29. > :48:31.biggest riots on our streets for many, many years, totally
:48:31. > :48:36.unacceptable, and the magistrates and the judiciary has reacted to
:48:36. > :48:39.public pressure and ensure that the vast majority of those people, who
:48:39. > :48:42.would never have been sent to prison, were sent to prison because
:48:42. > :48:47.the government and the public demanded a summary justice, which
:48:47. > :48:51.is not what the prison system should be about. So the Willis's
:48:51. > :48:54.from the Howard League for Penal Reform. His prison be useful way of
:48:54. > :49:00.giving people a shock and putting them of doing the whole thing
:49:00. > :49:04.again? Or is it full of people who should not be in there? Well, I do
:49:04. > :49:07.not think so, because in Howard League research, we have seen that
:49:07. > :49:10.prisoners prefer a short-term prison sentence. They find it
:49:10. > :49:13.easier to complete rather than a community programme that can often
:49:14. > :49:17.be over a longer period of time and actually require them to address
:49:17. > :49:22.their behaviour. When you're given a community programme, they can be
:49:22. > :49:25.lots of conditions, so for example unpaid work, you have to access
:49:25. > :49:30.rehabilitation. There are a number of criteria you might have been
:49:30. > :49:33.fulfilled. On a prison sentence, all you have to do is lie on a barn
:49:33. > :49:37.for a few months. So actually prisoners do prefer it, and it
:49:37. > :49:40.seems to be an easier thing to complete. They are 66,000 people on
:49:40. > :49:46.short-term prison sentences every year. This is our money that is
:49:46. > :49:50.paying for it, and we deserve to get the most effective outcome.
:49:50. > :49:54.is right. It is a complete waste of money. For the first three months,
:49:54. > :49:59.I was doing exactly what she said, sitting on my bunk, bought out of
:49:59. > :50:03.my brain, getting fat because there is nothing they could do for me. I
:50:03. > :50:06.do not need rehabilitating, I am not a danger to the public. Was the
:50:06. > :50:12.point of wasting tens of thousands of pounds of sending somebody like
:50:12. > :50:17.me to jail? Jails are full of people like me. 1 point, this was
:50:17. > :50:21.not your first offence, Ashley. You had six previous convictions for
:50:21. > :50:26.theft and handling stolen goods. Now, to some people, they might
:50:26. > :50:31.think you should have gone to prison much earlier in your life,
:50:31. > :50:36.because that might have given you a reason not to go on to commit other
:50:36. > :50:40.offences. You know, you're not imprisoned, and you were three then
:50:40. > :50:45.to go out and commit further offences. That was 24 years ago,
:50:45. > :50:52.when I was a child, and I lived in an inner-city area of Birmingham
:50:52. > :50:57.that many people might know, nacelles. -- Nechells. But was 24
:50:57. > :51:01.years ago, and it was dealt with them, I paid by Price to society
:51:01. > :51:07.then. In a different way, you're right, I did not go to prison, but
:51:07. > :51:11.I was subject to having a social worker to work with me. But having
:51:11. > :51:16.a social worker, did that work? Well, clearly it did because that
:51:16. > :51:22.was 24 years ago. I have not done anything since then up until this
:51:22. > :51:27.unfortunate incident that happened at my restaurant. Somebody on
:51:27. > :51:30.screen mentioned the issue of looting recently, which I think was
:51:30. > :51:35.probably heartening attitudes towards those of us who would
:51:35. > :51:41.regard ourselves as almost liberal, because there was reporting that
:51:41. > :51:46.the kids with balaclavas on work getting up to shenanigans because
:51:46. > :51:51.they said, we're just going to get an ASBO, who cares? For a lot of us,
:51:51. > :51:56.to see them go to jail was sweet justice, because we say that the
:51:56. > :51:59.current situation is not working. Yes, we are jailing to many people.
:51:59. > :52:03.I used to live in a house on a street where there was lots of
:52:03. > :52:09.petty crime, and the high point although point was when I woke up
:52:09. > :52:12.at 3 o'clock in the morning, and somebody had said alight to a moped
:52:12. > :52:16.in next yours garden. I was frightened by house would be on
:52:16. > :52:20.fire. When I talked to the firemen and said, he would do this? He said,
:52:21. > :52:25.it is just kids. I said, what are they doing at this time of night
:52:26. > :52:29.that Iraq they rolled their eyes. That kind of low-level... You might
:52:30. > :52:36.say those people should not be in prison, but that is what made life
:52:37. > :52:41.a misery for lots of people. what you're doing there, Lowri, it
:52:41. > :52:45.perpetuates the problem. These are the people that you need protecting
:52:45. > :52:49.from. The people who burgle your house. There are a list of reasons
:52:49. > :52:52.why people should be sent to jail, but the people involved in the
:52:52. > :52:57.riots, classic example, knee-jerk reaction by the Government, send
:52:57. > :53:01.them to jail, we need protecting from them. I do not agree with that,
:53:01. > :53:04.because we are perpetuating the problem. We are criminalising young
:53:04. > :53:09.people and taking any prospect away from them of ever getting a job
:53:09. > :53:12.again, so what are they go into do? I don't care about them! They will
:53:12. > :53:16.come out of jail better educated in criminality. It will cost society
:53:16. > :53:19.more money. If you are a Kurdish refugee who has come to this
:53:19. > :53:23.country and set up a corner shop and made it work by working 18
:53:24. > :53:27.hours per day and you have had your business destroyed by some kid, you
:53:27. > :53:32.would want them in jail. That is exactly what happened to me, Lowri,
:53:32. > :53:36.and I ended up going to jail for protecting my business from young
:53:36. > :53:39.people. I have not got an argument with that in this programme, that
:53:39. > :53:43.is for another debate, but I would not want to send those kids
:53:43. > :53:48.attacked my business to jail. I would want to see society working
:53:48. > :53:52.with those kids so they do not do it. I want to see them being taught
:53:52. > :53:57.citizenship, social values. Won't they regard that as an incredibly
:53:57. > :54:02.soft sentence? It is going to cast... Society will get more for
:54:02. > :54:08.its money. The problem here, they say we have not troubled kids in
:54:08. > :54:13.school, the gang thing. In a lot of cases, the answer is to cut a very
:54:13. > :54:18.tough contract, and I would say it is go to a boot camp with a tag.
:54:18. > :54:25.You behave yourself, you learn something, you do teamwork. It is
:54:25. > :54:31.tough. There is no mobile phones, the diet is simple. If you come out
:54:31. > :54:37.having fulfilled a really rigorous programme, then you are spared jail.
:54:37. > :54:42.But, hold on, and the merit of this is that jail costs �40,000 per year.
:54:42. > :54:50.And on. For that, we could provide public school education for them. I
:54:50. > :54:55.want them to have a very tough, very structured route can situation.
:54:56. > :55:02.Gerald Buchan is a UKIP MEP. Boot camp, not prison? Yes, I think
:55:02. > :55:05.there is something in that. We have got prison in different categories.
:55:05. > :55:10.Hardened, serial criminals should be in prison. People at the other
:55:10. > :55:15.end can still be Salvidge. I would like to see something more
:55:15. > :55:18.imaginative for them. -- Salvidge. Let's have places in Ireland and
:55:18. > :55:21.Scotland, where people have to build their own shelters and grow
:55:21. > :55:26.their own food. It might teach them respect for other people's property.
:55:26. > :55:31.The reason we have ended up with the riots and the level of crime we
:55:31. > :55:34.got his 30 years or more of being soft on crime. You have got to be a
:55:34. > :55:38.dedicated criminal to go to prison. Most people do not go to prison
:55:39. > :55:42.until they have committed a number of crimes. It is difficult to be
:55:42. > :55:45.convicted in the first place. A lot of the things that actually found
:55:45. > :55:49.in prison, I'm sure you can pick them up of the internet. You do not
:55:49. > :55:53.need to go to prison to learn them. Criminals want to know, they will
:55:53. > :55:58.find out. The thing about present is that it protects the victims of
:55:59. > :56:04.society, and that is what we need. -- Prison. Ashley, thank you for
:56:04. > :56:08.that, interesting staff. That debate will continue on our website.
:56:08. > :56:10.We have to end at there because your text vote results are in. We
:56:11. > :56:17.asked at the beginning of the programme, should we make it harder
:56:17. > :56:22.to get an abortion? This is what you told us. 40% of you said yes,
:56:22. > :56:29.it should be harder, but 60% sex head no, we should not make it
:56:29. > :56:34.harder to access terminations. -- 60% said no. I am surprised. I
:56:34. > :56:38.thought the pro-life people would have mobilised in phone calls and
:56:38. > :56:41.texts. I'm quite buoyed up that the audience for this programme, anyway,
:56:42. > :56:47.takes a grown-up, realistic view that life is not perfect, that
:56:47. > :56:51.people get pregnant and we have to deal with it. Ideally, yes, you use
:56:51. > :56:56.contraception, you're in a stable situation and he sticks around and
:56:56. > :57:00.he says, how lovely, let's get married, but we are having to work
:57:00. > :57:04.with an imperfect world, and termination is part of that. Ashley,
:57:04. > :57:13.you were not here for that part of the debate, but four at of 10
:57:13. > :57:17.people think it should be harder. It should not be harder, no, but my
:57:17. > :57:22.problem is that which point you offer support? Is it before
:57:22. > :57:26.abortion, after. More emphasis needs to be put on Post abortion as
:57:26. > :57:31.well, all support needs to be given an. Richard. I think it would be
:57:31. > :57:36.quite a good idea to send them a bill as well, it could be like a
:57:36. > :57:42.long, like going to university will stop send the father the bill. Yes,
:57:42. > :57:45.if you can find him! These are much more than we would like to admit,
:57:45. > :57:50.these are lifestyle choices, and I'm not sure the state should have
:57:50. > :57:54.to pay for them. Well, that is where I say thank you to all of my
:57:54. > :57:59.guests in the studio this morning, Lowri Turner, Ashley Blake, Richard
:57:59. > :58:03.D North and Jake Bowers and Professor Casey, who were with us
:58:03. > :58:09.earlier. The phone lines are now closed, please do not call or