ColmFlynn

David Harper is a broadcaster from the UK, working with networks like the BBC World Service. In fact, his voice can often be heard reading news live to millions of people around the world. He also covers a wide range of stories for other TV and radio networks in the UK. He has a passion for what he does! But his job can be very demanding and high-pressured at times, and being a freelancer the work can be unstable. But what makes David's situation a bit more difficult, is that he suffers from Bipolar Disorder. He kept his condition a secret for many years, fearing what others would think, and the possibility of losing work as looking unstable. But recently he uploaded a video to X (formerly Twitter) where he talked about his diagnoses and how that affected his life. In this podcast, David tells me about what it's like living with extreme lows, and manic highs, and how it affects his life every day. He also talks openly about the problems bipolar disorder can have on his family and friends, and those closest to him. We discuss the medication he has tried, and what he says eventually worked for him in terms of coping with it.

Growing up in a dysfunctional family in the UK, Lucy Barnes felt lost and unloved as a child. Her mother wasn't able to be the kind of mother a child needs, and Lucy had five siblings from five different fathers. So the concept of a solid loving family was something she never experienced from a young age. Men were constantly coming and going in their home, and Lucy often found herself in difficult and dangerous situations. Eventually things got so bad, when she was 13 she was taken out of the home by social workers and put into foster care. With the foster family, for once in her life she experienced love and acceptance, but didn't know how to handle it and so rebelled. Throughout her teenage years she battled with shame and guilt, thinking of her childhood and where she had come from. When she was 16 she was kicked out of foster care and returned back to her mother's house. But rather than letting the cycle continue, Lucy realised that the only way she would break it would be through education and she set herself an ambitious task - to study law. This is Lucy's amazing story of how, against the odds, she pursued her dream and went to law school, and now is on her way to becoming a barrister. Lucy Barnes had to mature at a younger age than most, and experienced obstacles in life that has made her stronger and more determined. In this podcast she shares her amazing story, and the valuable insights she has learned throughout her life.

The name Lucy Letby has now become a name associated with pure evil. The story that has shocked and horrified England, and people all over the world is something you wouldn’t find in even the worst horror movies. A young nurse murdering tiny babies while working in the neonatal unit of a UK hospital. Instead of caring for the most vulnerable, she was injecting them with air, milk, and insulin.. And in one case, even inserting a sharp instrument into a baby’s throat to try and make it bleed to death…. But yet, a UK court has just ruled that this is exactly what Lucy Letby did between 2015 and 2015 when she was just 25 years old. She killed infant babies while on duty and then pretend to the heartbroken parents that she had done everything she could to try and save their child. In some cases she even look up the parents on facebook after, and wrote messages of sympathy to them. We now know the where, when, and how of these horrific crimes, but we do not know the why. Dr. David Holmes is one of the UK's leading criminal psychologist and joins Colm Flynn on this podcast to try and give an insight into the mind of someone like Lucy Letby, and why someone with psychopathic tendencies can be driven to do acts of pure evil. They also discuss the public's fascination with the case, and serial killers in general, and whether or not people like Lucy Letby should be named in public, given the attention their narcissistic personality so badly craves, or if they should be simply ignored and left to die in prison.