File on 4 Investigates

Are international conflicts creating tensions between Sunni and Shia Muslims in the UK? Shabnam Mahmood reports from both Sunni and Shia communities and reveals how divisive messages from the Middle East are fuelling intolerance here. Organisations which monitor hate crimes say sectarian violence, while low level, is increasing. One Shia man tells the programme: "It is now becoming quite dangerous...

The Dutch city of Nijmegen has much in common with the English city of York. Similar in size, both are much visited by tourists because of their histories and architecture. But both also have rivers running through them and are susceptible to flooding. So how do their defences compare? And, as York and other communities continue to mop up the damage caused by the latest catastrophic flooding, did...

Vaccination has long been one of the greatest weapons in the battle against a range of potentially fatal diseases. Millions of lives have been saved worldwide, and Britain has played a major role in helping to combat new pandemics. But, rarely, things do go wrong and people develop serious side-effects. In the UK, the Government's Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme is supposed to help those left severe...

File on 4 uncovers the story behind the collapse of one of the biggest health contracts ever put out to tender. Last April an NHS consortium of Cambridge University Hospitals and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust successfully bid to run older peoples' health services. But in December the £800m, five year contract ended without warning, with local commissioners saying only that i...

File on 4 reveals secret evidence of match fixing in tennis and investigates claims that sport's governing bodies have failed to act on repeated warnings about suspect players. The programme has seen confidential documents which reveal how some were linked to gambling syndicates in Russia and Italy which won hundreds of thousands of pounds betting on matches they played in. A number of those who h...

In the first of a new series, Allan Urry investigates claims by former officers from one of Britain's biggest police forces that they've been the victims of crimes committed by their own colleagues. He hears claims of dirty tricks by a secretive police unit within Greater Manchester Police which some officers say have led to criminal charges against them. Others say they've been unfairly targeted...

An inside job: the Britons smuggling illegal immigrants into the UK. File on 4 hears from Britons jailed for hiding people in their cars. They reveal why - and how - they did it. They were paid to smuggle people across the Channel by gangs based in London and the North West. This unofficial migrant taxi service - run from camps in Calais and Dunkirk - is believed to be netting criminal networks mi...

How safe are we in the hands of locum staff at NHS hospitals? The Government's crackdown on big fees charged by agencies that hire them out has been making headlines, but what's being done to ensure they are up to the job? Allan Urry investigates recent cases which raise questions about the quality of care delivered by some temporary staff. Should an agency doctor have better assessed a poorly sur...

As the crisis in Syria deepens and refugees flock westwards, the UK government insists it is helping with a £1.1bn aid package to neighbouring countries - but is it being spent wisely? Simon Cox tracks money going from the UK to projects on the ground in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, trying to find out how much eventually gets to refugees. It's easy to see how funding an NGO to build new home...

Like other steel communities, Rotherham faces the loss of hundreds of jobs following the recent announcement of redundancies at the local plant. It's the latest blow to a town now synonymous with widespread child grooming. Last year the Jay Report estimated that 1400 young people had been sexually abused there. It said most of the victims were white and most of the perpetrators were Asian men. So...

David Cameron has promised three million new apprenticeships by 2020. But Further Education colleges must deliver them against a background of year-on-year cuts - with the axe likely to fall again in this Autumn's spending review. The National Audit Office has warned more than a quarter of further education colleges could be deemed financially inadequate by the end of the year. And this month MPs...

What does the theft of a billion dollars from Europe's poorest country have to do with a run-down housing estate in Edinburgh? Moldova was robbed of 12% of its GDP by the bafflingly complex financial scam uncovered earlier this year. It involved a web of companies in the ex-Soviet country, with the money thought to have ended up in Russia via Latvian banks. But the trail also goes via a number of...

Why is the NHS struggling to get hold of some life-saving medicines for its patients? Allan Urry reveals serious concern over the availability of some drugs used in the treatment of cancer and for pain control. Pharmacists and doctors say they face a daily battle to get access to a range of medicines and either end up buying alternatives at a greater cost to the health service or using less effect...

With the Government cracking down on migrants working illegally, Simon Cox investigates Britain's shadow economy. He meets illegal workers to ask whether the get-tough message is putting them off. And he reveals the ways in which both employers and workers are getting round the law. So can the UK Border Force deliver on ministers' promises to make the UK an "unattractive" place for those who want...

Controversial charging decisions in the cases of Lord Janner, Operation Elveden and a doctor accused of female genital mutilation have brought a hostile reaction in the media to the Director of Public Prosecutions and increasing concern about the health of her organisation - the Crown Prosecution Service. Over the past five years the CPS has seen budget cuts of over 25% resulting in job losses and...

Tea is still the UK's favourite drink - but what's the human cost of a cuppa? In the first of a new series of File on 4, Jane Deith reports from Assam on the plight of workers on tea plantations which help supply some of Britain's best known brands. India is one of the largest tea producers in the world with an industry worth billions of pounds - but critics say pickers often have to endure long w...

Complaints against the police are running at a record high. The vast majority, nine out of ten, are rejected from the start. But when complainants appeal to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, one in 2 cases is overturned. Others - disgruntled with the way they've been treated by the police - sue the force. File on 4 hears from people who've been battling for years to pursue a complaint...

Works behind schedule; costs going up; an inquiry into poor performance announced by the industry regulator. It's a depressingly familiar story on our railways. From brand new station escalators at a standstill in Birmingham, to only 10 per cent of trains on time at one of London's busiest stations, even the Chancellor's planned Northern Powerhouse is threatened as line upgrades between Manchester...

The UK's £12 billion pound foreign aid budget is one of the few areas of Government spending protected from cuts. The commitment to spend 0.7% of Britain's gross national income on aid means at least 60 billion pounds will be spent on overseas development in the next five years. Many of these projects are delivered by large companies that receive tens of millions of pounds from DFID (the Departmen...

Sixty thousand people have crossed the Mediterranean and made it to Europe so far this year. Frontex, the EU border agency, warns that between 500,000 and 1 million people - Eritreans, Syrians, Afghans, Somalis - could be waiting to leave the shores of Libya for Italy. Its latest report says resources are being devoted to migrants' care but not towards screening and collecting basic information su...

Later this month the medicines regulator, the MHRA, is due to complete its review into the clot-busting drug Alteplase, the frontline treatment used in many cases of stroke. A number of experts in the UK, US and Canada have raised serious doubts about the drug's safety and effectiveness. They are concerned about potentially fatal harm to patients through an increased risk of bleeding in the brain...

With the urgent need for more housing, Britain's planning laws are under pressure like never before. Greenbelt land and even sites designated as Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, are being earmarked for development. So how far can we protect the countryside when the need for houses is so acute? Allan Urry reveals new figures on scale of the problem and investigates claims that the planning syst...

Next month the National Audit Office is due to report on the outcomes for young people leaving care. There are claims that, under financial pressure, local authorities are pushing too many teenagers into independent living before they're ready. File on 4 investigates new figures that suggest many young care leavers are failing to cope - with large numbers ending up in custody, homeless, sexually e...

Mental health services are facing a period of unprecedented change. The Department of Health has committed itself to reducing the disparity between spending on physical and mental illness, and a new payment system means services will be funded differently in the future. In the meantime there are concerns that vulnerable patients are dying because of pressures to release them from hospital too quic...

Emma Caldwell was a young woman from a good home who developed an addiction to heroin after the death of her sister and then descended into street prostitution. When her body was found dumped in a ditch in Lanarkshire in May 2005, the police launched an unprecedented murder hunt. But ten years on, after an investigation costing millions of pounds, no one has ever been convicted of her killing. Eam...