Episode 3 The Big Questions

Today an The Big Questions, Benefits Street, sex selection and Satan.

Good morning, I am Nicky Campbell, welcome to The Big Questions. We are

live from the Oasis Academy at MediaCityUK in Salford, welcome to

The Big Questions! Since Channel 4 launched the series Benefits Street

two weeks ago, the unemployed residents of James Turner Street in

Birmingham have been abused online, in the papers and outside their

front doors. Iain Duncan Smith said the show had shocked people and was

helping to make his case for further benefit cuts. So are the poor being

demonised in this show and elsewhere? Steve Chalke, you are

here in behalf of the residence of Benefits Street. Has this show,

James Turner Street, I do beg your pardon! Has this showed demonised

those people all humanised them? A couple of things, the very fact that

you got it muddled up, when you said Benefits Street, that says it all.

Your introduction says it all, because you say these people have

been abused on their front doorsteps. I am actually here, in a

sense on their behalf, but they must be allowed to speak for themselves

without being put in some kind of circus where they are then belittled

by kind of phoney intellectuals on one side or the other. I am here not

to... I know there is a huge debate around benefits and dependency, and

we must have it. And we will. I am not here for that reason. I spoke to

some of the leaders yesterday, and there are many residents I do not

know, but I do know them, and as we run this school, so it happens, a

few days after Christmas into the New Year, we took responsibility for

the small primary school on James Turner Street, and it happens to be

the school with the street name outside it. There are children who

have not come to school because you have got tourists up and down the

streets chanting and calling abuse, children we are having to collect,

children who are worried about going out into the playground at lunch or

at break time. And from the senior school, we run the junior school,

kids are getting bullied on the buses et cetera. I am just... It is

true, after this programme, I am going to send this letter to Eddie

Richards, a copy yet, it is going to be delivered this morning. Who is

he? He is the chief executive of Ofcom, they police television, and I

have copied it to Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for education,

and also Maria Miller, Secretary of State responsible for media. The

point is, we can have a debate about benefits, but I am saying that the

price of one child being scared to go to school is too high a price to

pay for any nation. I need to say one more thing. This is a formal

complaint from me as the founder of Oasis Community Learning, and the

last thing I want to say is that the community leaders there believe that

tomorrow night's episode contains a safeguarding issue about one of the

pupils from our school, and I am saying to the Secretary of State and

do the boss of Ofcom this morning, unless they have watched that

programme, Ofcom have watched it and know that there and no legal issues,

I do not think it should go ahead. I will hold them to account. You are

taking away from the fact that 5% of them people go to work, the fact

what is being shown on the telly, and if it is a deterrent to stop

claiming benefits, the programme should be highlighted. But the

people... Let me say, the people who wrote this with me and wrote to the

Times on Friday, these are not illiterate people, they are very

smart. They are good, clear thinking. Most of the street are in

work, lots of people... Excuse me, 5%! I know the people! OK, Steve,

let's hear them out. What point are you making? It's like saying we

don't show drinking and driving ads. If it highlights the problem we have

out there... Wait! You should not be rude. 200 billion we are spending on

welfare and benefits, and we continue like that, the country will

continue to go bust. We have to debate that. We need to use that

money in the workplace to generate more work and to help youngsters. We

need to debate that! But not at the expense of one street. I know you

want to come in as well, Angela, you say 200 million... 200 billion! But

only 3% of that goes to people who are unemployed. It is 200 billion

into the welfare system. Including pensioners. The country generate 600

billion, a third of it is going to benefits and welfare. If we continue

to carry on like that, our children will go bust. It ain't right, Steve,

it don't matter what you say. I want to bring in Angela. Before it moves

on, I am happy for it to move on, you have to know that this programme

has not represented the working people of that community. It is not

representative, and they need a right of reply. Steve Chalke, I will

come back to you later! OK... Angela Epstein, you were saying earlier, as

we were having a copy, you think there is a whisper of truth in this

programme. We have to have a clear line of demarcation between what

they call observational reality television, poverty porn is the new

buzzword for this kind of freak show, that it has been labelled as.

It is a bit like Charles Dickens, he tried to put a microscope on the

poor, and in the process did that by creating these huge stereotypical,

larger than life characters in order to raise social issues. If we sweep

to one side there is nothing there that connotes with reality, fine,

most of it is there for the benefit of great television, and Channel 4

have managed to clock up fabulous ratings as a consequence, and people

seem to be happy to watch that. But the issue is we have to break the

cycle of welfare dependency. There are lots of people there who want to

go to work, what self-respecting self-esteem, they want to be able to

get out of bed and say, I am this person, I can beat this person who

owns an honest living. At the moment, the benefits system is what

has betrayed the people who live in places like so-called Benefits

Street. If the system didn't exist whereby it was more profitable, if

you like, to stay in bed or stay at home and go to work because he was

so demoralised by what you earn, then the system is betraying a whole

generation of people. We have people who leave school at 16, go on the

dole, get a flat, whatever, no apprenticeships or possibility of

work placement. This is where the system needs to look, and Channel 4

is just... Did you feel uncomfortable watching the

programme? Kate Green MP, did you feel uncomfortable? I feel angry on

behalf of those people. We do not know more than a little slice of

their lives we were shown, we do not know the back story, all the

circumstances. We don't know what it might be that is preventing them

from being in work and having to claim benefits. Just a minute...

Just a minute, Charlie! Let's hear from an elected representative. I

don't think it attractive to live on benefits and be demonised and

humiliated in front of millions of viewers. Nobody would be choosing

that experience, people may be on benefits because of health problems,

it may be that they have issues about literacy, qualifications. It

could be that they are unwell, but it is a hidden illness that we

cannot see. It could be there are no jobs in that community. Some people

are saying there is a great issue of community and humanity coming

through that programme. One of the things that concerns me about

Channel 4's intentions on this programme, other than good ratings,

if it was to divide communities and society, I find that very offensive.

Any of us could need to claim benefits, any of us could have a

disaster, become sick or lose a job. I would want that system to be

there for me, and we should all want it to be there for all of us.

Charlie, make a response. 95% of them people are not going to work.

Obviously, there are genuine cases that cannot go to work and we should

help them, but a lot of people... The problem you have got is... That

is what the figures say... It is wrong, I know this people. Let me

just tell you something. Why are we making benefits so attractive, more

attractive than going to work? What do you mean? It is not attractive!

Rachel. I looked like the very acme of middle-class respectability, but

for over two years of my life, as a result of ill-health, I was unable

to work, and I know from the inside... Let me ask you a question,

do you think that stigma was informed by what people were reading

in the newspapers and what people saw on television? Was that skewing

their attitudes towards you? I want to clarify, I think we were living

in a slightly more compassionate society at the time, there was less

of this click based television going on, but it was the case that I

recognised I was living on a very challenging the state, an amazing

estate in Salford, and that many of us felt very much pushed to the

outside, and you know what happens, Nicky, with stigma? It becomes

internalised, and it can be very, very hard to step outside of that.

And the kind of people, like this gentleman here, who clearly over

prioritised and individualistic conception of society, you do, you

simply do not... Let me finish, please... Lady... You do not have an

understanding of a community of character, the kind of community I

suspect we all want to be in. Charlie, before we go any further, I

will come to you, put your hands up, because we will have a galop around

the audience in a second. An interesting statistic which you may

or may not be aware of, people's perceptions, according to a fairly

recent poll, 20% of social security payments are lost to fraud, 27%. The

actual figure is... What do you think? Beutel me. No, you tell us,

Charlie! Have a guess. I don't know. 0.7%. 40,000 children we pay for

live abroad and claim on benefits, is that right? It is a small slice

of the benefits payments, a very small size. Right, I will tell you

what, wait, wait, wait! We are going to go over Sheila, who has been

waiting to come in, Northwest region co-ordinated of Unite,

interestingly, you did a protest outside the production company

officers, didn't you? Yes, that is right, and my colleague in the South

was involved in that, and the people who are protesting there are people

at the cutting edge, and it makes me so angry listening to you, because

you buy into the myth, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if you read

the Sun, to be honest with you! Are people demonised through this

programme? Yes, not only demonised but people are increasingly

criminalised through the cuts. Through the bedroom tax cuts,

through a variety of sanctions. The bailiffs, evictions. Working class

people who want to work, those who are able, are increasingly demonised

and criminalised. Programmes like this served to mobilise communities,

because I will not be negative about it. What I will say, in line with

what other people are saying, what I see are people on the cutting edge,

people who cannot work because of illness. I see the cuts impacting on

their physical and mental health, the deterioration in those people, I

have seen it over the past year, but what I see is a great generosity of

spirit and humanity, where people are coming together, and it is that

people with the least, who have the least, they are coming together to

organise resources for their own communities. A lot of people are

saying this, that is a consequence, perhaps an unintended consequence,

who knows, but a consequence of this programme. One person comes across

as a most extraordinary, warm and wonderful person, I watched two

episodes... People should not have to. The idea of food banks in the

21st century, to lay the ills of these country on the most

vulnerable, not... I am not talking about the vulnerable! You are! You

are buying into the lies and the myth... If it sends out a message to

youngsters... Wait! Shh! That is nice, isn't it?! Charlie, what kind

of message do you want this to send? If the programme sends out a

message, a deterrent to youngsters to going onto benefits, then it is

doing the right job. Where the jobs for the young people? Use the

benefit money. What benefits manager Mike last year we scrutinised MPs

and public officials for their expenses, and people were arguing

that because money was being spent, we had a right to know what it is

being spent on. I feel that the vulnerable in society should

definitely get the money they need, and they should be respected for

that, because if you are unable to work, there is no reason why you

should not be paid from the public offers and respected for that. But

those who are able to work, there is no reason we should not be able to

scrutinise their lives, we are paying for their lifestyle, and just

like we can scrutinise MPs... What lifestyle is that to me if they have

got a big fat TV, there is no reason we should not be able to scrutinise

that. There are two things I want to say. Benefits go back into the

economy when you get them. The second thing is, I have forgotten.

It happens to me all the time. Thank you. I would like to say as a member

of the Muslim community and GP, the welfare rights system is an act of

piety by the nation. Every single member of this audience, we are

actually helping the needy. We are getting distracted by this

television show and the principle behind it which is helping the

needy. There is an issue behind the equitable redistribution of wealth

in their society. There is a small proportion of very wealthy people

who called the wealth and we are not distributing it equally. The

benefits cuts will lead to social disharmony eventually. This is an

Islamic principle which is obligatory almsgiving. If we start

to be tough on the poor, we will see problems in the future. We need to

think about our vision for the future here. I do not think it is

about being tough on the poor, it is about doing the right thing. If

people are sponging off the system, they need to be addressed. How many

do that? It does not matter how many are doing it, all people are saying

is those are the people that need to be addressed. We are not saying do

bad things to the poor in general. If people are sponging off the

system, that needs to be sorted out. Steve Davis, where is Capital Gains

Street? What about people at the other end of society who are

sponging? The London standard had a headline saying that the rise in

house prices for many people in London was more than they actually

happened. That shows one of the big problems behind all of this. One of

the difficulties that people on that street face is the cripplingly high

cost of housing. That is why housing benefit is the biggest single part

for pensioners. We have a situation where we are not supplying enough

houses. That is one of the biggest things we can do to make the lives

of people on low incomes and benefit a lot easier. You believe there is a

certain sense of entitlement and hopelessness. I think that programme

was exploitative and intended to push peoples buttons to get them

agitated and angry. On the one hand, there was an angry sense of

entitlement on the part of the people who are living on benefits

but, also, a sense of hopelessness and despair. They were trapped. We

are spending an enormous amount of money and not getting the results.

Some people want to better themselves but because of the

incentives the system set up, they are facing a marginal tax rate of

80% -- effectively. It is not illegal to be unemployed. There are

thousands of very successful people in our society who are where they

are because when things get tough, they do not fall through the cracks.

There are two issues which need to be addressed. If benefit fraud what

is driving the financial crisis in this country? The size of benefit

fraud is completely dwarfed by the size of tax fraud and tax evasion.

Secondly, the issue we need to address, are we making work

unattractive? There are a small slice of people for whom work can be

less attractive than benefits. The reason for that what we need to do

to solve it is to raise the minimum wage so that work actually pays. The

Chancellor has suggested that everything will happen. We are

raising the minimum wage to make it more of a living wage. We need to

take the money from the cuts in the benefit and get it into the

workplace. What about tax fraud and tax evasion and putting that money

in? You would invest that into youngsters and apprenticeships. That

will put something back into the pot. You will have to make sure... I

agree that we should be trying to get the benefits bill down and

supporting people in good jobs or you cannot do is take the rug away

beforehand. Why not take it away from the tax evaders? Go to the

other end of the spectrum. Evaders and avoiders - both. This is about

what kind of community do we want. Do we want a community that

prioritises the weakest and the most honourable or are we a society that

seeks to stigmatise and stereotype the most vulnerable? I am going to

give the last word on this debate, I said I would come back to you.

Channel 4 plans a debate on this, which will be lively and interesting

and no doubt get a big rating. Are the residents going to turn up, do

you believe? I asked for a right to reply for the residents. The bosses

of Channel 4 said they set up this debate like this. I have talked to

some of the residents. I do not represent all the residents. It is a

diverse community and I am working with some of the leaders. They feel

what will happen is they will step into a goldfish bowl and tried to

put their point of view and endless people will put them down again. My

advice to them, and I agree with them, what they are asking for is

just the opportunity to tell a truer and bigger and there are story about

who they are. The last word from me is simply this. We talked about

stigmatisation. The problem is that unless this is true story is told

about this street, is one that has got out there, this. Which demonises

so many people and has made us believe they are all not working for

some reason, this will not exist and that will be a shadow over the lives

of these young people as they grow. It will become a self-fulfilling

prophecy. Let the people on the street speak for themselves in a

different context to this Channel 4 piece of entertainment. If you have

something to say about that debate, please log on to

bbc.co.uk/thebigquestions, and follow the link to where you can

join in the discussion online. Or contribute on Twitter. We're also

debating live this morning from Salford, should it be illegal to

reveal the sex of an unborn child? And, is there any evidence for

Satan? So, get tweeting or e-mailing on those topics now or send us any

other ideas or thoughts you may have about the show. This week, The

Independent newspaper exposed a shocking set of statistics. In some

British South Asian communities, women carrying girl babies are more

likely to terminate their pregnancies if they already have a

daughter. In England and Wales, up to 4,700 females were lost in this

way. Such is the pressure to deliver sons that these women preferred to

have an abortion than face the consequence of disappointing their

husband and his family. Of course, no woman deserves this

blame because it is the man's sperm that actually determines the gender

of a child. Should it be illegal to reveal the sex of an unborn child?

Shocking statistics, Rahila Gupta. It is interesting, the Nobel

laureate was speaking 25 years ago. His quote is, he was talking about

the tens of millions of missing women because of the selective

abortion of female foetuses. Now of course this problem it would seem

has reached our shores. What should be done? I should say that if the

independent figures are correct, because they are extremely shocking

figures, anecdotally we were aware of the fact, through my own personal

experience. Asian women are under incredible pressure to give birth to

a baby boy. By the way, I must say it actually extends to other

communities as well. It is not just India and China but also European

countries, most Soviet countries like Georgia, Azerbaijan, they have

worse ratios than India itself. To come back to the question of the

Asian community in Britain, anecdotally, we were aware of the

fact there were women who are flying off to India, those who could afford

it, to carry out the scans and the abortions. This figure is actually

very shocking. What I would say is that regardless of the statistics we

have, in any case, some hospitals are informally or formerly having a

policy of not disclosing the sex of a child to all parents. To all

parents? There is no profiling. There is no way of looking at the

women and telling whether she would be in favour of having a girl or a

boy child whether she is under pressure or not. No profiling

whatsoever. Is that your experience? Profiling is happening.

In 1985I gave birth to a little girl. Six months pregnant and I

asked what the sex of the child was. The midwife said, we do not

tell Asian women. Really? In places like Rotherham, they will not tell

Asian women the sex of a child. They have said this to me on a daily

basis. The midwives, the people who do the scans, they know this is a

significant problem within South Asian communities. They are tackling

it within their way. -- in their own way. There is no guidance saying we

need to be putting this in place. These women are being forced to

abort or kill unborn children if it is a girl. Is it not better to

educate and inform, and to make sure that new attitudes devolve, rather

than withhold information? Absolutely. That is what activists,

all sorts of Muslim people have been doing all this time. These are

deep, structural inequalities. It is about the value attached to a woman

's life. Also deep-seated cultural reasons. The issue about it our way

is a cultural one. If all of these things are done side by side, that

is the most important thing to do. Meanwhile, we are losing girls. We

have lost 60 million. Also figures are being bandied about because we

do not know the true figure. Across the world, 100 million women have

not been born as a result of this. It is a terrible situation for us to

be in and we need to take some action. I would say we should

certainly ban disclosure and criminalise it across the board in

Britain so no hospitals, private clinics, would be able to tell the

sex of a child. What about after the legal term of abortion? After 24

weeks, exactly. I have come to this conclusion because I feel I was

trying to find a way of saying, how do we balance? As a feminist, I

believe in a woman's right to choose to have an abortion. How do we

balance this against the issue of so many women and girls disappearing? I

wanted to restrict. I felt the only way to do that would be to restrict

the information you give to a person. You can still exercise your

right to choose. Kate, does the right to choose extend to this? Let

me say one thing. The statistics published in the Independent do not

show this is going on in the UK. I am speaking not as the women's

rights activist but as someone with a maths degree. The study was done

by in period College London. Let me explain what exactly it shows. They

say there is an alternative explanation. They have looked at

women with two children and the first one is a girl and with a

second child more have boys. The other possibility is that people

with two girls keep trying and have a third baby and then would be

counted out of the statistics. We all know people who have had that

policy. We have had one of age and we will stop all we have to the same

and we will keep going. Statisticians say it is the only

readily available data. There is another explanation for that. I

know, as a forced marriage survivor, We have had examples of women who

have had to abort their child because they know it is a girl. This

particular girl was thrown down the stairs as a means to try to abort a

child. We have examples of new wives being brought in because they have

given birth to three daughters. So the point I am making is, what the

Independent has done is start a devout about a real issue, and we

need to follow it through. -- start a debate. And if she did not know

the gender of the child, she could not do that? Yes. Let me jump in, we

are saying... I must say, the pregnancy advisory service says this

does not happen. Let's supposed there is a young woman and her

family find out she is carrying a girl, and they will be violence to

her and views, don't you think that woman, what she does deserve this to

have more information to be held from her? What she needs is a safe

place to get to and away from a family who might be violence to

her? I absolutely agree with that, but something like this would

empower the woman against her family, because if something is

illegal, it is sort of outside... Sorry, if I can just give an example

from the banning of the hijab in France. Not that I supported, but

there are women who have said, who have reported, the fact that it was

bound as given them a tool to argue against the family that you cannot

insist on me wearing a hijab, because it is illegal, and in that

way sometimes when the state intervenes, it is actually a form of

protection. So it sends a powerful message. Let me bring Craig in, let

me get the name of your... You are the editor of DNA Testing Choice,

that says it all! Could a law like this work? Practically? I am here as

an advocate of DNA testing, and recently you could not know the sex

of a child until 13 weeks, determined by ultrasound. Now you

can find out at seven weeks with a blood test or urine sample, which

can be ordered on the internet and taken at home, which could really

exacerbate this issue. Coming to the legality of it, there are certain

genetic conditions called ex-linked recessive conditions, where if there

is a boy baby, a male foetus... Could a doctor not reveal that? The

parent would probably know that one of them was a carrier of the genetic

disease, and the male baby has a 50% chance of having a condition like

haemophilia. This is a different issue, really, because we are

talking about gender selection. I will come back to Craig. We are

talking about women being empowered, and I say this as a woman who has

had three boys and a girl, that was the random lottery and how it played

out for me, thank God they were all healthy as well. Scanning is

essentially a diagnostic tool, there to offer clinical support for the

health of the baby and the unborn child. It was not developed for us

to know what the sex of the unborn child would be. However, as a

by-product of that, if you happen to be able to see clearly and a

sonographer cannot always tell, they told my husband that it was a boy

because I did not want to know, and she's very much a girl, so they

don't always get it right. If that information is there, as a woman,

you are entitled to ask the question. It is not fair for the

state to police what is essentially your baby. What has to happen,

though, when it comes to abortion, women aborting their babies, aside

from the horrific stories you were telling about women being thrown the

stairs, it is not an arbitrary thing that happens. You have to go to

unofficial clinic or the National Health Service provider. The 1967

abortion act says, correct me if I am wrong, requires two doctors to

sign off that you are an appropriate candidate for abortion, and research

has shown that a certain percentage of women, doctors have not even seen

the women whose abortions they are authorising. We have to shift the

responsibility... The point is, as we heard earlier, this would send

out a very powerful message... You cannot police women's bodies. It is

not about policing women's bodies. It is about victims not having the

courage, fearing for their life, there are unborn child's life, and

not being able to speak out. Does that mean everybody is not allowed?

Not being allowed to speak out? So this would be empowering? What you

have to remember is that the people doing this to them are their nearest

and dearest, and it is a number of multiple perpetrators, this is one

isolated individual, and they need support to the empowered. So we all

have got to...? Society has a role to play in protecting the most

vulnerable. You did not mind what sexual child was... I wanted a

little girl. I don't mind saying that. I felt that I wanted that sort

of innate mother-daughter relationship, but I didn't choose to

find out the sex of my child, simply because I did not want to have the

arrogance of potential disappointment, because all you

really want is a healthy baby. God forbid that should happen to

somebody. I wanted to know it was a healthy baby. Reverend Steve Chalke,

please, please, please! Sorry! It is all right! Is this a significant

problem, and statistics suggest it is, it is illegal in India and

China, so if not here, and how would you do it? I simply think that what

we have got to do is listen to these ladies, because they understand the

culture this is happening in and they struggle themselves. Thank you.

It is rather ironic that, any name of liberty and freedom, we come to

take away freedom. That is an extraordinary thing. Let him finish!

Surely, if we believe in the sanctity of every human life, which

is what I do, we have to listen hard to this. It has got to be worked

through, and there are technicalities... How would you do

it? Steve Chalke, would you withhold information from every woman, no

matter what ethnicity, no matter where she came from? I think we... I

do not have an easy answer, we need to have a debate, but we have to

note these girls' lives are being lost. I think we have to find a way

of withholding this information. From everyone? From everyone? I

think that we have heard that you cannot tell by a woman... From

everyone? I think we have to withhold this from everyone in order

to protect people, it is an issue of human rights. All or nothing? It

seems to me that we keep arguing about protecting these women so they

find out the gender of their child when it is born, not beforehand, and

then they will be at risk after it is born. You have the freedom to

say, I do not want that information, I want that information, and more

information is good, and we cannot take that away. If we believe in a

woman's right to choose, we have to believe in her right to choose even

when we do not agree with the reason. It is her choice. She may

have no choice after she has had the baby. Reverend Rachel. Speaking as

someone who writes as a feminist theologian, I am very conscious of

how, in debate I have been involved in over many years, that there is

often power held by white middle-class women like myself, and

that has often stifled voices from other communities. So why are you

talking?! It is precisely... I just want to say, I want to listen to my

sisters... Can I just...? OK, yes, wait, wait, wait! I would like to

come back on the notion of choice. I think that the word choice is used

in a very simplistic fashion, and it is thrown around randomly. I think

context is all important to the idea of choice, and when my choice

disadvantages or entrenches disadvantage or inequality for other

women, you know, whether it is about race class, what kind of feminist

and I? It is a collective project. We cannot look at individual

choices. How are we depriving women if we don't tell them the sex of

their child? Other women who may not be, you know... What if they want to

know for innocent reasons to me they are so trivial and frivolous, when

in fact what you are doing is saving the lives of women. Last word,

because you have campaigned so hard on this issue. It is not just about

protecting the lives of women, it isn't about not killing young

children that have not yet been born, girls. We must leave it there.

You can join in all the debates by logging onto the BBC website and

following the link to the online discussion, or you can tweet using

the hashtag #bbctbq. And tell us what you think about our last

question, is there any evidence about Satan? If you would like to be

on the show, e-mail the address on screen.

Well, the good news for those of you who are about to become godparents,

you will know alone to have to pronounce the devil and all his

works, so it is carry on, Satan, in the Church of England. But in Rome,

they are training more exorcisms, so clearly the Catholic Church is still

on guard against manifestations of the evil one. Is there any evidence

for Satan? Imam Hassan, nice to see you again, good morning. Muslims

believe God created the devil. What does the devil do? We believe that

Satan exists and God created the devil, and in the Koran it is

mentioned that the devil whispers into the ears of humankind to

influence them, not control them, control the actions, but influence

decisions they make. Examples Juma sinning against God, doing bad deeds

towards other human beings. Is this not shifting the blame? Not

necessarily. As I said, the devil cannot control human beings. The

human beings control their own actions, but the devil whispers into

the ears of human beings. Similarly, other human beings whisper into the

ears of human beings, they influence them with words, with their

behaviour and actions. Why did God create the devil? Primarily to test

human beings, to test if they stick to the right path. And there are

enough tests without the devil? Of course, but this is one of the tests

that God created. What are djinn? Emissary is of the devil? You could

put it like that, the dude be handy work of the devil. We believe there

are some djinn who are believers of God. That is a spirit? Yes, they

live in another dimension to us. We believe that there are believers

amongst the djinn, they do good works, but we believe that there are

certain s djinnwho carry out the works of the devil. Have you ever

seen anyone possessed by the devil or anything like that? As an imam, I

received a lot of calls, and people come to me and say, my child or this

person has been possessed by the djinn or by the devil. And what I

say to them is, look, why do you say that? I ask certain questions. The

first question I would ask, have you been to a GP, have you been to a

professional? May be that person is depressed. Have you ever come to the

conclusion that somebody was possessed by the devil or by djinn?

I have seen people personally, they have been influenced by the whispers

of the devil, and we believe that this is something... What were they

doing? They were behaving in an abnormal manner. They were not

behaving in a normal fashion, and what I would tell them is to recite

the holy Koran, we believe this is a miracle. It might be a mental health

issue. That is what I said. When people come, I say, have you been to

a professional? Do you know of people who have been possessed by

the devil? In the field of mental health, it is recognised now that

spirituality can be a force route to understanding mental health. What

does that mean? The first one is biology and psychology. Do you think

a mental health condition can be because of the work of the devil?

Precisely. That is what they recognised now. Who recognises

that? It is written. It is in the book. There is a section where it

says, for those who are not materialist, we should give room of

consideration of the spiritual dimensional of their mental health.

Have you never heard the example of a child possessed by the devil? Have

you heard of this? I have heard of it. There are testimonies of

children who have been delivered, set free. The testimony of what the

devil has done with them. What the devil has done with them! They are

children. We cannot prove scientifically that Satan exists. We

are not going to leave the debate here. We are going to hear from

other people. Richard Hoskins, you have worked and lived in Africa, how

dangerous can this be? Just the last point about children being

possessed. Believe in evil powers exists in pretty much every

religion. It has done since the dawn of civilisation. I was not picking

on Africa but you live there. I have been in Bible camps where pastels

have tried to exercise demons. There is a problem in Africa in

Pentecostal churches where children are being accused of being possessed

by the devil. It is not about drawing from sacred texts, it is

about children being accused of being witches. It is chilling. I

have been involved in some of the toughest cases this country has ever

seen. I was in the Old Bailey where two people were on trial for the

brutal slaughter of a boy who was branded as a witch. The Bible is

very clear. You will know the truth and the truth will set you free. You

need to teach the person per word of God. You mentioned they are evil and

people are being persecuted. Across Western Europe for hundreds of

years, tens of thousands of women were murdered because they were

being seen as the daughters of the devil. If you know the truth, Jesus

was the first person to deal with demons and set free people. He spoke

the word. Reverend Rachel Mann the devil is in the Bible like Baltimore

is in Harry Potter. We are talking about

interpretation. The Bible makes reference to Satan in a number of

passages. It is about interpretation. In the book of Job,

I think that Satan is a joke figure. In the book of Revelation,

it is not clear that we are talking about some kinds of personified

evil. I simply cannot bring myself to believe in a Satan, who is an

embodied angel who has been thrown out of heaven. I am a trained

philosopher, who has been very influenced by Saint Augustine who

sees evil as the absence of good. That kind of God I believe in simply

has no is based on some sort of tent who is there. Let's come back to

Kate. When you have been on programmes with these debates,

you're always very measured. Let me ask another question. People find

this very interesting. Do you believe that the devil can appear

incorporeal, bodily, form? Do you think that ever happens? It is not

mentioned whether the devil appears in a physical or spiritual form.

From the testimonies of people who are involved with the world of

darkness, they are saying that the devil can come to them as a human

being. Really? There are many testimonies of alien abduction as

well. That are testimonies of people involved. Whenever I am on the show,

someone on the Internet always tells me I am the devil. Well... Let me

say this, it is terrifying to hear these kinds of things about children

who are possessed. It implies that good and evil are these two distinct

full since that operate against each other. The reality is that when

Vladimir Putin said gay people are welcome at the Olympics but they

should stay away from children, he felt he was doing good in protecting

children. Others feel he is doing something very bad in stigmatising

gay people. It is not as simple as good versus bad. Life is much more

nuanced than that. I might go one step further and say, what surprises

me is that here we are in the 21st-century, I have a device in my

pocket which enables me to have a face-to-face conversation with

somebody who lives in Australia. In this day and age, there are still

people who believe in the devil and who believe in God. It is ludicrous.

Tell me about the evil eye. It is the concept that evil comes

either... This is the Jewish interpretation. It is the oldest

religion. No, it is not. Everything that God creates will have to

conceive the idea that it comes from love. Everything that God creates

comes from love, the good. If there is a concept of evil it is to

standardise us and make us believe we have to do better. The concept of

the evil eye, people have evil inclinations from within. In the

process, it can generate bad things towards other people. We can feel so

malevolently disposed toward somebody that that is why we should

not be arrogant and Parade GCSE results on the Internet. People have

bad feeling and jealousy. There is the acknowledgement there are

malevolent forces around that can stay as towards things that we do

not want to do and we have to fight against it. Just a quick word

because there are hands in the audience up. I think children, if

they are under the influence of an evil spirit, I do not think they

should be abused. They deserve compassion. I have heard every

single pastor say the same thing. By telling children they can be

possessed, you are abusing them. Child abuse. Sign it is child abuse.

-- it is child abuse. With regard to the comments from the reverend, I

find it convenient you can pick and choose parts of the Bible you

believe. The way it is used and practised in forces a form of child

abuse. That is how the reality -- that is the reality of how the text

is interpreted. You said about interpreting the Bible correctly.

The problem is, you have different groups interpreting the Bible in

different ways. The argument about who is right has resulted in some of

those groups... It has resulted in some of our best debates. Debate is

part of human nature. The doctor has a very quick point to make. You talk

about the structural apparatus of the psyche and the mind can you talk

about our drive for power, money and greed. As a Muslim, I see that as

the self that incites to evil. What we say is this is something which is

innate within everyone. It is bad people doing bad things. Conscience

or super ego is what moralisers the negative aspect within every single

person. -- moralising is. There are particular religions which believe

in God will stop by Des bad stuff happen? -- which believe in God. Why

does bad stuff happen? We invented the concept of the devil in order to

try and answer the question. The problem is, it has very dangerous

results, as we have heard. Whether or not you believed in a

personalised devil or the concept, what we have witnessed here today,

we have listened to these ladies talking about women being thrown

downstairs, that is an evil act. We have seen Channel 4 abusing a

community, that is an evil act. The forces of evil are always present

and we must never caved in to them. The Bible teaches about eight God of

love who calls us... What is the devil? Is it a metaphor? I believe

the Bible teaches the forces of evil are always present and we are called

to get involved for good. That is why the Church of England chose the

wording. They say people are possessed. Communities are using

that as an excuse to deal with discipline issues. Homosexuality is

a prime example of a young man calling the helpline. A Muslim man,

who is homosexual. He was told he was possessed by the devil and

whipped frequently to get rid of this devil out of his body. And that

was guidance from people within his community. People are using this as

an excuse to discipline and punish people and that is the problem. How

widespread is this? It is a widespread issue and a hidden issue

and we need to root it out. In this country, we are against the death

penalty. Why do you want to apply the death penalty to our children in

a mother 's womb? As always, debates continue on Twitter. Next week we

are back. We will see you soon.