Transcripts For BBCNEWS Victoria Derbyshire 20240713

Colchester in essex. Writing in two sunday newspapers, borisjohnson urges the uk on a brexit deal. The met office has issued an amber warning for heavy rain in the east of england, warning that disruption from flooding is likely. The british rock drummer ginger baker who was part of the band cream, with eric clapton has died at the age of 80. Now time for the best of the weeks exclusive interviews and reports from the Victoria Derbyshire programme. Hello, and welcome to our programme. For the next half an hour, well bring you some of the exclusive and original journalism weve broadcast over the last week. Cocaine use in this country has reached record levels. Now, doctors and coroners are warning that taking the class a drug warning that taking the class a drug with alcohol is a deadly combination which can increase violent and impulsive behaviour. This programme has found at least 13 self inflicted deaths happened in one year in england amongst people who took the two substances together. A self inflicted death is where a person is found hanging or has deliberately harmed themselves in some way. There is a warning that these figures are likely to be higher as there is currently no official recording of these type of deaths. He was very smiley. He was very, very intelligent. 0ne you met him, you just fell in love with him straightaway. Music three lions footballs coming home . Its coming, footballs coming home. What . Thats what i always like to say to people. I was so proud of him. I was so proud to be his sister. This is Logan Woolliscroft toasting a marshmallow and then giving it to his little sister. His family say, for a few months last summer, this kind and thoughtful logan disappeared. But, on the morning of the 21st of august, he was back. I was satjust doing my makeup. As i left, he told me that he loved me and i cant remember the last time that he told me he loved me and i never said it back to him. Not that i can remember. But i remember turning round and he used to do a little wave he used to do that with hand. And he did that to me and i wasjust like, right, bye. He said, im proud of you. And i said, yeah, im proud of you, too. And he said, no, dad, listen to me im proud of you. I want you to know im proud of you. A few hours later, steve found out logan had gone to a cliff near their home. Steve went to find him. I found eight grams empty bags, cocaine bags disaronno. Hed poured that into some pepsi. The police asked me where i thought he was and ijust knew that hed gone over. So i came home and had to tell tilly that her brother had died. Um. Which broke my heart. Cocaine was once only for the rich, but now its affordable and accessible. Recent Home Office Figures show, last year, the numbers of people taking class a drugs in england and wales reached record levels mainly due to young adults. Academics and doctors say these are some of the reasons theres been a rise in the number of alcohol and cocaine related deaths over the past two decades. 162 people died in england and wales last year. A leading pathologist has called the mixture of alcohol and cocaine a deadly combination. There are, of course, the health risks increased heart rate and increased blood pressure. Theres also the chance of increased risky or dangerous behaviour. Research from the us suggests it could also increase the chance of suicide by 16 times. Alcohol and cocaine are very different pharmacologically. Alcohol is a depressant it tends to kind of increase the levels of gaba in the brain, which is like the brains handbrake and is the thing that makes it an anxiolytic it makes us feel less anxious. You add cocaine into that mix and what you have is almost like a rocket fuelled kind of increasing impulsivity, which really perhaps gives people the driver to complete an act that they may not otherwise do. Its like crossing the road in front of a car speeding towards you. You make those kind of decisions. The Victoria Derbyshire programme has found there have recently been at least 13 self inflicted deaths after alcohol and cocaine were taken. The majority of them were hangings. This includes the love island contestants Mike Thalassitis and sophie gradon. Also, sophies boyfriend, aaron armstrong, who took his own life just weeks after her. The trouble that we and academics have found is theres currently no standardised statistics for these types of deaths. After consulting experts, we found these figures by searching through local and National Media articles. Its thought the number of deaths could be even higher. Weve been told the way coroners record their conclusions could be obscuring emerging trends in difficult cases. In the inquests we found where the deceased hanged themselves, a conclusion of suicide wasnt always recorded narrative or open conclusions were instead. At one inquest, where a man hanged himself after taking alcohol and cocaine, the coroner recorded a narrative verdict, saying, the deceased took his own life while the balance of his mind was disturbed. Its unfortunate were having more and more deaths of this nature. The ministry ofjustice says while coroners contribute to death statistics, its not their legal function. Along with the 13 deaths we found, there were five more where cocaine and alcohol were consumed and suicide considered. The coroners concluded there wasnt enough evidence. One of those was logan. In the three months before his death, logan became increasingly volatile and depressed. The 21 year olds family say hed made some new friends and had started taking cocaine and drinking heavily. He left some notes for his family. But the coroner said logan could have fallen while intoxicated. An open conclusion was recorded. Do you think alcohol and cocaine killed logan . Yes, 100 . To mix a stimulant with a depressant, which is what youre doing, it muddles your brain up completely and you just dont know where you are. Some with Mental Health problems may take cocaine and drink to self medicate. For others, the mixture can cause Mental Health issues. At the age of 30, paula reece was battling alcoholism. She began taking cocaine to curb her drinking. I couldnt have one line. I can never have one drink. And together . And together created that boom the bomb in my mind. There was a sense of paranoia. There was a point where i used to feel like i was being recorded wherever i was. So i knew i was going a bit crazy, but i still didnt put it down to the drugs and drink. Ijust thought it was me going mad. And i used to unplug all the Electrical Equipment with green lights, because i was convinced that was cameras. I used to put my ear to the floor, because i thought people were underground. Paula tried to take her own life on two occasions. Those two drugs took me away from any sense of responsibility, any sense of reality. I didnt think of any consequences. In fact, i didnt care. Paula is now clean and works for recovery lighthouse. Its part of the ukat group of rehabs, which have seen alcohol and cocaine admissions double in four years. When you mix alcohol and cocaine together, the liver produces a substance called cocaethylene. Its thought this can lead to reckless behaviour, violent thoughts and the increased risk of suicide. However, the Royal College of psychiatrists says other factors, like a persons genes and their environment, will also come into play and that more research is needed. Weve had 28 funding cuts in the last five years. At the same time as we have this increase in usage, which seems really inexplicable to those of us working in the field. But our biggest concern, obviously, is the impact on the individual and theirfamilies, because people often get into the habitual use of alcohol and then they add cocaine into that and it becomes a very toxic mix. The department of health says its investing millions into suicide prevention, has commissioned an independent review of drugs and is setting up alcohol care teams in some hospitals. You can see the cliff where logan died from the woolliscrofts garden. Logans cat occasionally meows when you say logans name. When the family need an escape, they go to the garage where they keep logans car. Pretty much everything in heres revolved around logan. The woolliscrofts are now raising money to support Mental Health and Suicide Awareness services in the matlock area. They recently did a five day, gruelling coast to coast bike ride, cycling nearly 200 miles. Its kind of escapism for me. Im listening to logans playlist. And, you know, ijust pretend hes with me behind me or something. He was just lovely and to think of Something Like this changing someone in such a drastic way, like a boy who had everything, like, it just shows what it really can do to you. And if youve been affected by any of the issues raised in the film, then go to our website. There are a range of organisations that can give you advice and support. Next, a 25 year old woman who is set to become the nhss first deaf and blind doctor. She told the programme the discriminatory comments she received when she started her hospital placements made her question herfuture as a medical student. Ive been talking to alexandra adams. On my first day of placement, a senior doctor came up to me and just said, imagine you are a patient, would you want a disabled doctor treating you . Absolutely not, and then i was sent home. Sorry, you were literally sent home . Yes. Because you have a loss of vision and hearing . Yes, this doctor obviously hadnt seen a deaf, blind medic on the ward before and didnt really know how to deal with the situation. So, yeah, it was a shame because obviously it was my first day of placement and as a medical student, that should be the most exciting day of medical school so far. Unfortunately for me, it was the most disappointing day. It was the day that actually i came home and for the first time doubted whether i could do medicine with a disability. What other comments have you received . Shortly after this comment, another doctor came up to me and said, what are you doing with the patients cane . So i had to explain that the cane was in fact mine because im registered blind, and theyjust looked at me in disgust and said, i dont want you touching any of the patients. Goodness me. They immediately assumed that because i was a medical student, i cant be visually impaired or hearing impaired. Then i was on a ward round and i had asked the doctor to speak a little louder and instead of sort of understanding and speaking a little clearer for me, they just walked away and went to a colleague and said, how do you expect an invalid like her to run the nhs . How do you react to those comments . I almost knew before medical school that i would face discrimination because its not common for a visually and hearing impaired doctor to be on the wards. But i didnt expect it to be this ignorant. But im a very positive person and i sort of try to see it as just rather than people being malicious, its a lack of understanding. Its ignorance because of these outdated. This is coming from medical professionals . I mean, how dare they be ignorant about hearing loss and sight loss you would think in the medical field that they would be the most caring, but i think we are so in this bubble, we are clinging on to these, obliviously, onto the sort of outdated stereotypes that need to change. We need to see more diversity in the nhs and they need to be more accepting of people. Let me ask you, you have 5 sight in one eye and completely blind in the other. You use hearing aids to hear, can you explain to me how you can put a cannula in my hand . What would you do, can i give you my hand . Yes. What would you do . With cannulas, you rely on feeling and touching rather than seeing the veins, because as you can imagine, some patients who are really sick, they have swollen hands and so on. So its all about feeling for the springy ones, so you go around and say ok, thats not a great vein and you know, we are looking for the springy ones. Obviously, the technique of putting in a cannula, you have to put it in at a certain angle. At medical school actually before we were let loose on the wards if you like, we do have a Simulation Centre where we have mannequins of hands and we practise. So you know the technique, you know the system, if you like, and then when it actually comes to finding a vein, you feel. And actually, being visually impaired, because you have to naturally rely on senses your sense of feeling and touch are actually higher. So on many occasions when i had been on the wards as a medical student, i have had other colleagues, other peers of mine coming up to me saying, ive struggled to get this in and theyve asked me and ive managed to, because i have a little better sense of feel for it. Ive had a cannula in the top of my hand a number of times and, you know, incredible nurses who can see sometimes struggled because sometimes its tricky and its quite a sensitive procedure isnt it . Because of your sight and hearing loss, i wonder, do you think that gives you another dimension as a doctor, not necessarily a better doctor, but a different way of approaching patients . Yeah, i mean i see my unique perspective in giving more insight, so i say to people, i have less eyesight than most of you, but i have more insight. I think thats down to my personal experiences of being a patient. I was in hospitalfor a year and a half at the age of 16 and it was then that i kind of got to learn who the good doctors were and who the bad doctors where. Were and who the bad doctors were. And thats the motivation for training to be a doctor . Absolutely, absolutely. I realised i have empathy that i can give to other people that maybe other colleagues dont have so much of. I mean, i remember when i was in hospital for this year and a half, every single morning a bunch of doctors would come round and they would look at the notes, but not once did they look at me or tell me whats going on. Extraordinay. Because there are some brilliant doctors in the nhs. Some are fantastic. Its a balance between bedside manner and clinical knowledge. The Junior Doctor said the three most important words the patient wants to hear are, are you 0k . I burst into tears. She showed me a big scar on her ribs. She showed me she had empathy because like me she had been in hospitalfor a long time and she knew what i was going through. I have applied that as a student to my patients. There was a patient who had come down from intensive care. Im the medical student in the ward round, we look at the notes and we move on but i was the only person who noticed that she was upset. After the ward round i went back and asked if she was ok and she said no. I got up and drew the curtain and i said, i know how you feel because ive been on intensive care 15 times. Thank you for telling me about your experiences, and continued success in your course. Youre due to graduate in 2022. Youre doing it part time. We wish you all the best. Thank you, victoria. Finally, he might only be 12 years old but hes already had a run in with adventurer bear grylls and been called an inspiration by the tv presenter and wildlife campaigner Chris Packham for his environmental campaigning, particularly the conservation of sharks. Last week, finlay pringle, from ullapool in the scottish highlands, won an award from the daily mirror, who called him an animal hero. Why are you so keen on sharks and conserving them . I have always had this love for the Marine Environment that i cant quite explain. I go snorkelling all the time, we have seen seals, sea bass and a small shark, and as well as that we are seeing plastic pollution and fish in some areas disappearing into other areas where they should not be. Doing all of this, i saw there was problems with our Marine Environment and i looked at sharks especially. If you look at their reputation, thanks to jaws, it has not gone very well. I have seenjaws, yes. You say the reputation of sharks is unfair . It is ridiculous. What are they really like . Lets put it into perspective. Jaws makes us think that sharks are continually killing people. Five people a year die due to sharks, seven people a year died while eating biscuits. If that is true, it is one heck of a fact. You are more likely to win the lottery. Than be killed by a shark. That really puts it into perspective. I have two boys. When my boys were little they loved sharks, as all small boys do, but your fascination has continued. Why . There is something about them. I am concerned by everything going on at the moment. Sharks especially. In britain, we will be affected by sharks and the climate. As the climate gets hotter, sharks from africa, maybe even great whites, might migrate to the uk. I think this is horrendous. They should not be here, because there is not the food to be here. There are seals, but then they have competition of the orca around here. You wrote to bear grylls, you suck. Why . If you read the whole thing, it is actually quite polite. As a chief scout, he should not be promoting sharks in a way that they are dangerous. It is ridiculous. It is mental. Being in the media, they only picked up the you suck part. Your issue was he was diving with sharks . It is a big mix. The aquarium itself is 200 square metres, it had 13 sharks, fish, rays, all of that, so they were pretty cramped. It was promoted as dangerous, as i have told you, they really are not. And the shark trust was getting money from the dives. You were sacked, because there was a backlash . A backlash against them, you lost your role as ambassador for the charity, shark for kids . That is when people like Chris Packham praised you . How did you feel . At the time, when i was sacked i was pretty mortified because i had nothing wrong, they said i was not allowed to campaign but as scotlands junior shark ambassador, but on two campaigns i said the same thing and nothing was said. It has nothing to do with that, i do not know the problem. And why i was sacked. But it happens. The fact that Chris Packham supported me, to me, was incredible, and it still is today. Are you still politely cross with bear grylls . Yes. What would you say to him . Probably nothing, because it would be rude. Pretty polite on your social media posts. What would you tell him now . I would probably say what he was doing was wrong. The campaign is happening all over the world, notjust birmingham. We are going to have these tiny shark tanks all over the world. What do you think about that . It is pure madness, they shouldnt be putting sharks in these tiny enclosures they live in the oceans. What if they argue that it is about conserving the species . Its rubbish. They say it is for breeding. Two sharks have been bred in captivity because when they took them in from the wild, they were pregnant. You cannot breed sharks in captivity, it doesnt work. You are just stressing out these sharks. Carole has tweeted, finlay is the real deal, i want a world where my children can see white sharks and a society, not this brexit rubbish. She is quoting you from your speech last night. You are campaigning against restaurants that have shark fin soup on the menu . I have been writing letters. We are doing it in the uk at the moment. 19 in the uk still serve it and most of them being here in london. We are doing that and we are about to, with the help of chris, start a petition to ban shark fins coming into the uk. So if you are a chinese person, you can bring in 17. 5 kilograms of shark fins into this country, but you cannot bring sausages and cheese. Which is mad. Im going to read this statement from bear grylls spokesperson. We feel strongly about conservation too. This dive experience presents a unique opportunity for guests to be in an ocean environment and educating and inspiring them. Taking them to experience will raise awareness of and support for creature conservation. Congratulations, finlay, thank you for coming on the programme. You are welcome. Keep up the good work. Fantastic. Thats it for this week. If you want to get in touch, please e mail us. We are back on monday morning at 10am on bbc 2 and the bbc news channel. Hello there, weve seen heavy rain pushing across just about all parts of the uk over the last 2a hours but Eastern England has had more than its fair share. Spot this was how it looked for a weather watcher in norfolk a little earlier on and if i show you the radar picture you can see why it was so wet because the rain really did linger across these eastern areas. You can see the dark blue colours on our radar picture affecting parts of norfolk and suffolk for a good part of the afternoon. That rain easing through the next few hours and it will clear away as we get into the overnight period to leave a drier interlude. But only a brief one because behind me you can see our next weather system approaching from the west. Outbreaks of rain splashing in here. Brisk winds as well. A mild night in the west, but a rather cool one further east where we see, temporarily at least, some clear spells. But tomorrows weather will be dominated by this, a deep area of low pressure. Notice a lot of white lines here on the chart, a lot of isobars, some very windy weather to come across the far north west of the uk. We could well see gusts of 60 to may be 70 mph across the western isles. Windy elsewhere as well and as we go through the day, we see these outbreaks of rain tracking eastwards across the country. This rain could deliver 20 or 30 millimetres in places, not quite as much as weve seen over the last 2a hours, but the ground is so wet and that could cause some furtherflooding problems and certainly some very poor conditions out on the roads. Brightening up for scotland and northern ireland. A mix of sunshine and showers here through the afternoon. Temperatures of 11 to 16 degrees. And this area of low pressure stays with us as we head deeper into the week. The low, lumbering quite slowly eastwards just to the north of the british isles, feeding showers in our direction and from time to time, those showers willjoin together to give longer spells of rain. On tuesday, it looks likely the showers willjoin together into bands with some drier intervals in between. Top temperatures of 13 to 17 degrees still quite windy out there as well. Wednesday, a fairly typical sunshine and showers day. The showers perhaps focused across Western Areas but the winds will be Strong Enough to push them across to the east from time to time and those temperatures still in the range of 13 to 15, may be 16 degrees. So to sum up for the week ahead it stays very unsettled. We will see some heavy downpours at times. Some sunny spells and it will often be windy. This is bbc news. Im lukwesa burak. The headlines at 11 00. Police in hong kong charge protestors with batons and use tear gas once again a day after the government brought in emergency legislation banning the use of face masks. It is coming in fairly indiscriminately, over the top. The police are over there. I mean, there is no violent confrontation but this is the first sign of tactics to try and disperse the crowd today. Us media report that a second whistleblower has come forward in the impeachment case against donald trump. A man is arrested and a Murder Investigation is launched after three men are found dead at a property in colchester in essex. Writing in two sunday newspapers, borisjohnson urges the eu to show that its willing to compromise with the uk on a brexit deal. The met office has issued an amber warning for heavy rain