Weekend Woman's Hour: The award-winning composer Shirley J Thompson, Domestic Violence Prevention & Managing our data

Published: June 19, 2021, 4:05 p.m.

Composer Shirley J. Thompson is the first woman in Europe to have composed and conducted a symphony within the last 40 years. She tells us about her new work Emanation, which she\u2019s written for the disabled-led ensemble BSO.

Dame Darcey Bussell Former Principal of The Royal Ballet & Strictly Judge, President of the RAD & creator of Diversity Dance Mix, Dame Darcey Bussell tells us about her mission to rescue Britain\u2019s ballet dancers and raise spirits and money for struggling dance companies by creating the British Ballet Charity Gala at the Royal Albert Hall in London bringing together eight ballet companies in one evening of dance.

We discuss the results of a BBC Freedom of Information request which asked police forces in the UK how many police had been accused of sexual misconduct. We hear from our reporter Melanie Abbott, from Ruth a former officer who found herself being sexually assaulted by a colleague and Harriet Wistrich from the Centre for Women\u2019s Justice.

This year the government has announced an extra 19 million pounds for domestic abuse schemes in England and Wales the majority of which will go to towards perpetrator programmes. . But just how effective are they? We hear from John who has just completed a 20 week domestic violence prevention programme at the Hampton Trust and to Vicky Gilroy who is a facilitator on those prevention programmes at the Trust.

In today\u2019s online digital world everything we do now on our phones or our computers\u2014everything we look at, click on or say online\u2014becomes \u201cdata\u201d. Companies and governments increasingly share and use this information to make decisions about our lives. A small UK based team of experts called Foxglove is challenging how our data\u2019s used and they\u2019ve had some remarkable successes over the last year. It\u2019s director Cori Crider tells us how the group successfully challenged the A Level grading algorithm last year.

Presenter: Anita Rani\nProducer: Rabeka Nurmahomed\nEditor: Siobhann Tighe