Good afternoon. Great pleasure for me to have
Gemma Cooper with me in the studio.
Now Gemma, I'm really pleased to say, has joined the UK column
team. So Gemma, welcome.
This is your first time in the studio with me, but welcome to
the UK column. Well, thank you.
I mean it. It's an honour.
It's a real honour. I've spent my my entire career
in in the mainstream media, left the BBC in 2021 and then I've
been an alternative media ever since and worked for a variety
of organisations. But it's UK column.
I mean, it's just brilliant for me, absolutely brilliant.
Excellent. Thank you for the kind words.
Now I remember the first interview that I did with you.
I can't remember how long ago it was.
It was a couple of years ago, wasn't it?
And you wore a very nice yellow jacket, but that didn't go too
well with our, with our green screen.
So you're looking lovely today, presentable in front of the
camera and you're not wearing yellow.
So that's that's a plus point. That was a schoolboy error on my
part. Yeah.
Well, OK. And viewers of course can't see
it, but actually we we are in a very different studio from the
one that we've operated for many years.
And this is the result of Mike Robinson doing a a big change
round with help from Patrick Henningsen.
So there was a good bit of teamwork going on there.
So we're in a much nicer studio layout and one of the things
that this has made it easier to do is is have a little bit more
of an informal chat in the studio.
So I said to Gemma, relax, it's going to be an easy one to do.
And I think you were quite impressed when you you walked in
to see the new layout. Absolutely, yeah.
I mean, it doesn't look any different for you guys at home.
You still see the classic UK column with the hoe behind us
and everything. But actually from a broadcast
standpoint, there's lots of exciting things happening here
and the studio looks amazing and I think people may see some
changes in the future. Well, there's, yeah, there's a
lot more to come, but that, that'll, that'll be enough of a
little bit of advertising the UK column.
But it's, it's, we're working very hard not only to do more,
but to make what we, what we do look better.
Professional, Yes. But at the end of the day, we
don't want to be too professional because then all
sorts of accusations are made that we're too like that
dreadful organisation. I'm not going to mention.
So this was a little discussion between Gemma and myself which I
prompted and it's as a result of the fact that last week I was
given the opportunity to speak at a gathering of mums who've
had their children taken away through the so called Family
Court Child Protection System. And it was a great privilege for
me because the organisation simply works with mums.
And they specifically said to to me that there were no men who
were allowed to come anywhere near the meetings because some
of the mums have had problems in relationships.
So for me as a male to be invited to go and spend the day
with the mums and and to give a talk, a short talk was a great
privilege. I decided that it would be good
if I took Gemma and the joke that we shared with the ladies
of course, was that as the only male present, I needed a
chaperone. So Gemma kindly volunteered to
come as my chaperone for the day.
Of course she wasn't needed because the mums were lovely and
we had some really wonderful conversations with them and they
were very welcoming. So now I'm not mentioning the
name of the of the little charity.
And this is because it's early days in, in our relationship and
they have to be very careful in the sorts of material that
they're putting out and sharing. And so I was invited to give a
talk. We are going to talk to you, the
UK column audience, a little bit about how we found it.
And I was particularly interested in how Gemma saw
things because Gemma has has got a little bit of understanding
about what goes on when children are taken.
But this was the first time that she for some that you've been
able to meet in one environment. How many mums was it?
24 I think or 25? Yeah.
And, and therefore I said to to Gemma because she was new to the
subject. I thought it would be really
great if we had a chat where Gemma was able to tell me this
is feedback from me, but it's also feedback from the UK column
audience how how she found the event and how she found hearing
the stories and the the cases that the women talked about.
So are we allowed? We're allowed to say.
We went to a nice hotel close to London and one of the meeting
rooms in the hotel was set aside for the mums.
Tell us how you found it, Gemma. I mean, where I don't really
know where to start because it made, it really did make me look
at myself that day because I did go still with a bit of a
mainstream media journalist head on.
And that was my, my bad. And I, I went thinking, no smoke
without fire. You know, these are mothers that
have had their children taken off them.
If a father has a child taken off them, it's generally because
he's a bit of a wrongan. So there, there must something
must have happened for these mums to have their kids taken
off them. And I was expecting to hear
stories that made me think, oh, yeah.
Well, you is no, no, no, the blame game, that kind of thing.
I, I, I would hear things that make me think, well, I'm not
surprised you had your kids taken off.
You know, I had a very mainstream media trained head on
when I walked through the door, but what I got was the exact
opposite. And I was so overwhelmed by the
amount of heart centred, empathic empaths, really women
that had just lived lives of, of not all, some had had very nice
childhoods, but some had had very traumatic childhoods.
So it had LED them to make not poor choices, but to maybe be
gravitate towards partners who really weren't suitable for them
because they were very empathic themselves and hearing stories
that they came out with about what happened via maybe the
control of the partner, which is why they didn't want any men
there. It there were some parallels in
my own life where I thought I've had experiences like that, not
all, but with partners with control issues and what I came
away with. The take out for me, the biggest
take out was when some of the stories I heard, I thought this
isn't actually even about the child, it's about the control of
the woman through the child from the partner.
That was some of the stories that I got.
I didn't get to speak to all 24 women, but the few of the
stories that I got, it was very much the part of wanting to take
the children away and have them so that the woman will be
controlled by him. For the kid and I, some of the
women were just so ones I spoke to, so warm and wonderful and I,
I really was ashamed that I'd walked in there like a
mainstream media journalist. So I already know the story
before it's even come out. I know what I'm going to write.
I know what I'm going to say. Well, that was blown out of the
water. Thank you.
Thank you very much for saying it in such, such a frank and
honest way because I, I didn't know how you would find, I knew
you would find it difficult. But of course, key thing for me
to say to the audience is this is the first I've dealt with.
I don't know how many mums cases over the years that I've dealt
with, but this was the first time that I've been able to be
with a group of women. And initially you and I sat
outside while they said just give us some time to just to
relax the women. And I was very happy to do that,
of course. And we sat and had had a coffee.
But when about an hour later, the door opened and we were
encouraged to come in, it was obvious that inside that room
had been a lot of emotion. And what we were subsequently
able to see was of course that there were some mums who'd been
associated with the charity for some time.
And what does the charity do? Its main job is to help support
and stabilise and strengthen women who've had their children
taken away. So some of the women who'd been
involved with the charity longer were clearly working very hard
to calm down and support the mums who were new to the whole
thing. And a comment which stuck in my
head very quickly when we went into the room was, was one of
the ladies said, well, of course, Brian, what you've got
to remember is every one of these women would prefer not to
be here. And that was that was a very
telling comment for me. So, so even the idea of coming
together with other mums where of support and they're
strengthened by hearing other cases, it's not just them, but
even having to listen to other mums talking about it, that was
a that was a powerful emotion. Yeah, and there were lots of
tears, lots of tears. And, and some women stood up and
told their stories very bravely, very courageously, straight from
the heart. And then, of course, you know,
it's such a deep emotional issue, the mother child bond,
you know, you're not talking about maybe going through a bad
divorce or which is traumatic enough, But these this is this
is the the ultimate love bond. And you.
So the triggering was going on all the time, you know, and
suddenly you would hear some howls from the corner of the
room as women just lost it because it was bringing up
everything for them. And I mean, I had tears.
I had tears when you played that very emotive film where we saw,
and it was a very powerful thing to do in that room where we
played some clips. We've already showed on the
column anonymous clips of when people in social services and
police have come to take children away from their mums.
And that got the whole room, myself included.
I've seen it on the column. But seeing it in that room with
all the emotion and energy there, I, I was, I'd gone.
I was crying. I was like, Oh my goodness me.
But having said that, it was still really a very professional
day, very well organised, very well held.
The space was held really well for those women and for us as as
a meteorite. It was just, yeah, the emotion
was the emotion. Was.
Actually was overwhelming. It was overwhelming.
Absolutely, absolutely true. At the start or near the start,
there was a very nice lady called Debbie who was trained in
order to give professional help. So counselling and psychology.
And it was interesting to see her give a little bit of a talk
about what she did and, and how how she tried to help calm down
and strengthen some of the women.
And, and because of the emotion that you were talking about
there, Gemma in the day, she, she had to use her skills at
several times during, during the day when mums in hearing what
was being said were absolutely overcome with emotion.
And I I thought she did a really good job at at working with them
to to get them in a better, better frame of mind.
Absolutely. And it and that and again it was
how that the charity had held the space.
They knew that they would need somebody like that.
They knew that people were going to break down and and she was
the kind of fulcrum of, you know, where you could go and she
would, she was holding the space for a lot of women who were just
in floods. Close to it.
Well, we, we saw one of the speakers, you know, very bravely
told her story and then just almost collapsed at the end of
the motion and shaking and sobbing.
And it was, it was so much bravery there.
Yes, but something which I learnt from that group of women,
which I I've not learnt from the other mums that I've talked to.
And that was that for many of them it's, it's a feeling of
shame that these terrible circumstances have happened.
Sometimes they clearly haven't made good choices in their
lives. But do they deserve to have
their children simply taken away, or babies taken away or
all their children taken away? The answer has got to be no.
But it it came to the surface quite quickly that a lot of
them, one of the key things stopping them moving forward was
that as a result of what had happened to them, they felt this
intense shame inside. And that, that was something I I
absolutely learnt from. Yes, and and I do remember in
one of the early conversations of the day where one of the
women spoke to me and said, you know, you do carry.
It's a shame because people do have the attitude of there's no
smoke without fire. There's got to be a reason this
has happened. Well, we are there are reasons,
but they're not the reasons you would think that the women are
incapable mothers. They're different reasons, which
we'll probably go into. And I but I did think at the
start of the day, I was thinking like that.
Well, you know, it's got to be something here and what what I
heard, I was just it makes it made me question everything
again. I question everything anyway
since leaving the mainstream and before that and but you know,
the the system, the reasons behind controlling women, why
sever the mother child bond? Why this rush to you know, and
you answered some of those questions actually when when you
gave your presentation. But but yeah, the questions I
came away with were not the questions.
I walked in that door at the beginning of the day.
It was a transformative day. It, it was absolutely I, I was
very, very impressed with the way that the charity was
approaching its work. So what's the important thing
for them? Strengthening the women, taking
them from being Rex in some cases, and I don't mean that in
any disparaging way, but women in very bad place to get them
strengthened. So at least they can start to
have a life and then when they get stronger in that life,
hopefully they're in a position where they can go on to have a
better life and or be doing something to carry on fighting
for their children. But the overall theme that the
overall emotion through that is, is the loss of the children.
And as one of them said to me, The thing is, if your child
dies, but you have to accept that and you grieve and then,
then you can move on. But if you don't have your child
and you don't know where your child is and you don't know how
they're being treated, your mind is just full of the emotion of
your lost child the whole time. And so that was, that was
another very powerful thing that was said, said to me.
But the charity tries to build the mothers up and this is, this
is fantastic. And what, what I tried to do in
that presentation was to be saying that if you are in a
stronger place as a, as a mother, you can fight for your
children better. So you're going to perform
better in court if you're in a stronger place.
And I don't know, you might have thought I was being a bit brutal
at one stage, but I said to the mothers what I believe is
absolutely true, that if the mums cry at the wrong time, they
lose. Because there's nothing the
court loves better than an absolute broken emotional mum.
Because then they can accuse her of being having emotional
problems and breakdown and being an unsuitable mother.
So if you show too much emotion, the system attacks you and if
you show too little emotion. And several of the mums actually
talked about that, didn't they? They did, yeah.
And then they said the paradox is, of course, because the
system seems very geared to this subjugation of women.
Is they? They said if the woman cries,
that's it, Game over. You know, she's a hysterical
mess, not capable of looking after her kids.
If if if a father cries, apparently these are the stories
that were relayed to me. If a father cries in a family
court, he's seen as a sensitive, caring man, not a hysterical,
you know, piece of work. And and again, everything seems
designed to just. Beat them down.
Any showing of anything human,
you know, forget it. Yes.
Yeah. It's the system all over.
Don't be human. Yeah, so the mum cries and she's
going to lose because that that'll be used against her.
And this is one of the things that I said and what I was
trying to do was to actually to show those mums that there is a
way of fighting, but they have to start to act in a different
way. What they wear makes a
difference. So a lot of mums will go into
court wearing very casual clothes, the sorts of clothes
they they probably feel comfortable in, but in the power
dynamics of a court, that doesn't always put them in the
best light, particularly if it's just a scruffy T shirt.
And so in my mind, I can see that in the right place and the
right time, some of these mums can be helped to fight more
effectively through the family court system, as corrupt as it
is, but they can do certain things to help that.
And, and the other thing is that they have to understand what
they're up against. And so I, that little film clip
that I put together of the mums that we've done the interviews
with. So that was, that was Sam, the
black lady who's who's phenomenal, the Portuguese lady.
So Sam who's had two children taken away, Yolanda who'd had a
baby taken at birth. That was horrific, horrific. 1J,
who was speaking out on the abuse of her granddaughter, and
then the last lady who was anonymous was talking about
having her two very young children taken away and she was
holding up the dummy and the little.
I'm not sure what you call the baby grow.
Is that what it's called? Yeah, so she held up the dummy
and the baby grow to say these were the only things that she
got left to to remember her children by.
Because of course in talking to me in the interview, she wasn't
allowed to show photographs of her babies.
So that film clip I really thought very hard about.
It was only 9 minutes long, little clips of these mums
speaking but I put it up in order to show the.
The mums in the room, they were not alone and also the UK column
knew what it was doing in interviewing them.
But you said to me at one, one point stop it.
And because that little video clip created a lot of very
strong emotion amongst some of the women to the extent that
they got so emotional they had to leave the room.
But I didn't want to stop the clip because that was that was
us demonstrating that we actually knew what what it was
about. And and I got some nice comments
about it at the end of the day, one lady said.
I nearly couldn't watch it, but I did and I'm glad I did.
I thought you doing that was a gamble.
I mean it was the second half of the day and and you were
obviously showing the charity and all of the mums in there
what the column column was about the coverage that we've done on
the state stealing children, which is what this is, is all
about. State stealing.
Yeah, state stealing children and you were obviously showing
the women look, this is this is our pedigree.
This is the work that particularly you have done and
the column have done and then include.
So it came in with stories and and a few stories of head shots
with mums, but then got into those very emotive clips and the
dummy and the baby grow and the one at the end where the police
turned up at someone's house to take tiny children out of their
mother's arms. That got that got the whole
room. And I was like, Brian, turn it
off. And you were like, no, I'm going
to show it. And I thought, God, that's that
is quite brutal and quite, you know, none of these mums do they
need to have their trauma re triggered to such an extent.
But it did work. It did.
It did work and I think that it it did get them to trust the
column and trust that we can help, which is what we want to
do. And we know what we're talking
about. What we're talking about is the
key thing. And the other bit that we did
is, is, well, which I thought was an important thing to talk
about, was to be showing them the size of the beast that
they're up against, that many of them think that everything
that's happened to them is just focused on them as individuals.
When in fact, 24 mums in the room showed no, no, this is
happening to a lot of other mums.
It's thousands. It's the reality.
But how big the beast is, they're up against.
And to try and demonstrate how cruel the system is, I put up
the little BBC clip of the Tory whip, Tim Fortescue.
I think the date was 1995. You can find that on YouTube as
a little interview the whip gave to the BBC in which he casually
says, well, MPs came to us with their problems.
It could be money, it could be little boys and we fixed it for
them. And why did we fix it?
We fixed it because then they would do as we asked.
So there you have a senior politician with immense power.
I think he was the chief whip, but certainly a whip admitting
that the Conservative Party was covering up the abuse of
children in order that they could blackmail MPs into doing
what the party political system wanted.
And, and that clip in front of the mums also, because I had
several of them say to me, I've never seen that clip before.
And I said to them, do you understand what it means?
Oh, they got what it what it meant.
Yeah, they did. They did.
Yeah.
And I thought it was very well done how you did say to the
women, oh, I bet they said this to you in court.
Yeah, they did. Oh, I bet your social worker
might have said this. Yeah.
And it's like, it's a patent. It's a script.
It's a template that that the system is using to, to to take
these children. And of course you do because
they're so heightened, you, they take it, internalise it and
think, well, it's because of me, which is probably some of the
backgrounds that these women have had, the childhoods, they
have internalised a lot and thought, oh, this is because of
me. You know, this trauma is about
this environment. It's because of me because
that's how children think. And then you carry it with you
to the rest of your life. So it's trauma upon trauma.
And I think the system knows very well hearing that, you
know, it is a template. It's nothing to do with you.
It's just a template to get your kids is that the system knows
how to manipulate people in trauma.
We saw that 2020 onwards. I mean, you put the whole world
in trauma and you can manipulate it and make it do whatever you
want. And so that's what the system is
doing on a on a smaller scale was not that small with this
taking of kids. Yes, and we we then did our best
to lead them to. Well, OK, if you're going to
fight something, you've got to understand what you're up
against. But once we'd talked through
that, the, the idea that the mums haven't got a drown in
thousands of hundreds or thousands of pages of court
documentation, which they see as the evidence.
If, if the mums talk to you about what's happened in the
case, to them, the evidence is, is, is everything that's in the
court bundles. It's the emails, it's the
letters, it's the telephone call transcripts.
And, and I, I said to them what I really wanted to say to them,
I know the evidence is you. And the more mums that come
forward to talk about what's happened and how it's happened
that that forms the real body of evidence and that is what needs
to be exposed to the wider public.
And we did get a response. So we, we, we have got 2-3
ladies. I think there may be another one
from that group who have been in contact with us and said, Oh my
goodness, we, we, well, we got something out of what you did.
And, and, and I think I'd like to speak out.
And that is a huge plus because it means we've taken people from
being, albeit in a very nice support group to say, no, don't
just be in a support group. Come and fight.
And that to me was was a big plus that we had that
connectivity. Absolutely.
But I do think it's down as well, the testament as I go back
to the start of, like, I was expecting a certain type of
person when I walked through the door.
And what I found was bravery, strength, empathy and so much
courage. And I think, you know,
explaining things the way you did to them.
I mean, I was just an observer, but making, you know, contacts.
But it did spark something in a lot of them where they thought,
yeah, I'm going to do it because they want, one, they want their
kids back and two, they seen so much injustice and that bravery
in all of them. That heart centred was the word
courage comes. It means karage, doesn't it?
I think it comes from the heart, yeah.
And that's so we, yeah. Brilliant that we've got some
from that group that will speak to us and the stories I think
will resonate with more and more people.
That's the reach of those stories and the issue itself, It
comes more into the public. Yeah, comes up.
Yeah. So looking back on it now, few
days have gone past. Looking back on it, what do you
think you got out of it? Well, I looked at myself and I
thought, I looked at myself and my mainstream media training and
I thought it hasn't left me yet. So indoctrinated how they train
you in the mainstream that you know what the story is before
you go. And I did have a bit of that in
my head. So it really made me look at
myself that I was quite embarrassed actually that I'd
gone in with that attitude. But that's that's my
brainwashing for my, my former career.
And then I was thinking about the women and the ones that I
spoke to and how they were parallels, the some parallels
with my own life and going through trauma in a, in a
particular relationship, which wasn't very healthy for me.
And I, and I was hearing that and I was really hearing about
this control of women. It's about the control of women.
That was what this, my instincts were telling me is this is all
about keeping women in their place almost.
It's, it's really hard to explain unless you were there.
But the women's stories in themselves with the ones I spoke
to were so similar about the abusive partner, about the
domestic violence and about escaping the domestic violence,
escaping the partner. And as soon as they asked for
the divorce or said, I'm leaving you, I don't want to be battered
anymore, that was when, right, I'm getting the kids, I'm going
to take the kids. If you're going to leave me,
I'll get the kids. And they did.
They did. They did.
The partners did. And I thought, yeah, this is all
about, this is about you. It's not about the kids.
And also one woman said to me the the husband or boyfriend had
said I'll go to prison or I'll die before I see you get the
kids back. And I thought that's how walked
it is. And then, and then the court,
the whole court system works to support the abusive partner, to
gain the children. This, this is the story.
And, and of course, for the women, it's a nightmare because
most of them don't want, well, they obviously don't want to go
near the family court. But when when they do, they're
approaching it that this court is going to be fair and it's
going to come to sensible decisions.
And then they're in, they're in this closed court.
Star Chamber is what it is with no jury and no proper press
where everything is turned on them.
That's what's so vicious about it.
And that's what does so much damage to them, I think.
Yeah, absolutely. Well, the system's been geared
up. We want to go really deep.
The system's been geared up against women for quite some
time and but then I was also approaching it from another
level and there was a lot of talk in there from me to other
women about this rise of the divine feminine, which has been
banded about in some circles. Not everybody will resonate with
that. And I thought these these women
in this charity and the ones that are now brave enough to
speak out, bravely speaking out, this is some kind of energetic
shift which we saw 20-20 onwards of like people saying no to the
system and saying no, you're not telling me what to put in my
body and you're certainly not having my kids.
And it was the same kind of dynamic on a smaller scale of
what a lot of us collectively in 2020 said, no, this is wrong,
I'm not staying at home, this is all wrong.
Instinctively in my heart, I know this is all wrong and these
women are feeling the same, the same way.
And, and, and she's something we should mention is that for a lot
of the women in these cases, certainly there was a couple in
that room. But for a lot of women who've
experienced these problems countrywide, it was compounded
during locked COVID lockdown. Because if you've got an abusive
partner and you're locked up with them, 20 fours at 4 hours a
day, seven days a week, because the government puts you in that
situation that caused huge problems.
And This is why statistically, you can see this huge surge in
children that were taken, taken during that period.
So, yeah, this is a very interesting point.
I, it was a privilege. It was an incredible day.
I was able to speak, sit and chat to a couple of the ladies
sort of at the end of the day before I before I drove back.
But in my drive from close to London back down to Plymouth,
yeah, it was a swirl in my brain.
It really made an impact on me. And in fact, it was there
Saturday morning in particular, so very emotional.
But what a privilege to be invited to, you know, to go and
meet them. And I was asked if I'd write a
little article for their newsletter, which I've done.
I'm waiting to know whether my words have been approved.
But if, if they do use those words that text in their
newsletter, then I will feel that it's OK to pop that up on
the UK Con website with this video and and our viewers get a
better reflection of of the day. I'll emphasise that the reason
I'm being coy about the charity is because they receive funding,
of course, from a number of sources.
They need to function as a charity because they're they're
doing good work. But yeah, people have got reason
to believe that if they they deal with news channels that are
challenging the system, maybe this will cause problems.
And we don't want to cause any problem to their setup and their
organisation and their funding stream.
But what I am hoping is that they're also going to perhaps
give, give the UK column permission to do a one off
fundraiser for them because I'd really like to raise money for
that group of women because I think they're doing a brilliant
job. Oh yeah.
So we'll see what happens. Well, there we are.
Gemma. That wasn't too painful, was it?
Well, it was a brilliant experience for me and now being
in the studio to talk about it, it's my first appearance in the
new studio, first since I began working with you guys a few
months ago. And it would think it's just, it
was a really interesting day in how the column goes out and
showcases what we do. We're not the mainstream, we
never will be. And we tackle the stories and
this is the story the mainstream should be absolutely
investigating. Of course, it won't go near it.
We all know why. So for me, it was, it was a
double whammy really in in how the columns journalism is
received. And it was received
exceptionally well by an exceptional group of people.
And yeah, collaboration is key in these crazy times.
So we hope to support them as much as we can.
Do more. Brilliant Gemma, thank you very
much for joining me in the UK column Studio.
Thank you very much. Nice to be here.
Yeah.