Jack Garrett Connelly dad was a fundamentalist pasta and dad's doubts when not allowed I had 2 minds at the time one was very much the god brain where I was going along with whatever anybody said there was no questioning that was very specific and entrenched worldview if you did your out it was a scandal when Garrett came out as gay and he agreed to attend therapy that was meant to turn him straight but left him feeling more confused feeling guilt and shame and thinking like I don't know if I can change but also if I don't change I'm never going to see my family again I didn't know who I was anymore it was just soul murder so modern Yeah you felt like possibly was dying yeah I did Garrett story of conversion therapy after this. Hello I'm Eileen McHugh with the b.b.c. News the pulse of the German car maker. Has been detained in connection with the diesel emissions scandal and the spokesman said he must benefit from the presumption of innocence more from Damien McGuinness there were fears that he might hinder the investigation either by temperament evidence or by potentially influencing other employees of the Audi group now this candle with v.w. Has been going on for 3 years now so it's something that various brands within the v.w. Group are struggling with Audi being one of them of course last year 850000 Our cars were recalled not all of them had problems but they were recalled and that was a massive cost to our day than last week $85000.00 cars were identified as having potentially having this diesel cheating software and now the c.e.o. Of Audi has been detained the King of Spain's brother in law in New York Ian Duncan has been imprisoned on corruption charges following his trial last year he will serve 5 years in 10 months for embezzlement influence peddling and tax fraud from Madrid Guy Hedgecoe to ports in the UK Your Then Green arrived at the prison in Abbeville west of Madrid early this morning having flown in from Geneva where he's been living with Princess Christina and their 4 children he will spend at least the 1st part of his sentence in an isolated section of a women's prison where he's reportedly the only male inmate It has been a dramatic fall from grace to Mr or dungaree who married Princess Christina in 1997 although she was cleared of tax fraud charges the scandal surrounding his financial affairs has led to the couple being stripped of their status as the Duke and Duchess of Palma Syrian government forces have accused the u.s. Led coalition of carrying out an airstrike on one of their positions killing and wounding a number of people however the u.s. Led coalition has denied. Inching any attack in the area Germany's c.s.u. Party has been meeting to discuss a proposal to reject migrants at the German border if they have already registered in another European Union country the interior minister horsy her for who proposed the plan is on a collision course with the chancellor Angela Merkel over the issue is Jenny Hill if Mrs Markland Mr they offer can't come to some kind of agreement then that alliance between the c.d.u. In the c.s.u. Which is at the heart of this coalition might fall apart and that means all sorts of problems are fresh elections perhaps even an end to Mrs Merkel is correct Now having said all that what we're hearing from insiders these are unconfirmed reports but the suggestion seems to be that Mr Zehava may offer something of a compromise I may very well say look we'll implement our plan if a European solution can't be found at an e.u. Summit in a couple of weeks time world news from the b.b.c. So delighted coalition has reportedly carried out more airstrikes on the Yemeni port of who data which is in the hands of Hoofy rebels attack helicopters is said to have been targeting rebels snipers on rooftops near the city's airport a un envoy has been talking to the Who Thiessen an effort to negotiate an end to the fighting but these discussions don't appear to have secured a breakthrough Police in Greece have arrested a neo nazi member of parliament who fled on Friday after urging the army to mount a coup to stop a deal on a new name for Greece's neighboring neighbor Macedonia Constantine barber who says was traced to a friend's house in the Athens suburbs his far right party Golden Dawn expelled him for his speech calling for the severed heads of the prime minister Alexis Tsipras and others to be thrown in the lake where the deal was signed on Sunday. The United Nations human rights chief has sharply criticized the United States for its policy of forcibly separating migrant children from their parents at the u.s. Border from Geneva image and focus reports they'd rather Hussein said he deplored policies intended to make life increasingly difficult for migrants people did not lose their rights just because they had crossed borders without visas he said and the Us policy of forcibly separating children from parents simply increased the suffering of already vulnerable individuals the idea that any country would seek to deter parents by inflicting abuse on their children was he added unconscionable police in the western Indian state of Gujarat turned provided security for the wedding procession of a couple from the dollar community treated as the lowest caste by Hindus after villagers objected to the groom riding a horse the procession was delayed by a couple of hours following threats from villagers who regarded riding a horse as an upper class privilege b.b.c. News. Hello I'm Joe fiction and this is Outlook the home of extraordinary personal stories on the b.b.c. World Service coming later the Trinidadian woman who says she's afraid to smile in case she scares people but that's all that's why heading to small town console in America's Bible Belt the childhood home of Garrett Conley he and his parents would go to church 3 times a week not unusual for the kind of place it was but his mom stood out somewhat in the congregation she is a southern belle she has hair that's really a large platinum blonde tons of mascara her outfits are always perfectly coordinated she has ruffles and lace and like 5000000000 strands of pearls on you know when she enters the room all eyes are on her you're very close to him and yeah very close it came as a shock to both of us when I was 16 and we were sitting in the pew and Dad decided to become a preacher is walking down the aisle crying and we look at each other like oh my God what are we going to do now because Mom did not want to be a preacher's wife I mean I she says they're going to put me in ugly denim skirts and make me not wear make up. And that's not my mom before he felt called to be about just a preacher his dad had run a car dealership and regular bible studies they happened every morning at around 7 am before we began our work basically people are required to do it for your father's employees Yes So they have to turn up for work at 7 o'clock yes in the showroom glass walls everywhere everyone's on their knees praying and doing a Bible Study the family will Missionary Baptist fundamentalist Christians part of the religious right the Faith went hand in hand with certain political attitudes and an attachment to the old ways of doing things in the south teenaged Garrett was having doubts about all of this but felt. Better to keep him to himself it was nearly 2000 George w. Bush was president and those around the chaos of the period was assigned the end times were coming at that time we were invading Iraq and everyone in the church was talking about the subject and they believed that George w. Bush was chosen by God to lead this crusade against quote unquote terrorists this employee of my father's asked me How do you feel about the invasion of Iraq and I had to say something like Well you know it's complicated I don't know but I really like our President does you like President I didn't know I mean I had 2 minds at the time one was very much the god brain or the fundamentalist brain where I was going along with whatever anybody said and the other part of my brain was starting to develop like any other person who was becoming informed about the world I remember in science class my science teacher at the time who was also coaching the cheerleaders decided that instead of studying evolution she would invite the cheerleaders inside the class to do their cheer routine part of their performance was to unfurl a Confederate flag. That was what we studied instead of evolution one of the main beliefs of and Missionary Baptist Missionary Baptist believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible you know the miracles that Jesus performed in the New Testament were real miracles He healed the blind he raised people from the dead he rose from the dead himself and there was no questioning that they also believed Adam and Eve were actual human beings the 1st ones that copulated and populated the entire earth I said well they were technically sort of brother and sister right and. You don't ask those questions what would. Happen when you would say this to your father in particular he would say that you had to have faith that these stories were true there was no questioning this very says it's. An entrenched world view and if you did then you're out these general rules particular significance that if you believe that the Bible is literal in the video because for example in the Old Testament where it says Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind then it's plain and clear that I can't do that and all the acts it was absolutely clear to him that homosexuality was a sin and would put him on the wrong side of got his family and everyone he was terrifying to realize that he was gay I knew when I was in 3rd grade and I had my 1st male teacher Mr Smith who was sexy and I remember thinking like God like what am I supposed to do with this and as I grew older I was afraid that people would suddenly detect who I was there are all sorts of stereotypes about how gay people act but some of them are a little bit true you know like limp wrists or if you express too much emotion you get too excited in your voice gets too high it can be a dead giveaway for these people what else do you have to do then how do you have to modify your behavior to keep this from office it's hard to describe just how much I thought about how I was sitting standing talking I still have it today I think it still bothers me when I do something that reads as gay and it made me incredibly self-conscious so self-conscious that I was almost incapable of doing anything one time people just started dancing in the hallways in school and they were like Why don't you dance and I was just saying you know I don't want to dance . I don't like to dance of course I did but I knew that if I danced he would start thinking Ok maybe he's too good at that helps move to your well which you don't seem private How do you know I just never did I could feel it and there's an inherent dancing gene that I think I have but I knew that if I if I started to open up in certain ways that people would start to detect in me says homosexuality you know I had a girlfriend in high school we dated for 2 years we were supposed to get married I thought I can make this work I guess it's like any repression that someone goes through where they just completely deny the reality of these other thoughts that exist I mean growing up I was always taught you're going to have sinful thoughts they're going to enter your mind and they're from Satan and you have to resist them and I think at the time I thought Ok it's just like any other sinful thought it's just like thinking I would like to murder that person you don't murder the person you talk yourself down and hopefully your anger subsides and I thought the same thing about homosexuality I thought Ok I think we'll this feeling I'm going to count to 10 I'm not going to feel it anymore and I'm going to look at my girlfriend and maybe that will work today like now we tried we actually arranged Secret Service rendezvous we were going to try to have sex with each other and we arranged a movie night and she went to her bedroom upstairs I was in the basement sleeping in the same room as her brother we've watched the movie I played some video games with her brother and that was actually when he basically confessed to me that he was gay and it was really odd timing and I just thought oh my god I'm such a hypocrite this. It who's so much younger than me and knows who he is is telling me this and I I don't think I can go up to his sister's room and fake something and be a terrible person was that a turning point for you then thinking it was I have to admit this to myself Now well I just thought this kid's really brave like how did he know to tell me that that he sees something in me why can't I say something like that I remind you that you're with outlook on the b.b.c. We're hearing from Garrett Conley he was struggling to reconcile his homosexuality with his fundamentalist Christian upbringing he would end up having some very uncomfortable conversations about sex just giving you advance warning of what you can expect but for the moment Garrett felt he couldn't tell anyone he was gay and found it easier to avoid his girlfriend until it was time to go away to university you've got a place at a liberal arts college a couple of hours away from home it was like a whole new world was opened up to him evolution was acknowledged Charles Darwin was on the reading list and all the wild views weapon method my mind of the race things so fast because I couldn't catch up with what I was learning and it it almost felt like coming out of the Matrix or something and it's shocking when you beginning to be able to imagine a world where being gay was Ok I don't know if I reached a point where I thought it would be Ok because outside of our college community the town was still very much like the town I'd grown up in and when we would leave the campus it didn't feel safe anymore I guess I just felt that college was an anomaly that I was really happy to have. And I didn't know if I could ever live openly as a gay man I want to feel fellow students in fact. He'll parents school them up described you as a monster I think yeah. Your mom came to. Happen when she turned up we drove home I think I cried the whole way home when I arrived my dad took me into his bedroom he'd already made a few phone calls to some local churches and they had told him that the best route forward was to send me to a conversion therapy camp so my dad close the door to his bedroom and had me sit down the 1st thing is Ted It was really awkward where he was like I just want to explain to you that having sex with a woman feels really wonderful I think you said when you slide in there it feels really great and I was just like Dad I cannot listen to this. On multiple levels it was very disturbing and then he began to explain to me that I had 2 choices one was that I tend conversion therapy camp and changed who I was or I would lose my family I wouldn't be able to talk to them again and they wouldn't support me with my education was a tough choice to make no. Unfortunately it was not a tough choice to make because I just thought Ok how would I even be financially independent at this point how would I leave this community behind what is there outside of this I mean every film I've ever watched about being queer it ended in someone dying of aids or living like a lifestyle that I didn't understand and there were no models that reached me for how I could live what I consider to be a normal life. So I was just sitting there thinking like Ok well I cannot talk to my family again and then on top of that I can't not talk to God again if I walked away from that I would be walking away from the most important relationship in my life with gaunt Yeah I believe that I spoke with God every night every day and losing that relationship felt life ending so you agreed to go to this confession therapy outfit run by Could Love in Action and the idea is that you go and you will come out straight and with a deeper faith in God My mother was told there was an 85 percent success rate whatever that means or know where they got that distinct from I'll never know but. Success rate being becoming straight to me straight human guys would be in fact sheet and stays with you know how to tell outside that the complex where this conversion therapy is going on and you'll go in 95 and go through the therapy which involved what in the 1st instance what was the principle of it so we were told that we were all living in sexual sin and that we were all sexually addicted it was operating under sort of Alcoholics Anonymous model the 1st step of a 12 step program being that we needed to admit that we were wrong before God. The final step being that we were fully free of arson and that was mixed with psychotherapy a lot of Croydon theories that people don't use anymore a lot of pop psychology and we were placed beside people dealing with things like Beastie ality pedophilia marriage issues you name it all up together so this was yes because if you look in the Bible there's a pretty popular verse that Baptists like to talk about which is that all sins are equal in the eyes of God so all sends me equal we were basically indistinguishable from one another. And I look back on that time and think oh my God I was sitting next to a child molester who was dealing with these issues and how sad that he was in the same room with 16 and 15 year old children I mean for him and for them he needed his own therapy I want to fast and you had to do was lists all the sins if you will this as it was yes everything that anyone in your family and I counted as a sin was the reason for that well we had to do was call Jenna Graham and this is actually a popular their technique where you write out your family tree and you show patterns of abuse in that family and it's supposed to illustrate that there is a history a cycle of abuse in a family which is actually quite helpful love in action put their own spin on it and their particular spin in this instance was to label instead of cycles of abuse since symbols in a family it could be anything from abortion which they would label as an a b. Gambling which they believed was evil so they would put a dollar sign next to that person's name it could be as extreme as murder and as small as telling a lie and in my case next to my name I was supposed to put an age for homosexuality and I was supposed to look at my father so to speak all of my father's in my family and see that their sins had led to my sin of homosexuality and it's based off of a very popular Bible verse as well and that the sins of the fathers will continue to the sons like I said very literal interpretations being used as a method of therapy it has to these moral infantry's would. Detail every sinful thoughtful action you don't have experienced those were borrowings as well from Alcoholics Anonymous It's actually a pretty great technique for alcoholics wherein they talk about a moment of temptation and they say Ok well I was able to get over this only in our case we were to talk about any sexual fantasy that we'd ever had so incredibly invasive you know today I would feel uncomfortable just talking about all of my sexual fantasies to a stranger or a group of strangers and any sexual experiences we'd had which I hadn't had many at all and we had to write it all down each night and then we had to stand in front of the group every morning and recite it it was embarrassing especially was embarrassing but I wasn't doing t. Going through this crisis it was breaking me down I mean every night when I would go back to the hotel room I would have to do all this homework I couldn't have any outside influences I couldn't have a new secular music I couldn't be reading the books that I loved I couldn't write they took my notebook from me they ripped out stories that I had written because they said it was a distraction from God So I'm sitting there every night just writing this extremely vapid language about my sexual fantasies and feeling guilt and shame and embarrassment and thinking like I don't know if I can change but also if I don't changed I'm never going to leave my family again I mean it was one of the worst feelings I've ever had I didn't know who I was any more it was just. Soul murder in a way so much Yeah I mean it's very strong. Language you felt light pulse of you was dying yeah I did I was suicidal before about I became suicidal during the sessions I mean at least I was I was experiencing suicidal ideation and I was thinking every night when I come back to the hotel maybe I won't wake up and that will solve everything you saw your mom every night she was there in the hotel with you did she see this change in you she was saying in because later she told me you know she felt like she was the best mother in the world because she was doing this thing that my father wouldn't do he wouldn't come with me he was almost too afraid to and she believed that these men were telling her the right thing to do but then the other part of her was seeing me waste away and she was thinking to herself I'm the worst mother in the entire world the 2 existed side by side in her mind it's interesting that you say your father wouldn't go with you because there's a lot of emphasis Denise therapy sessions on the father and what ideas he'd given you about what it was to be a man and whether he plays enough sport with you. A very specific view of this is a man this is a heterosexual man he throws balls around and. I don't know who does what with his father. Yeah I mean we were supposed to go fishing or hunting you know all these ideas in the South that were really prevalent about what masculinity was there what it looked like were being reinforced in conversion therapy and it was just such a misguided idea I mean everyone was being held to a stereotype about what men were supposed to act like when we were supposed to act like we were told how to dress. How should you dress well we were only allowed to wear but not sure it's usually white tucked in we had to be clean shaven no long sideburns no beards let's look at it now I mean I find it so strange because it's very manly to have a beard because they wanted you to be the choir boy look I don't know some of the rules just didn't fit together and one point he was supposed to sit with us and but a chair in front of machinea father was a my chair. And you supposed to talk to your imaginary fought them what were you supposed to say they were basing this activity off of that another stereotype which is that all gay men must hate their fathers and must be too close to their mothers that's another Freudian borrowing right and so we were asked to sit across from a chair and I was told a k. Imagine your father sitting there and of course by this point I'd seen everyone else do it I was like the last one and everyone had yelled at their father and said like I hate you I can't believe that you did this to me and I've never been close to you Bob Law and. I remember being so nervous because of course I'm in front of a crowd I'm asked to perform once again and they say Ok here's your father sitting there and I looked at the empty chair and I thought this is so dumb when they said you need to scream at him and tell him that you hate him I said to them I don't hate him I feel really sad and really disappointed and very confused they don't hate him I understand him too well and the counsellor said well you haven't been trying hard enough you're holding feelings back you're not being honest with us and I said I am being honest with you and this is what I actually feel and I said well that's there's a deeper feeling underneath that and it's Don't tell me what I feel I know what I feel and I guess that was my peers any moment because I remember thinking 2 things One is that these people were telling me what to feel all the time and none of it felt natural and then I remember also thinking these are Christians and they claim to believe in Jesus who was all about compassion and loving people and they're asking me to hate my father in order to be cured what kind of compassion is that what kind of Christianity is that. And I just said I can't do this anymore I walked out of the auditorium and I demanded my phone the receptionist said I'm sorry we can't give you your phone and I said Well it's an emergency you have to give me my phone so I finally gave it to me I called my mom the minute she showed up the counselors ran to her car window and said he needs to stay here longer he stay here for 3 months a year he needs to drop out of college and my mom had a moment because she heard the panic in my voice and she turned to one of the counselors and she said I don't know why I've never asked this before but what are your qualifications and he said Well I've been through Alcoholics Anonymous and one of our fellow counselors is a marriage counselor and my mom said Well how does that give you the right to talk about these subjects and he said well you know God is moving through me and if you take him out of here you're going to be a bad mother garridge and his mother had to make a quick decision give up on conversion therapy and face the consequences at home and in the community well assessed and risk it's mental health we'll be back with them after the nice. This is the b.b.c. World Service where we are investigating an unsolved crime I plan to return to Pakistan next month in October 2007 Pakistan's former prime minister Benazir Bhutto returned to the country I do not know what awaits me once I leave the airport by the end of the year she was dead and there was a blast it was of August. I went Bennett Jones was covering the story an assassin blew himself up next to her after an election rally I thought it was likely to happen and I also thought it was equally likely that no one will be brought to justice 10 years on he will be as the results of his own investigation he doesn't even have time to take his finger off the trigger the assassination some of them doesn't want us to connect some dots and b.b.c. World Service dot com. In part 2 of outlook we're at the point in Garrett story where he's wondering whether to give up on day conversion therapy but he knows his father when he pleased my dad said well did it work and I said well obviously not we're home 2 days early and from that point on we did not talk about it for almost a decade we'll find out whether Garrett could maintain a relationship with his family and with going out after the news headlines. B.b.c. News with Eileen McHugh the chief executive of the German carmaker. Has been arrested in connection with the diesel emissions scandal he has been accused of putting cars with cheap devices on the market in Europe knowing that they were much dirtier than they appeared in pollution tests the King of Spain's brother in law in yuckier dengan has been imprisoned on corruption charges following his trial last year he will serve 5 years and 10 months for embezzlement influence peddling and tax fraud the husband of Princess Cristina is the 1st member of the modern royal family to go to jail Syrian government forces have accused the u.s. Led coalition of carrying out an airstrike on one of their positions one report suggested that nearly 40 pro-government militia men had died whoever the u.s. Led coalition has denied launching any attack Germany's sister conservative parties are holding a separate meetings to resolve an immigration related crisis that could bring down the government Chancellor Angela Merkel wants a coordinated European response but her interior minister horse a hole for once to start turning away migrants a man wanted in connection with a fatal collision at a music festival in the Netherlands has handed himself in to police the 34 year old suspect was arrested by police investigating an incident in which a white van drove into a crowd of people killing one of them 3 others remain in a critical condition the United Nations human rights chief is called on the United States to end what he called It's unconscionable policy of forcibly separating migrant children from their parents at the u.s. Border Sayed Randall Hussain made the remarks during his farewell speech to the un Human Rights Council in Geneva and Panama will make their 1st appearance in a football World Cup shortly when they face Belgium in the day's other games inclined to meet Tunisia and Sweden take on South Korea b.b.c. News. Hello I'm Josh fiction and you're teamed to Outlook the home of personal stories on the b.b.c. World Service Still to come today's outlook inspirations nominee Karen ask Irani but we're going to find out 1st what happened when Garrett Conley called his mother in desperation and asked us to take him away from the so-called conversion therapy camp which was supposed to rid him of his homosexuality was a lot resting on it he'd grown up with fundamentalist Christian beliefs that same sex relationships a sinful and his past a father had threatened to cut him off Garrett and his mother got in the car without knowing what to do We didn't know if you're going to leave or stay and she turned to me in the car and she said Do you feel like you're going to kill yourself and I honestly don't know whether or not at that moment I thought that I would commit suicide but I remember I said Yes I mean I was partially true but I also thought this is the only thing that's going to get me out of here and it was almost a test like do you love me enough to not kill me to mother and your mother she casts a. Thought that you'll fall though when you got back and said that was it you were not going back and you had not been converted to heterosexuality when we showed up at the house my dad said well did it work and I said well obviously not we're home 2 days early and from that point on we did not talk about it for almost a decade just never mentioned never mentioned it he said that he wouldn't pay for you to go to college if you were gay my mom did a very courageous thing she talked to him for weeks she explained the situation they had known someone who was actually a very famous pastor in Arkansas whose son had killed himself being gay and I think that she said to him if you don't back off we're going to lose our son and I think that that worked. I don't think you knew the extent of how painful it was no one had told him when the therapy was going to be about he trusted his church leaders and they said this is what you do as a father except as you know I don't know if my father is completely accepted me he tells me that he loves me he doesn't actively preach against l.g.b. To cure issues in his church is that very unusual yes and people notice and he has actually lost several congregants because of it he did pay for the carriage to finish his studies and Garrett has fulfilled his ambition to be a writer he's just published a book about his experiences called boy. You do wonder how his father must feel about that well we had a good joke about it recently and he said I'm really happy that you wrote a book because I know you've always wanted to be a writer but I wish it hadn't been this book and I said how could it be any other book that I have to write this one 1st before I can get over everything else you know I can't touch my boyfriend sometimes without feeling like my skin is on fire I don't walk through the world without being incredibly self-conscious about how I stand how to act how does my voice sound as it sound gay and then I thought. I should write about it it could be a really good tool for advocacy and I could actually honor the kid that I was and the other kids that are in conversion therapy and and the kids the go through a bookshop and see the old you read the section and passed by it and want to grab the book but they're looking around to see if anyone else was staring and I thought like Ok if I can get my book into regular bookstores and just give kids a chance to read it the other thing that therapy was meant to Chief was to bring you closer to go out what has happened to you Faith the scrutiny that I underwent and conversion therapy wherein they said you know God doesn't love you if you're like this to this day I cannot enter a church and feel comfortable I just feel so terrible that brings me back to that time to take anything positive from this journey through even on I'm really grateful in a strange way for having all of the bigotry of my childhood condensed into a 2 week period in which it was impossible to ignore you know when I walked out it was like Ok I got to start a new worldview and that is the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life I mean imagine 1819 years of your life being wiped away that is not an exaggeration. My entire worldview changed Garrett Connelly love in action has now discontinued the controversial program that Garrett's took part in 2 of its 3 founders left the organization one saying it was destroying people's lives and another that he had never met a man who experienced a change from homosexual to heterosexual the group now operates under another name and is still in the business of conversion therapy Gary's book is being turned into a film by the way Nicole Kidman is to play his mum and Russell Crowe his dad it's completely insane My mom is very happy to be like immortalized as Nicole Kidman home and my dad thinks his best friends and Russell Crowe now like they're texting each other and there was they texting transit each other so we don't know came to me yeah he came to my dad's church without any warning for his private jet down showed up with his entourage talked to my dad for 2 hours after the service and as my mom says my dad is incredibly flattered because she caught him late one night watching Gladiator wrestling Frank was. Like that I think dad thinks he's Gladiator you know like a big. Thing you think he has those abs too you know. You're with outlook on the baby Sea World Service Time now to be inspired as you probably know by now next Wednesday is Outlook inspirations awards day will be inviting 3 of the most inspiring people in the world to come to broadcasting house and celebrate their lives with us our judges have 20 nominees to choose from and we've been hearing their stories and recent weeks today's is Karen ask a Ronnie from Trinidad she was nominated by Les and I gave a recent Cooma He says she's been to Hey Karen speak was really inspired by her efforts to tackle book a career the preeminent issue of our time in Trinidad and Tobago crime and security she goes on parent organizes events conducts training gives insp. National talks and helps transform the lives of fun Uppal Yes she has truly turned tragedy into triumph the tragedy gay is referring to was a carjacking in 2013 left town with life changing injuries she was shot in the face 5 years on parents still find it painful to talk for long periods but she's been telling me about her life since the shooting and about the damage it did the description is very graphic there was a gaping hole on my face because my chin. Was blown away in my lower jaw always proctored I was shot in the shoulder and the arm as well chest sensual or I'm not sure even to the state of those were from shock Nello if they were actually bullets but I do know that those were the 3 places that are that were injured I lost a piece of my chin I lost some teeth my tongue was partially detached and you had emergency surgery straight away to try and remove as much of the bullet and the glass from the window and the bone and t. Fragments as possible yes but apart from the physical defect one of the biggest things was the loss of sense of self so what happened as a result of this incident was that I took retirement from teaching so here I was up to being a teacher for 22 years that faced one morning with not having to go back to school ever I was left at the age of 47 to try to reconfigure my life with a different face and with people you can mean a different we. Will hold to speak to me some people would be very blunt and would refer it to me directly to my theories as being the it warmed whereas I was a custom with a smile being very effective in making friends and overcoming obstacles I found that I didn't want to smile very much anymore because my smile was. And I still think it is pretty scary In what way is it pretty scary you know smile what happened after the reconstructive surgeries that I ended up with somewhat of an overbite I think it looks scary because you are used to your teeth and maybe it doesn't look so pronounced now but it is an eerie on my chin where they had to do the reconstruction to rebuild it. Because I feel attacked feel it tightness all the time and it feels as though I'm being slapped on the field it's all the time maybe it's just my perception but I feel when people see me that it's all easy did you find it affected how willing you were to trust a stranger it did a lot of my emotions through centered on trying to come to a point of forgiveness you were thinking about forgiveness even at that early stage strangely enough from very early the people who did this to you have never been caught so you don't actually know who you forgiven That's correct I don't know who have forgiven and I'll tell you something shortly after this that happened when I was able to move around once again when I went out in public it was very upsetting that I would look at people and wonder if this is a person who did it to me and I would be angry I would because I had already come to that point of forgiveness but I always wondered who could have done something like this kind of aftereffects were there for you in terms of I don't know nightmares or flashbacks sleepless nights for the 1st 9 months I was really quite up with the physical healing after 9 months what happened was that yes I did go through all of that I went to the flashbacks I had nightmares there were times when I couldn't sleep there were times when I was over sweeping sometimes I didn't want to see people I would remain in my room sleeping or not sleep in I would just stay in the. The flashbacks could come triggered on triggered if I would be in a car and stop at a traffic light for instance or if someone walked up from behind me that could trigger it if I'm not unaware of their presence here in fireworks triggers a lot a lot of memories from that night what do you do on fireworks night then I just go in my bed and cover up and my brain just goes a little bit crazy and I say my prayers and I just sweetly it's past 4 years after this happened to you know only 2017 you set up this organization called Project Red which stands for raising awareness of the ripple effect of gun violence. What the ripple effects. So to me and the ripple effects would have been the effect that this incident had on my students my family my mother who was also undergoing chemotherapy at the time that this happened to me. And posts and who may not have been directly connected to me but within the community I thought about how it would have made them feel to think that this could happen to anybody at any time and that brings me to want to defect they didn't mention the financial effect. And financially there's really put me back a lot I had just gotten to that stage in my life where I was comfortable where I could do anything I want to do with the funds that I had and now I had to put out all of my savings to reconstructive surgery that was not done on the public hospital but that was done at a private hospital right here in Trinidad I'm sad to even have to sell the car that was hit in order to pay for your surgery that's correct I had to sell my car and gather all of the funds that I possibly could some of my friends even organized the fundraiser so that they reserve little money extra for me to ensure that I would be able to cover the cost of surgery then I eventually ended up having to take retirement on medical grounds so what that meant is that because I was away from school for more than a year after 6 months my salary payments will cut completely so which means I no longer receive a salary after 6 months while I was still undergoing surgery and treatment and still recuperating these are the things you don't think about I don't like as you hear the headline you know women and children face by unidentified gunman and then you think about all these consequences in the months and years after what you call the ripple effect that's correct and it's not just to me it would have affected all the postman's in the medical field who had to deal with not just my case but many other kids to the violence and gun violence as well and then you think about the costs to tax. Because the public health system is covered by taxpayers money and I'll tell you something for this one little patient I did have a rough calculation and I'm sure that it would have come to close to half a 1000000 after t.t. Dollars to look after this one patient but the length of time that I spent at the hospital because they would have had to use the not just their equipment and all it all all their posts no. But it also had to outsource at times to me and had to take me to different institutions even the perpetrators don't think about how much it affects them and their families because I was taking up a space that someone else who may have had a medical problem a health this you that someone else might have needed during that time and it could have been the perpetrators own family members that would have needed that space but sometimes people just don't process things deeply enough to understand that So what are you doing them with Project where Who are you trying to get your message across to I try to speak mainly to the young person so I address young people at secondary school level so I'm looking at between the ages of 14 to 18 or 19 mostly I concentrate on one students because I believe that if we need to make any kind of stress in a bill to change and meaningful change then it has to be a change that starts with the young people and what do you tell me about your story yes I share about my story in so I try to show them how their actions have consequences and why they should be their brothers people build resilience and to be able to overcome or to manage conflict what kind of feedback do you get from these young people they usually are quite Bruno we they want to find out about forgiveness Strangely enough that is one of the biggest things that people talk about and they also want to find out a little bit more about how it affects you emotionally mentally then they want to find out hall where they can take tests to overcome this violence how do you feel now about what happened to you. There's so many mixed feelings but you know sometimes the most outstanding thing for me is that I've become so much more spiritual and because I know there's a poor part of this happening for me and I feel that by the work I do would project regret that I am fulfilling that poop of. So that dummy needs most of my feelings so I feel good I feel out of something bad something good came out of it and so one of the taglines the project rare is transforming hurt into hope and that every positive action is significant and that really is how I feel how does it feel to have been nominated for this award to know that you are inspiring people to the point where they want to tell the world about it I think I'm still coming to terms with this one I can't believe that it's over well men I feel honored above all but it makes me very very I don't want to use the word humble because when you say humble It makes you stronger though you know you're not really humble but I do feel like that because when I heard what the person who recommend me had to say about me I didn't think it was me it didn't sound like it was me and so I own would be like I don't deserve this but I really appreciated very much and I'm overwhelmed Karen ask her Ali who set up projects rest to raise awareness of the ripple effects of gun violence in Trinidad and Tobago if you go to b.b.c. World Service dot com forward slash outlook inspirations you can see a film of Karen and these of all the other considerations nominees now witnessed and today we're remembering a moment which would change children's lives around the world in 1960 when an American doctor called c. Henry Kemp wrote an article describing what he called the battered child syndrome something that the medical world has been routinely ignoring for years Claire Bose reports 1st of all I think potentially we all could bash our children and we all have angry feelings toward young babies from time to time we all could bash our children the words still shocking to hear decades later but in the late 1950 s. And early 1960 s. The concept of child abuse didn't. Exist then in the summer of 1962 doc to see Henry Kemp published a paper with a deliberately provocative title the term the better it child syndrome was coined simply as an attention getting mechanism for conditions that doctors had failed to diagnose and always had other explanations for such as brittle bone disease or in regards to the failure to thrive babies some 300 causes but in fact the baby was not being fed in this b.b.c. Archive Dr Kemp explains how as head of pediatrics at Colorado General Hospital he'd become puzzled by the number of injuries to children that couldn't be explained and he kept his head we kept and biographer some would come in as bruises or fractures or burns were a child might be burned with cigarettes and the parent would say they got burned in the bath tub with hot water sometimes they were more serious one time a parent said something about a child falling off a refrigerator in a child seat which made no sense of all but it was from a height because the injuries were severe they couldn't be explained away with the histories that parents were giving the doctor is only half the parent story to go on so many did find explanations to fit the symptoms people were probably in great denial that parents would do this to their own children and I think that a lot of them were uncomfortable but they didn't know what to do or what to call it In addition there were no systems in place to deal with child abuse there were no social services in place so I think part of it was that doctors felt a little bit out of their depth Dr Kemp set up weekly meetings to assess x. Rays of the on the force on his wards it was this relatively new technology that helped confirm his suspicions until there are x. Rays there was no way to be sure what had happened to a child especially in cases include. Old fractures it gave him a way to speak to parents and to other doctors about what they were seeing and to discuss cases and especially when these x. Rays didn't jibe with the history by 961 he had enough evidence to give a lecture to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Some pediatricians were grateful to have a label to connect with injuries in children the didn't make sense to them some were incredulous thought he was overreacting and one person came up after his lecture and said I've never seen a case of child maltreatment and my father said Yes you have you just didn't know it Dr Kemp then dedicated the rest of his life to researching and preventing child abuse from the start he's a was to rehabilitate parents through therapy and to try as far as possible to keep families together the parents receive in the majority very much deprived maternally deprived themselves and married to someone just like themselves they often read bashed themselves when they were little or raised in a very unsympathetic way by a person who didn't seem to be able to show affection he really understood parenting and any felt that we didn't give parents permission to say this isn't working or I'm overwhelmed or I need help parents are trying their best with all the skills they have and that sometimes the skill sets aren't great but that they still love their children even when they abuse them and that was a hard concept for people to get. Almost. 5 or 6 or so it was just a miserable day sometimes by the 1970 s. Family therapy centers had spread to the u.k. About 4. Wasn't. Helping mothers he was struggling like this one because when I was 3 months old I tried to. Scream all the way through this or that screwed me. So it just. Shows that. Dr Kemp soon began to understand that it was just as important to look for signs of vulnerability in the parents as it was for signs of a. You see in the child he once described a mother bringing her baby to the hospital 6 times for vomiting or fever and she was told her baby was fine and she was described in the medical notes as an anxious mother but the next time the child was seen by a doctor he had a skull fracture so Dad thought she'd been asking for help with her baby during previous visits and the doctors were unaware of the signals and not acknowledging them he felt she was bringing herself in his team began analyzing the behavior of parents at the very moment of birth and in the immediate aftermath Incredibly they found that just by talking and observing they could predict to a high degree which families might have difficulties in a group of $150.00 parents in our hospital we were indeed able to predict difficulties in child raising which includes child abuse at a level of 87 percent certainty soon he became the was expert and spent time in Britain educating health professionals about child abuse we've seen actually the same distribution exactly among all classes of society the best people lawyers doctors judges as well as the poorest and what happens to these parents is the Ramona during the day when suddenly their patience naps and anything they can do is to throw their child across the room but it isn't just that simple I think the fit of temper is not that simple explanation that I think people seek for but not you need the bashing kind of parents you need a child they see as being bashed as being bad evil not slow demanding as they themselves are seen by their parents and then off need a crisis of some kind we're used to from right from wrong. Earlier. This British man was sent to prison after attacking his toddler and leaving him partially paralyzed a b.b.c. Documentary in the 1970 s. Followed the attempt by him and his wife to reclaim the child from the authorities just one room and now we don't. But you even I who. Are not understanding. It really must have done something that it was really felt is very similar. The child was not returned to the family the idea that the state could take away your child proved controversial some was skeptical about the difference between strict discipline and cruelty others felt that children belong to the family and the state had no role in parenting but don't to Kent felt in extreme cases removal was the only option he went into court to request from the judge that a child who had received several fractures over a period of time be removed from the home the judge was a pro family judge and denied the request based on the idea that the parents had offered to take parenting classes and that they were remorseful and my dad said I think if you send this child home the next time we see him he may well be dead and a few months later the child was readmitted to the hospital with subdural hematoma and seizures and died he came home that night I remember distinctly and said these are the times I hate being right had we camped died in 1984 but the Kemp center in the us continues to grow and has just launched and can a program aimed at ending child abuse in our lifetime clad spring yes to the end of this edition of out we're back tomorrow just listening. This is the b.b.c. World Service nothing is predictable everything seems possible events are moving fast but after this week's summit where the South Koreans want relations with North Korea to go next I'm Johnny diamond and this month's World questions comes from Seoul will be in the South Korean capital to debate and discuss the latest developments with politicians and the public world questions at b.b.c. World Service dot com. You're listening to the b.b.c. World Service on Latin America Online Editor it's been a solution and Jesus speak now to our Moscow correspondent Steve Rosenberg and Stephen rather correspondent Bethany Bell has been following the u.n. Top our South America correspondent Kate Watson spoke was from Sao Paolo b.b.c. World Service dot com This is the b.b.c. World Service the world's radio station. At 12 hours g.m.t. Welcome to the news room from the b.b.c. World Service I'm James Copnall a Spanish royal starts his jail term we'll hear more from Madrid as the boss of car makers Audi is arrested too over the diesel emissions scandal and earthquake hits the Japanese city of soccer and there could be more to come you know domino your. Kind of thing and we are expecting possibly strong aftershocks this all be on alert for maximum hours 6 intensity Hertha quakes hitting the region already accepted our correspondent reports from the refugee camps for the ranger in Bangladesh plus addiction to computer games has been officially recognized as a disease he became hospitalized this Christmas because he wasn't eating properly sleeping washing there wasn't any offline version of him what Hong Kong can do about plastic pollution in its food and we'll have all the latest World Cup action here on the b.b.c. World Service. Hello I'm Eileen McHugh with the b.b.c. News the pulse of the German car maker. Has been detained in connection with the diesel emissions scandal German prosecutors say the 2 came into custody to prevent him tampering with evidence Mr Schneider and another executive for accused of putting out is fitted with emissions test cheating devices on the market in Europe Damian McGinnis is in Berlin he was detained early this morning in his home in English God which is a town in central Bavaria and they really say now that he has to be questioned as soon as he's had advice from his lawyer which will happen the next day or 2 by Wednesday he will have to be questioned and that's the point at which we'll know whether he's going to be charged or what the next stage will be because at the moment prosecutors v.w. Now you're also saying that he has to be presumed innocent so we haven't seen any charges as such at the King of Spain's brother in law in yuckier dengan has finally gone to prison 16 months after he was 1st convicted of corruption he was permitted to choose where to serve his reduced sentence of 5 years and 10 months opting for the small empty and recently refurbished men's wing of the women's prison northwest of Madrid his wife Princess Christina may visit weekly from their home in Geneva Syrian government forces have accused the u.s. Led coalition of launching an airstrike on one of their positions killing and wounding a number of people one report suggested that nearly 40 pro-government militia men had died in the raid on the town of a hardy from Beirut March impatience reports Syrian state media accused America of carrying out air strikes on one of their positions close to the Iraq border but in a statement the u.s. Military denied carrying out an attack in that area the raid took place in days or province which 4 years ago was overrun by the Islamic state group since then the militant organization has been largely pushed by American backed Kurdish forces as well as the.