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My fellow citizens.

At this hour, American and coalition forces

are in the early stages of military operations

to disarm Iraq, to free its people,

and to defend the world from grave danger.

On my orders,

coalition forces have begun striking

selected targets of military importance

to undermine Saddam Hussein's ability to wage war.

These are opening stages

of what will be a broad and concerted campaign.

Allegations of sexual assault

spanning more than three decades.

I want to extend to the people of Haiti

the unwavering support of the American people.

The heroes without a shadow of a doubt to me

are the whistleblowers.

He's accused of leaking classified information

and faces felony charges here in the United States.

Why did you become a whistleblower?

There's a difference between knowing something

and doing something about it.

We need transparency into how Facebook operates.

I think a whistleblower should be protected

if the whistleblower's legitimate.

My house was bugged. I knew I was being hacked.

I knew I was being surveilled.

It's like being hurt by your own family.

Whistleblowers

claims that vote leave cheated the rules.

Out of a scheme to affect the primaries

and ultimately the election.

It's not reality.

They're basically lying to people.

Shouldn't you be in gaza, Mr. Blair?

Shouldn't you be in gaza?

Suddenly you have to choose

where your loyalties lie.

Why won't you listen to what I have to say?

When you open your papers, behind every headline

of an enron, a theranos, a scandal,

there is always a human being.

There's always a whistleblower

who brought that information to light.

I think it's often we take for granted

that this information made its way to us.

But it only sees the light of day

because some brave individual decided to speak up

against powerful institutions

to bring that information to light

so that we might all benefit.

We're in a moment now, in a historical moment,

where there's a very powerful idea

that feminism has done its job, that we have equality,

um, and that women have an equal public voice.

Um, and actually, women are in some...

Many ways encouraged to have a voice.

In many ways, culture encourages us as women

to speak up and to speak out.

And yet, um, when women do speak up

and do speak out,

and when they actually challenge power

with their voices,

they are routinely punished, um, for doing so.

Okay.

It's just to synchronize

- these two cameras. - Right.

I'll do that every now and again.

Well, gchq stands for government communications headquarters.

Uh, it's based in cheltenham,

uh, and it's, uh, an organization

that basically intercepts, uh, communications.

Um, whether that's phone, fax, mobile, email,

uh, any sort of data that's transmitted.

I would just, um, listen to raw data,

raw intercepted, um, communication,

and then produce a report

and submit it to, um, you know,

one of the UK ministries... Um, the home office,

the foreign office or other places like that.

But, you know, to be honest, it was fairly mundane.

A very kind of normal,

sort of "normal," uh, office environment,

um, gossip and, you know, joshing with your colleagues

and that sort of thing.

When we started at gchq on the first day,

they tell you what your legal obligations are,

that you're bound by the official secrets act.

I told my parents that I was working at gchq.

I told my husband, I told my friends,

but I said, "I can't discuss my work with you.

Uses my language skills, but that's all I can say."

And my husband was like, "oh,

she's got a good civil service job," you know?

"Nice."

And that's what I thought,

you know, a... a job for life, basically.

In September of 2002,

I was invited, along with my line manager,

to go to the us for a work conference.

And we went to San Diego

and while we were at the work conference,

um, as part of our sort of free day,

um, they said, "would you like to go

on the naval base?"

And, you know, we can go...

And actually go on board an aircraft carrier.

It was the first time

I'd been on any kind of military hardware.

All these kids looked

like they were 18 or 17, you know?

They were so fresh-faced and young.

And we asked one of these young lads,

and we were like, "what are you doing?"

'Cause they were busy.

And they said, "oh, we're shipping off

to the Gulf in three days," you know?

And, uh, "we just hold this... This ship out of retirement.

We've been painting it gunmetal gray.

And we're... you know, we're going to go off

to whoop some Iraqi ass."

And I was... Me and my line manager

just kind of looked at each other

and we were like, "what?

This is serious.

You know, they're not...

Just messing around here."

I suddenly thought, "wait a minute,

what has Iraq got to do with 9/11?"

I was convinced, you know,

that the... the Iraq invasion

would be ill... illegal,

that there was no real justification for it.

On the 31st of January, I went into work as usual.

It was a Friday, I sat down at my desk,

and, uh, I was looking at the various emails

that had come in, and there was one from the us.

It was from, uh, the national security agency.

It was basically an email

that, um, asked UK, or gchq,

to assist the us

in collecting the communications

of, um, the six swing nations

that were sitting on the UN security council,

uh, at that time.

So, that was, uh, countries like Angola, Bulgaria,

Chile, Cameroon, Guinea and Pakistan.

So, those six nations.

And the memo was written

in... in such a way that it was kind of very...

It was sort of, you know,

"look, guys, this is what we're doing."

You know, "help us out here."

And we need, quote, "the whole gamut of information

that would give us policymakers

an edge in obtaining results favorable to us goals."

And that one sentence justjumped out and hit me.

And I thought, "they want war

and they want to get it by any means necessary,

including sub... Subverting the diplomats

at the UN security council.

Blackmailing them, bribing them,

whatever it took...

To persuade them to vote for this UN resolution

that would authorize an invasion of Iraq.

And it was just like this "oh, my god" moment.

I was shocked, I was angry and I was appalled.

Because I thought we're basically...

Colluding...

For the purpose of launching an illegal war.

Tony Blair at the time desperately wanted

UN authorization for legitimacy,

basically to cover his own kind of, uh, reputation.

It would be devastating for, uh, people

who had already

basically suffered 20 years

of, um, war

and sanctions already.

You know, there were generations of young Iraqis

who have grown up knowing nothing

but this sort of chaos and horror.

It was like I was blinkered, basically.

I felt like I literally could think of nothing else

except what was going to happen

to, um...

The nation of Iraq

a... and to some extent, the British armed forces

who were going to be deployed.

National security, ibeheve,

should be in the interests

of the British public.

Anybody else on the London bombing?

Those actions led

in the direct opposite direction

of British national security.

Launching an illegal war,

which mi5 themselves

argued in reports would lead

to increased risks of terrorism and... terrorism

within the UK

and any British interests

around the globe.

And they were going to do that

through this subversive,

illegal, immoral way.

And I thought, you know,

"this isn't what I signed up to do."

I'd kind of seen behind the curtain

and the inner workings of government

to an extent that I hadn't seen before.

I went home that weekend,

I was completely obsessed by what I had seen,

but I couldn't tell anybody.

I didn't tell my husband.

If you marry anybody outside the agency,

you do not discuss your work with them.

I just instantly knew it was explosive material

and that it had the potential to possibly derail the war,

that it literally was exposing a corruption

of the UN diplomatic processes

for the purposes of a war.

We owe it to our children, our children's children,

to free the world from,

uh, weapons of mass destruction

in the hands of those who hate freedom.

This is a man who...

Has poisoned his own people.

It may well be that under international law,

as presently constituted,

a regime can systematically brutalize

and oppress its people.

And there's nothing anyone can do

when dialogue, diplomacy, even sanctions fail.

Unless it comes within the definition

of a humanitarian catastrophe.

Downing street insisted Mr. Blair

was just trying to start a debate,

but to many, it sounded like

he was trying to enshrine a new legal right

to launch preemptive attacks.

Suddenly, you have to choose

where your loyalties lie.

Do your loyalties lie

with your employer,

with the state,

or do they lie

at a sort of deeper level,

um, with humanity, with...

We are just now beginning to learn

the extent of the devastation.

But the reports and images that we've seen

of collapsed hospitals, crumbled homes

and men and women carrying their injured neighbors

through the streets are truly heart-wrenching.

The enriquillo-plantain garden fault

runs right beneath the capital, Port-au-Prince.

It's thought that it hasn't slipped for centuries.

Last night it did,

releasing all that energy as a devastating quake.

So many people are in need of assistance.

The port continues to be closed

and the roads are damaged.

Food is scarce.

Waiting outside the main hospital,

injured people can only hope for treatment.

- Mm. - Twelve.

When I saw the oxfam job,

you know, has such an amazing reputation and...

And I just thought, you know,

"wow, wouldn't that be incredible?"

And when I got invited in front of you,

I was just so made up.

And I remember walking through that door

thinking, "oh, my gosh, this is oxfam."

And thinking, um, you know,

"it would be an absolute dream to work for this organization."

And when they offered me the job,

I was just, you know, bowled over.

And my first few years were just so inspiring.

I'd been working in hr,

um, basically heading up the hr team

for the middle east and former Soviet states,

and I was, uh, approached

to help with a problem in Haiti.

"Something's happened in one of our programs,

and we need, um, someone with hr experience

to go out there."

I knew very little about it.

Not really sure what to expect

and was really taken aback

by the, um... the allegations that were being made.

When I arrived in Haiti airport,

the first thing you met was just a crush of people.

Um, you know, it wasn't in the immediate months

after the earthquake, it was sometime after.

But even then, there was still so many aid workers

coming in and out of Port-au-Prince.

And then you go out, and just desolation everywhere.

There were still people in tents everywhere,

on every single patch of land,

just tent after tent after tent of people

still not in proper homes

or with proper running water.

And I was really shocked by how bad things were still.

When I went out there,

um, I wasn't directly involved

in the investigation,

but, um, I heard a lot of what was going on

and it was shocking.

You have people in an exceptional position of power

working with people who are incredibly vulnerable

and incredibly dependent,

particularly after, um, you know,

a natural disaster or conflicts.

Port-au-Prince had been absolutely decimated.

These women had nothing

and these aid workers were there to help them.

Yet they were exploiting them for sex

and taking advantage of the fact

that they were desperate for... for money.

What are your choices?

Who do you go to?

Things have collapsed.

There's no police officer to go to

because all the systems you normally expect

aren't there in place.

You may be... have no family or friends left

who've survived the disaster.

You could be on your own.

Some individuals even now will say,

"oh, for example, in Haiti, they... they were sex workers,

they were prostitutes."

And it just makes me mad when I hear that

because they were earthquake survivors

who had no choice.

You know, some of the women, you... had babies, children,

and they had to make the most awful of decisions

to prioritize the basic needs of their children

by having sex with these men

in order to get the money that they... they needed.

You know, really vulnerable position

that these people were in

and the aid workers who were there to help didn't.

The person who come to help became a predator

and the person that is already a victim

of a natural disaster

become actually a prey.

You know, I... I think, like many people at the time,

I thought, "this is absolutely, you know, appalling."

But you think maybe it's a one-off.

I came back

and I became oxfam's global head of safeguarding

in 2012.

And then I traveled to more countries,

and it became evident, sadly, quite quickly

that this wasn't... This wasn't one country.

This was happening across many, many of our country programs.

And it was the same story.

It was... very commonly, I was hearing

principally women, um, in the most vulnerable positions.

So, women who were divorced, lost their partners,

who were in low-paid work, cleaners,

um, people looking to get jobs.

They were the ones being targeted.

And the people who were abusing

were, um, men in positions of power.

Managers who were abusing that position

to coerce people into sex.

But not just coercion, not...

There was, you know, what I was hearing as well...

People were being raped.

There were so many allegations coming in

within the actual offices.

And this is happening to them.

What is happening to those people

out in... out in the refugee camps,

um, in some of the most vulnerable positions

that they can possibly be

in some of the countries oxfam works in?

Um, to be raped can be a criminal offense.

You know, if you're married,

you've effectively had sex out of marriage,

um, and you could be putting your life at risk

by disclosing that that's happened.

The shame it could bring on a woman

could mean that she has to leave her village.

I mean, people are trusting you quite literally with their lives

when they tell you these things.

And... and that doesn't happen straight away.

It takes months to build those relationships.

But built those relationships, we did.

And... and more and more allegations

were... were coming in.

What we're talking here about

is systemic sexual exploitation and abuse.

And by that, I mean rape

and, um, sexual abuse in all its form

of both adults and children.

That... that's what I was hearing.

The... the aid sector, you're meant to be there to help.

The fundamental principle of the aid sector is, "do no harm."

And that wasn't the case.

And I wasn't thinking about consequences to myself at all.

It was just, "how do I get this information out

in... in a way that will best protect me

from being discovered?"

The only person I could contact

was somebody who I knew, who I never named.

I knew they had met Yvonne Ridley,

who was a journalist

who had her own, uh, extraordinary story

of being captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan

and then subsequently converting to islam.

I... I phoned my contact and I said,

"look, I've seen something at work which is explosive.

I... I really think

it's imp... important information that should come out.

The public should be aware of this."

And they said, "send it to me."

So, on Monday, I went back into work.

I was not at my usual work desk.

And I thought that was a ideal moment

to do something that I knew

I wasn't supposed to be doing.

I printed off the memo and I folded it up

and put it in my handbag.

I felt like I had a big sign on my head

that was alerting everybody

to my, um... you know, my "criminal activity."

And I felt like everybody could see it on my face.

It was just so, um, nerve-racking.

And when I got out of work,

I posted the, urn, email to this contact,

and then we decided

not to have any contact between us.

It was like, "okay, this is it.

We're not going to contact each other.

We're not going to discuss this."

So, I had no idea what was going to happen

to that email.

It was completely and utterly out of the blue

when I went to buy a newspaper, the observer,

which was what I usually got on a Sunday morning.

And there was the email right on the front pages

of the newspaper.

Utterly, utterly terrified at that moment.

Threw the newspaper down on the bed...

My husband was still half asleep...

And... and said, "read it.

He'd never seen me in such a state.

I was running to the toilet,

heaving my guts out.

Basically, I was in a state of panic.

I didn't really know what to do.

I was just utterly

unable to function normally.

And I thought, "how can I carry on like this?

How can I even work there

when I've broken their trust to that degree?"

So, I went to work.

I went into my office and my manager was like,

"what are you doing here? I thought you were sick?"

And I said, "can I have a word with you?"

And we went into a side office

and I just told her straight off,

"I did it."

And she was like, "oh, Katharine!"

And she was stunned.

And she put her arm around my shoulder

and she was like, "oh-ii

and I actually felt relieved by this stage.

I'd unburdened myself

of this enormous, um, weight

of guilt and kind of...

Anxiety.

And I was hoping that they would somehow go,

"yeah, you know what?

It's incredible to think this,

but, you know...

"You've really justified your actions

a... and, you know, the war...

Uh, is wrong

and we shouldn't be going to war and well done, you."

After we had lunch

and went back to the security offices,

and they said...

"Well, you have to stay here

because, um, special branch

are on their way down from London."

At that point

I thought...

"Ho."

"Okay.

I'm in deep, deep trouble."

As the scale of the abuse became apparent to me,

um, I was going to the organization repeatedly,

saying "we... We need more resource

to tackle the scale of this problem.

And very disappointingly, that resource wasn't forthcoming.

Things really came to head... I... I'll never forget,

you know, this for me was the... the turning point.

Um, we'd gone out

and surveyed four country programs,

over 120 people, and the results came back.

And... and effectively they were saying,

"one in ten of our workers

had witnessed or experienced,

um, sexual exploitation or abuse."

And... and in one country, it was 7% were saying

they'd witnessed or experienced rape or attempted rape.

And I said, "you know,

this needs to be presented to the chief executive,

to the leadership team."

Um, and they said, "yeah, you've got your slots,"

I had all my reports ready.

And I was thinking, "this is the moment,

this is the moment

where the organization is gonna really see

what I'm saying a... and take action."

I'll never forget.

Uh, an hour before I was due to,

um, uh... to go on

and... and I got this call and... And basically they're like,

"you're no longer needed, Helen."

I was like, "what do you mean I'm no longer needed?"

And they're like, "oh, um, they... they don't want you

to go in and speak to them."

And I just was absolutely incredulous.

And I... I remember coming up to my managers,

like, "what's going on here?"

I wrote to the chief executive and I was like,

"what are we about if this is not our number one priority?"

And... and his response was... Um, he said, "oh, Helen,

I... we felt your report said everything

that needed to be said.

Um, and, you know, we trust that you've got it in hand."

I was like, "I have not got this in hand."

"Why... why won't you listen to what I have to say?"

I was in post until 2015

and I was getting promises,

but I wasn't seeing the change needed.

And very sadly, I reached a point

where I just couldn't continue anymore.

I need to leave, and... and leave I did.

I then took it to the charity commission.

I thought, "the charity commission,

they're going to do something about this."

And what do they do?

They didn't invite me for interview.

They didn't ask me any questions.

You know, you start to doubt yourself.

You think, "is this me?

Am I somehow missing something?"

Um, and they just stopped replying in the end.

I think they just put me down as some sort of, like,

you know, batty employee.

I don't know what they thought.

You know, should I have gone to the press then?

I just, you know, I thought,

"well, if I've gone to all these other people

and they've not acted,

will it make a difference going to the press?"

And also, I was worried

about what angle might they take,

how that story would be told,

and would... could... Could there be a risk

of doing more harm than good?

I don't know whether that was the right decision, um,

not to, but I decided not to,

at that point.

I'd just become, honestly,

a bit... bit obsessed about it.

It was everything I thought about

and... and with a young child and... and my husband

had been incredibly supportive.

But, you know, we were getting to that point

where, you know, he was like, "you got to let it go.

You've got... you know,

it's... it's re... you know,

it's reach..."

And... and it wasn't him. It was me.

I had to let it go.

It was consuming me.

I was done with oxfam.

Um, and it was really, really hard.

And I think the...

The really, really hard thing

was feeling I'd failed those individuals.

And I've always been someone who's been... you know,

I've always been someone who can fix things.

I think just feeling so...

So utterly powerless...

Life was... you know, was taken over.

And... and then I, um...

I got this text message

in February 2018, saying,

"Helen, there's going to be something in the press.

Just want to warn you."

That story by Sean O'Neill at the times

just absolutely hit the headlines.

It wasn't me that went to Sean,

but when he did, I started to get calls.

Um, you know...

It didn't take long for people to work out

that I'd been the head of safeguarding,

um, during this period of time.

And I was faced

with the biggest decision of my life.

Do I talk publicly about this?

If you speak publicly, you are going to be responsible

for people not giving to the likes of oxfam.

And what harm is that going to do?

Because if those donations go down,

those people who desperately need help

are not going to get help.

And... and also people saying to me, you know,

"you're going to pander to an agenda

to cut the aid budget.

You'll just be lighting that fire."

I don't think anyone can prepare you

for what it's actually like to be a whistleblower.

There is this kind of...

Deep psychological reaction to whistleblowing,

that I think we can all relate to,

where no one likes to be pointed out as in the wrong.

And people's response to that

can very often, at least in what... what I see, be anger,

those kind of primal responses.

And people are met with retaliation

and hostile behavior,

that actually for a lot of people,

they're... they're not going into it necessarily

with their eyes open.

Everything points to internal reporting

because it's, uh, perceived as safer for the whistleblower

and it's safer for the organization.

Organizations are desperate, uh, that they hear about wrongdoing

so they can rectify it

before the public knows about it.

Excellent reporting is very much... is a... a fail-safe.

You go to the regulator, the police, an mp,

the press as a last resort

because you... the... The problem's not been

dealt with internally.

So, people who go outside,

I think by definition

are aware that they are being in... in brackets,

they might think they're being disloyal.

They're aware that they need some courage

and they're aware that they are more likely

to suffer retaliation.

So, we're talking about people here

who are driven.

The wrongdoing is more important, uh, to them

than perhaps to other people.

I think when it comes to retaliation

and when it comes to understanding

what the risks are of speaking up,

it can be very different,

you know, for different... Different people.

And I think one thing that might be different

specifically if you're a woman,

is just the trigger of... of... of personal safety.

You know, I do something very simple,

like go to the supermarket, and if it's nighttime,

you know, I have to be more cautious

than I think men have to be.

And so, to be constantly on edge about, you know,

"will I make it safe out of this?"

That omnipresent threat

of, "am I physically going to be safe?"

I think is something that's very different for women.

When women speak in a way

that actually really does challenge, um, power,

whether that's patriarchal power, state power,

um, other forms of institutional power,

it's at that moment

that that... that the sort of machinery of patriarchy,

the machinery of the state

comes into play to silence them.

Harvey weinstein denies

all non-consensual relations.

Over the last few days, though, a-list stars have lined up

to condemn the man

who once had such power over their careers.

Behind the scenes of the new yorker

and New York times exposés that came out,

I was being harassed and bullied and terrorized

by Harvey weinstein.

I knew that people were trying... like, bugging me.

I knew that my house was bugged.

I knew I was being hacked.

I knew I was being surveilled.

But in order to buy time to get these articles written,

I wanted the articles to come out before my book.

I just wanted the articles to come...

I just wanted it to be done.

I wanted truth to be out there and...

But at the same time, I thought I had an nda.

I couldn't remember if I had signed an nda or not

and I couldn't find the document.

So, I was on the hunt for this document

through... for 20 years.

You know, it was like old law firms,

you know, all these kind of legal maneuverings

and people that in the past,

when it happened to me, were really playing his side.

As it turns out, I did not sign a non-disclosure agreement

back in the day.

And at the 11th hour, I found that document

to give to the New York times.

It was like the night before the article came out,

I knew I was like...

It felt like I had a rope in my hand

with a fireball on the end of it.

And I was just going like this,

just like, "okay, we're going in for a fight now."

This is going to be the fight of your life."

And it was.

A contract to keep it all private,

last night, miss mcgowan went public.

Police are now investigating allegations

of sexual assault from nine different women

spanning more than three decades.

It's just so rampant.

I think that's the thing that takes your breath away.

It's shocking.

And the only way it stops is with people coming forward.

And that's an incredibly brave thing to do.

I was indeed warned before I went into the hotel room

that Harvey was most likely to be naked or semi-naked.

More than 30 women have now come forward

and their allegations reach back 30 years.

A terrible abuse of power

is what lies at the heart of the weinstein story,

and the allegations against him

have shone a light onto how power works in Hollywood.

The culture is so rooted in and permeated in,

not necessarily every single one being a sexual harasser,

but a sort of a boys' club.

Revelations of abuse and assault

are peeling back the facade of Hollywood,

shattering reputations of the powerful and the political.

The couple days afterwards, it felt like...

It... it... it was like the world blew up,

kind of, you know,

and my phone couldn't contain

the amount of messages I was getting. Um...

And it felt like...

You know, it was like... Damn... trial by fire.

And it felt like I was open season

and I was fair game.

And I was.

The, uh... the interviewers

focused a lot on, uh,

just really degrading questions,

but I just felt like, "if I don't do this,

who can do this?"

But is there any part of you

that has some sympathy for that behavior,

or do you... how do you see it?

Like, do you see him as a victim

because he paints himself as one?

I think it's, um...

If you had a dog out there in the world

with his mind inside of it,

you would shoot that dog.

It would not be a safe dog to be in the world.

But you also took $100,000 of Harvey weinstein's money,

didn't you?

Well, that's very shaming of you to say.

I didn't take it. I requested it.

I was trying to buy a billboard

that said Harvey weinstein is a rapist.

And I do feel

that whole, "you took money" thing is a bit like...

Do you understand

what this person did to our careers?

You know, it was impossible.

Like, it was just every day, it was, like, a new assault.

And what people didn't understand was that...

There's actual trauma.

A lot of people come up and they're like,

"I know that was so hard, thank you."

And that's amazing.

Um, but I think there's a lot of people

that are like...

Even on the left, you know, you would think

everybody on the left

would be like, "oh, she's amazing."

It's not so, because anybody who upsets the status quo

upsets, period.

There was someone in Germany who was interviewing me

and he said, uh,

"you're the one who lays on barbed wire

so others can walk in your back."

And that's what it felt like.

It felt like I was laying on, like, flaming barbed wire

with, like, the weight of the world

walking across my back towards a better place.

And I was like, "okay, that's what I'm here to do."

I was immediately taken to the police station.

Taken down into the custody suite

where they, you know, sign you in,

take all your belongings

and phone and whatnot.

And I was put in this cell, and I sat there

and sat there and sat there.

And, you know, just didn't know what...

What was going to happen.

Meanwhile, my husband was going

to the police station,

going, "please, can I see my wife?

Please, can I see my wife?"

So, he kept coming and they kept sending him away.

Finally, he came

and we... We had to talk in this room

with a glass partition.

He was on the other side and I was on the inside.

It's very ironic because my husband

was an asylum seeker

and he was a failed asylum seeker

at this point,

and he'd actually already spent a night

in the same custo... Custody suite.

You know, not that many months

before I was sitting in the same place, looking in.

And he knew how it would feel

because he'd been there before.

You know, "I'll be all right.

I'll be all right, they can only hold me

for under 24 hours,"

you know, "I'll be out tomorrow."

While all this was going on,

they were raiding our house.

They didn't want to interview me

until they'd searched the house.

And then the next morning, you know,

uh, the, urn, special branch, uh, detective

came and... And I basically tell the police

exact same thing that I told gchq.

And they said, "thank you very much."

By this time, it was nearly midday

and they were just within the 24-hour window,

they had to let me go.

So, I was arrested, but not charged at this point.

I was arrested and bailed, released on bail.

I went home.

I could tell the house had been searched,

things had been moved around,

and within three months

I was, um, dismissed for gross misconduct.

And that was it.

And so, I was just in limbo.

I felt isolated

and I didn't know who to turn to,

who to trust.

Eventually, a John wadham,

who was the director of Liberty at the time, contacted me.

He clearly knew the law.

He clearly knew my predicament,

could understand it

and knew how he could help me.

It was an enormous sense of relief.

You know, I was arrested

days after the email was in the newspaper.

And then, you know, the invasion began.

I was at home, I was watching TV

and I just wept.

I mean, it was just soul-destroying.

The portent of war.

But if the siren was meant to clear

the streets of Baghdad, it wasn't needed.

That had happened hours before.

Soon came the sound of thunder.

But of course, it wasn't.

For this was a man-made storm.

Using an image intensifier

on one of oui' cameras,

we could pick out exploding shells

in the pre-dawn sky.

In the city center,

the Iraqi gunners were blazing away.

It was just horrendous.

And I felt like a hu...

A huge failure, you know, I just...

The whole thing seemed utterly futile.

There was massive amounts of press.

And it's just enormously daunting,

you know, to be the only person

sitting there, uh, facing the judge

and the legal counsel

and all the, urn, journalists.

Um, and they ask you to state your name.

I stated my name, um...

And then the def... The prosecution said...

Um, "your honor, we have...

Insufficient evidence

for a realistic prospect of conviction."

And, you know, I was just sitting there going,

"it's all legal language.

I don't understand what they're saying."

And then my defense team stood up and challenged it.

They said, "what are you saying?

She confessed."

And then he said it again.

And this... There was this back and forth.

And the judge was like,

"it... what... you know, explain.

Are you dropping charges?"

And then, you know, they said...

"Yes, my lord."

And then that was it.

The case was over.

And I was just... I was like...

"What? Is this really happening?"

And then everybody's kind of cheering.

And I walk out, I'm trembling,

and I walk out, and I was just, like,

utterly overwhelmed.

Her relief was there for all to see.

For months, Katharine gun lived with the threat

of a two-year prison sentence.

Today, after a court appearance lasting just 30 minutes,

she walked free.

I'm not prone to leak secrets

um, left, right and center, um, but I felt that this was

a really, um, essential

and important issue

that needed to get out to the public.

I was just over the moon that they dropped the charges.

But on the other hand, we don't know

why they dropped the case against me.

One question unanswered.

I would like to know, um, why they charged me

and then four months later decided to drop it.

Yes, I would like to know.

It was this kind of anti-climax,

because I had geared myself up

for this trial.

I was determined to fight it.

And, you know, we'd had all these

kind of high hopes that we could use

the defense of necessity

to prove that my actions were justified

and to argue that the war in Iraq

had been illegal.

Ifeelhke it was a missed opportunity,

really, to actually expose so much at a time

when it really would have made a difference.

And then I was walking down the steps

and out... out of the building.

And then there was this massive kind of wave

of journalists, all their cameras

in front of my face, and this young...

This woman brought me a bunch of flowers.

And, you know,

it's just... Everything's happening at once

and you don't know where to look,

what to say, what to do.

It's funny.

Anyway, I... I went and met my husband...

And I knew

there was going to be this, um...

Massive rush of press to try and get the human story.

And I was like, "I... I don't want to face that."

So, we went down to Brighton, to my great-aunt,

and we were like,

"can we spend a few days with you

until the, you know, circus has died down?"

And I just... I just wanted to get back to normality.

What I find admi... admirable

is how they really see

the bigger picture,

which is to safeguard the public interest

and also how selfless they are as well.

Somebody is just trying to solve a problem.

They're trying to go about their normal lives.

They don't think of themselves as a whistleblower.

Until the retaliation begins.

It's not for the faint-hearted,

for anyone who speaks out.

There's no guarantee that you'll still be protected.

You make a lot of sacrifices.

Often, it could be end of your job or your career.

It could have implications around your family

and friends and connections,

or you've been harassed or bullied.

And that has impacts

on your mental health, wellbeing.

Where you work,

and especially depending on the sort of work,

it forms a bit of your identity.

All these people that you love and form a part of your networks

are suddenly against you,

and that has this real kind of, um,

explosive effect internally

and... and can really damage people.

This is a huge process of loss

that the individual has to go through.

Um, and at the same time, they're trying to process

that actually, what they did

was simply standing up for something

that they believed was the right thing to do.

And it can take, um, people

a long, long time to recover.

And I'm sure that there's lots of people

who, unfortunately, might not ever recover.

And... and that's an awful price to pay.

People are experiencing, as a result of doing this,

profound mental health effects.

And anecdotally, PTSD,

um, just seems quite a common...

Not common, but more than you would imagine,

uh, result of these sort of situations.

As the story broke, I thought, "I've got to speak out."

Um, I remember calling Cathy Newman

and... and saying, "you know, Cathy,

I'm not sure I can do this,"

and... and I'd... I'd gone to her because I thought

she was a reporter who would do the story justice

in the sense of keeping survivors at the heart of that.

You know, I thought really, really long and hard.

Right up 'til half an hour

before I was going to get on the train to give the interview,

and I had a call from a... a good friend saying, "don't do this."

You know, "just please, don't do this.

Just think of the impact of what you're about to do."

But then the flip side...

There was this sense

that this story's got to be told

becauseifs in the public domain now.

And if I stay silent on this,

I'm as bad as others.

Just thinking, "those people who told me their stories,

who... who were brave enough

to tell me about the abuse they suffered,

you know, if they were brave enough to tell me,

I've got to be brave enough to tell their story."

Oh, I don't know.

What was it that got me on that train?

I'm just not sure, actually, being honest.

But I did. I got on the train.

And I asked repeatedly, "we need more resource,

we need more resource for this."

And it wasn't forthcoming.

And it was just a continual fight

to try and get more resource.

And I just found it so frustrating

because I felt that our failure

to adequately resource was putting people at risk.

But it sounds like they didn't take

those allegations seriously,

that women getting harassed, assaulted, raped

didn't really sort of register with the senior team?

I struggle to understand

why they didn't respond immediately for that call

for additional resources.

I really struggle, and I still struggle with that.

Every answer was very considered.

She didn't drop the ball

at any point in the interview.

And that's quite unusual for these kind of interviews.

Very often an interviewee

who's making allegations of this sort is very nervous,

and they do worry about the legal implications,

and they worry about the personal repercussions

for them in terms of career and future.

And so, sometimes, there'll be lots of answers

that they want to redo.

But with Helen, she was very smooth,

very calm, very professional.

Do you think oxfam can survive this?

I do.

There are, behind oxfam,

thousands of committed,

dedicated, incredible staff.

Absolutely.

The things they do,

they put their lives at risk every day.

They are amazing people.

In terms of the senior leadership team,

I think there are some people there

who need to think, look back,

what's happened in the last few years,

and think, did they do everything they needed to do

to keep the beneficiaries safe?

Uh, I rememberjust feeling like I was physically shaking,

um, because it was so raw.

All I thought is,

"if people are going to listen to you,

you've got to keep it together."

And I think also for the first time,

feeling like finally someone was...

Someone cared enough and that finally, you know,

the... the world was waking up.

And I remember the next day,

um, I had, uh, reporters at my door.

I... the phone didn't stop ringing.

My social media

was just, like, binging all the time.

The weeks and months afterwards

were just such a blur.

Oxfam's deputy chief executive,

penny Lawrence, has already resigned.

Was there a cover-up?

Have you ruined oxfam's reputation?

It's a culture of misogyny against female employees,

female humanitarian workers

and the beneficiary population.

Complaints of inappropriate behavior

were made by three women.

The hundreds of thousands of people

who support oxfam every month are compromised by this.

And to everybody, I do apologize.

Oxfam was told tonight

it can't bid for any more government money

until the department for international development

is satisfied

it's made the necessary changes.

I knew there would be, um, some backlash.

And I think, you know, I thought it through.

I thought, "yeah, there are going to be

people that are angry with me."

Um, it's very different to experience it.

Now, I was living in Oxford, where oxfam's headquarters are.

I was seeing people day to day in the streets

who were associated with the organization,

and... and they were angry.

And I get why people were angry then,

because they're thinking,

"well, why's she speaking up about this?

You know, what... What's her real motivation is?

Is... is she in it for herself?"

And I think they thought,

"this is being somehow overblown.

This isn't, you know...

This all can't possibly be true."

At that point in time, people didn't know

the full facts of the case.

There was one particular moment with my son

where someone came up to me

and... and said how they felt quite forcefully.

And I remember just holding my son's hand.

And afterwards he turned to me and he said,

"mummy, why are people being bullies to you?"

Really, life started

to get incredibly difficult for Helen.

She got spat at in the street

when she was out with Sammy.

She got shouted at.

Um, you know, 'cause people felt

that this was going to impact jobs at oxfam.

But that was nothing to do with the charitable work.

It was all to do with poor leadership

andlack of leadership grip.

Whenever I left the door, I didn't know

who was going to come up to me

and what they were going to say.

Um, and this has never happened to me in my life.

I started to get panic attacks

because it's that sense

of almost like, you know...

It's kind of a really basic human response

that someone's approaching you

and you... is to think, like, "are they going to be friendly

or are they gonna be angry?

They've caught my eye.

They're going to want to talk to me.

And what are they going to say?"

And just your heart starts racing.

And... and I started to find

that was happening, um, more and more.

And, um, it reached a point,

talking it through with my husband,

when I just... I just said,

"I can't do this anymore.

I feel... I feel the need to move.

Um, I just can't live in Oxford anymore."

And that was just, um...

You know, that was the most awful decision.

I felt so guilty

that I'd put my family in this position,

and to take my husband

and my son away from their home

and from the city that they loved...

Um, and I felt I'd let them down

by not being strong enough to stick it out.

And I think when you...

When you leave something, you kind of think,

"that's it, it's dealt with."

Um, but it doesn't, these things follow you.

And, you know, sadly, me and my husband...

Um, separated.

And, you know, it's been really tough.

But it was really hard because there was nobody...

Telling me what to do

and nobody that I could explain

how I felt... to.

So, yeah, it's...

I don't know why I'm getting choked up

'cause I've talked about this for,

like, 17 years already,

butlguess I've never talked

about the aftermath.

So, on the one hand, you feel

like you're supposed to be overjoyed,

and obviously you are.

But as you say, there's this baggage of trauma

that you haven't had... You haven't processed,

and you need to process.

But you don't know how to process.

So, I guess, I haven't processed it.

But, um...

For the first sort of two to five years...

Um, when I talked

about the actual episode itself,

uh, I got"

stressed,

uh, and raised tensions

and palpitations and so on.

But that stopped

after sort of five years.

But that was talking

about the episode.

It wasn't talking about the aftermath.

And nobody talks about the aftermath.

So, I think that's the difference.

So, yeah.

No.

You know, people... There's so much stigma

about being a whistleblower.

But, you know, there's a reason

why people whistleblow,

because you have to, and...

And... and that's the hardest thing, you know.

People don't whistleblow through choice.

And I think people have always seen me...

And even as a whistleblower,

I've endeavored to be this sort of,

you know, confident person that I've always been.

But I remember when I left oxfam,

just that sense of,

you know, having let people down.

He's been helped down the line

and through it all by, you know, horrible people.

I don't know what else they are.

I don't know what else to call them.

Um, monsters.

You know, because he's got something wrong in his head.

But what's wrong with them?

The complicity machine.

That's who I really went after.

That's who I really wanted to target.

And that's why

the establishment Rose up against me.

Because I was coming for them.

It's so massive and prevalent, this problem.

And my goal was... Was just to call a time-out.

I was like, "time-out,

I think we can be better."

No more.

There was this massive groundswell

of people coming for, you know, evildoers.

It was... but the support I've gotten from the public

is incredible.

You know, I walk down the street

every day and someone gives me a fist up

or says thank you.

But it was also really hard because I think,

you know, when it was going off

and it was just like an onslaught

in the world media, it was like

I was being triggered,

just like so many other people were being triggered.

There's no renumeration.

You know, there's no financial reward.

Um, people are like, "you're doing it to get famous."

I'm like, "I was famous."

Um, I would say now I'm a notable public figure.

I think I'm a strange creature

in the firmament of the world.

You know, I don't think people,

because of what he's done to me,

um... even including my family.

A lot of my family doesn't really speak to me.

Because I think they believed,

you know, all the, uh, horrible things.

I decided then to give up work

and I was a full-time, uh, stay-at-home mom,

and financially, we started to really struggle

by this stage.

Um, we weren't living extravagantly by any means,

but, um, I...

We were basically getting, uh, further and further

into the red, financially.

And I just thought it was untenable.

Uh, and I didn't really see a way out.

We decided to, um...

Make a go of it in Turkey.

But that's how things are at the moment.

People speaking out

like Rose and Helen and Katharine

is in all of our interests.

It is about brave, exceptional individuals,

but actually, it's about the whole of society

creating those conditions to make speaking out safer,

to make speaking out something that doesn't entail,

like, extreme costs that have to be burdened

by these individual people.

We're not a healthy society if we're letting some people,

you know, fall on the scrapheap.

Unless we make sure that almost all of them

don't suffer from whistleblowing,

we will never build a culture

where people feel comfortable to do what we all agree.

You know, and we really do agree.

There's no party, political lines on this.

Everyone's like, "whistle blowing is a good thing,"

we all agree it's the right thing.

Their sense of integrity and justice has driven them

to stand out and speak out when

many wouldn't have done so.

And I think a lot of whistleblowers

are very single-minded.

I mean, everybody's different, of course.

But I think you can see that there's some similarities

with people who are so determined

to speak out about wrongdoing.

Um, so I think that is a very special quality.

And it's not a quality by any means,

if we're honest, that all of us have.

The film about my, um...

Whistleblowing experience

came out... in 2019.

It was called official secrets,

starring Keira knightley,

and as part

of the, urn, promotion of the film,

I traveled

around very many places,

going to, um, film festivals

and various conferences.

And I was, you know,

in it with a lot of people

who were talking about whistleblowing.

I think we need to take a very long, hard look

about what we value,

what we, um, need

in order to thrive and...

How we should go about making that possible.

I don't regret what I did, um...

In 2003, blowing the whistle

on the, uh, NSA email

to gchq, I don't regret that.

And when I think about our legacy

for our children and our grandchildren,

you know, I can't just stand by

and do nothing.

You know, it was

an incredibly tough time in my life,

but I'm one of the lucky ones.

I was believed

and the charity commission

and mps all reached the conclusions

that what I was saying was true.

Um, what I think is positive is that the organization

I know has, since this has come to light,

worked really hard to make things better.

Where I am now, I love.

Um, I live in a gorgeous town,

but I am now a... a single mum with...

With my son.

So privileged now to be, um, running

an, uh... an autism charity.

When I was speaking, um,

out about what had happened at oxfam,

my son was diagnosed, um, with, uh, autism.

And so, I went through

the process of getting a diagnosis

and was diagnosed quite... Quite recently as well.

And, oh, gosh, it's been such an eye-opener.

Being an autistic woman, I think that meant

I said the things

that perhaps others might not have done.

It gave me a lot of new insight

into probably why I became, uh, a whistleblower.

You know, I was asked at the time, you know,

"why did you do it?

And, you know, wasn't that a brave thing to do?"

And... and something I always felt was,

it wasn't brave, I... I literally had no choice.

I would do it again.

And that's a really hard thing

to say because the...

The price for my family and friends

was in... high.

And by saying that, I feel like I'm saying

that the... The needs of the people

I was speaking up for were more important

than my family.

Life has changed forever

because of speaking out.

And sorry, it's... and I still...

Still a hard thing.

So, it's not an easy one to answer.

Um, but I would.

I would do it again.

So, for me, moving to Mexico

has been really instrumental

in my attempt to heal.

I still have stress every day

related to that monster

and the monsters he's surrounded himself with.

I still suffer.

I gave up everything.

I gave up a beautiful house.

Some guarantee of money,

some guarantee of a career, uh...

To nothing.

Dear Harvey.

No matter what lies you tell yourself,

you did this.

Today, lady justice

is staring down a super predator:

You.

I think I was in shock that he was sentenced,

because he pulled every trick in the book.

His lawyer squeezed his shoulder

as he was found guilty,

but otherwise, he showed no emotion.

This court process has been testimony

to the courage of the women who came forward

and to the tenacity of the investigative reporters

who shattered the code of silence

surrounding the Hollywood mogul.

I feel very proud

of setting up the dominoes

and knocking them forward

to fall all around the world.

Because this is bigger than Hollywood.

This case became symbolic,

about far more

than just one man's guilt or innocence.

The allegations against the Hollywood producer

sparked the #metoo movement

against sexual harassment and abuse.

I would do it again in a heartbeat.

I would go through it all again.

I was made for this.

Not a lot of people are.

And the other women profiled in this documentary,

I'm incredibly proud of.

I know what it takes.

I wish I had a little more softness

in my heart towards people that are scared.

Butlhave a great hatred of fear.

It is the number one enemy of change.

So, I salute the other women.

And I salute anybody who comes forward

and fights the good fight.

Because it's all we're here to do.

We have concluded

that the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq

before the peaceful options for disarmament

had been exhausted.

We have also concluded that the judgments

about the severity of the threat

posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction,

wmd, were presented with a certainty

that was not justified.

Even though they all... Have all experienced these

incredible difficulties, um, and attempts to...

Attempts to undermine what they've shown

and what they've said,

history has shown, actually, that all of them

did the right thing.

Um, and for that reason alone,

I think, is a perfect example

of why whistleblowers are essential for democracy

and for a healthy society.

We're better because of them.

Um, we owe them a debt.

Helen's decision to speak out

had far-reaching implications.

As a result, hundreds, thousands of people

around the world are better protected

than they were before Helen spoke out.

Without doubt, one of the largest gatherings,

let alone protest rallies, in English history.

What Katharine, uh, gun did was extremely brave.

It was driven by her conscience

of a one.

And there were a lot of protesters about the Iraq war.

You know, she was one of millions.

And I think that what Katharine did

was a forerunner for snowden.

We got... we didn't get quite the same shock

that gchq, NSA,

"oh, well, then, all right,

you can trust them."

That snowden then demonstrated

exactly what those organizations were up to.

They are our heroes

and we need to find a new way in our culture

to recognize and not take that voice for granted.

Key movements, such as #metoo,

black lives matter, made people aware

that they don't need to suffer in silence

for what they have experienced,

and that there's really strength in numbers.

It was the courage of many women

sort of coming forward and saying,

"hey, this is not okay.

This has been going on for long enough.

It needs to stop."

That you actually saw actionable change.

So, that's progress. That's progress.

If there's one thing that's changed,

People have had enough of this shit, right?

They've had enough with... They've had enough with people

telling them to be quiet and... and not listening

and putting up with systemic abuse

or systemic, sort of, just bad treatment

from people.

It's people saying,

"it's enough, I've just had enough."

And that, I think, um,

uprising in public consciousness

is... is probably a bit of a change.

In life, there is some tough stuff

that happens in the world that we see on the news.

And when our hearts sink

and we just think, "oh, my god,

what sort of world I live in?"

Then you see these people and you just think,

"hey, you give me hope.

You're one of the good ones."

And these women in this film,

you just think, "yeah,

that's why I get out of bed.

Because there are good people

fighting the good fight

who want to make a difference.

You know, something hopeful."