Coercive Control and Domestic Violence on The Archers

Available for over a year

The storyline of Helen, Rob and his increasingly controlling behaviour has gripped The Archers audience. The programme's editor and the actor who plays Helen join Jane to discuss how an everyday story of country folk became a dark tale of coercive control and domestic violence. Sandra Horley, chief executive of the domestic violence charity Refuge, and Guardian television critic Julia Raeside deliberate the effects of The Archers' storyline on listeners. Vanessa Altin has reported widely on the Syrian crisis for the UK tabloids. She has now written an unsparing book about the Syrian crisis, The Pomegranate Tree. Its narrator is a 13-year-old Kurdish girl from a Syrian village close to the border with Turkey who has been forced to leave her village, flee to Turkey and has been witness to shocking events. All the characters and storylines in Vanessa's novel are based on real people and events.