File on 4 Investigates

Tom Wright investigates the normalisation of drug taking amongst Britain’s students. A recent graduate, he says Class A drugs like MDMA are bought and sold with impunity by students across the country. The student bubble, like a music festival, has become an almost decriminalised space - where the chances of getting caught are perceived to be almost non-existent. Drug dealers brazenly target stude...

Modern slavery and human trafficking in the UK are more prevalent than ever before. Police estimate tens of thousands of victims are hidden in towns and cities across the country; many kidnapped then subjected to forced labour or sexual exploitation, often under the threat of violence. But what happens to victims after they escape or have been rescued? File on 4 investigates the government system...

Uganda is a country that has seen massive growth in the number of 'orphanages' providing homes to children, despite the numbers of orphans there decreasing. It's believed 80% of children now living in orphanages have at least one living parent. The majority of the hundreds of orphanages operating in Uganda are illegal, unregistered and now are in a fight with a government trying to shut them down....

When secure training centres were launched nearly two decades ago they offered child offenders the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and get their lives back on track in a safe environment. Today there are three units in England, Medway in Rochester, Oakhill in Milton Keynes and Rainsbrook in Rugby, which provide 30 hours of education a week as part of the rehabilitation process. But the un...

Northern Ireland has some of the highest rates in Europe of pollution linked to agricultural waste – the by-product of intensive pig, poultry and cattle farming. One solution is to turn the waste into energy through green recycling schemes that attract multi-million pound subsidies. But is the system being ‘gamed’ by industry? An investigation by BBC Radio 4’s File on 4 programme has found that so...

When Miriam left the Hasidic Jewish community she had to say goodbye to her parents, siblings and children. The night she fled she knew she would be ostracised. But didn’t realise that six years on she would still be untangling herself from a series of complex financial arrangements which risk her going to prison. File on Four tells the story of this extraordinary woman which puts the financial af...

What happens when you’re 17 years old and you suddenly find yourself homeless? As a child, you would expect that social services and other authorities would find you a warm and safe place to live. What you wouldn’t expect is to be put somewhere on your own, in the cold, and at risk from serious harm. File on 4 tells the shocking story of one teenager's experience when he found himself without a ro...

It’s been called “the new narcotics”, a crime that promises high-rewards with little fear of being detected, and it is attracting criminal gangs usually associated with drugs and violence. “Waste crime”; the illegal disposal of the UK’s mountains of often hazardous rubbish, and those involved are finding new and inventive ways of cashing in. File on 4 investigates how gangs hide hundreds of tonnes...

Five years ago the UK’s biggest bioethanol plant opened in Hull as part of a £1 billion investment in renewable biofuel. Last month, the Vivergo site ceased production with the loss of more than 100 jobs. The knock-on effects have been felt by hauliers and some 900 farms across the region, which supplied the plant with wheat to be converted into fuel. The closure comes just 5 months after minister...

For many NHS patients, being referred for private treatment can sound quite appealing; you'll often be seen and treated quickly, with a more luxurious menu option to peruse in the comfort of your private room. But when it comes to the medical treatment, are patients getting the same level of care? Are private patients just as safe as those in the NHS? And when things do go wrong, how willing is th...

In the aftermath of the Winterbourne View scandal the government pledged to transfer people with learning disabilities and autism out of unsuitable hospital placements and into supported community living settings. A key milestone was to cut inpatient beds by March 2019 and to transform the lives of people who have been previously been ‘stuck’ in institutional settings. But File on 4 has been told...

In August, Jessica Hurst wrote to the media asking them to investigate how her dad’s debts of just under £12,000 became a bill of just under £73,000. Nigel Hurst killed himself a year ago after learning that bailiffs were to repossess his family home. It was the bailiff who found him. Student, Jessica, was left with a pile of debt recovery letters and bank statements which she hoped would hold the...

Last year, File on 4 investigated whether some athletes and coaches game the paralympic classification system in order to win medals. We heard allegations that some competitors had gone to astonishing lengths such as taping up their arms to make their disability appear worse. A parliamentary select committee hearing followed into the way British paralympic athletes are classified and questions wer...

More antidepressants than ever before are being prescribed to young people in Britain, despite fears that they can cause harm in some cases. What are the driving factors behind the increase? Is there any merit to claims the drugs are ineffective - and, in some cases, have serious side effects in children? And is the NHS providing the proper support to young people affected by mental illness who ar...

File on 4 goes inside Altcourse Prison in Liverpool to meet the staff trying to stem the supply of drugs into the jail. Perimeter security has been tightened, searches have been stepped up and new technology is being trialled as officers deal with the influx of new psychoactive substances, such as spice, and more 'traditional' banned drugs, including cannabis and heroin. More widely, across Englan...

In January, Britain's second biggest construction firm, Carillion, spectacularly collapsed under a £1.5 billion debt pile. Thousands of jobs were lost, pensions were put at risk, and around 30 thousand smaller subcontractors, who'd already completed work on projects, were left being owed a total of £2 billion. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called it a 'watershed' moment, and a report by MPs slammed...

As the NHS reaches its 70th anniversary, Adrian Goldberg investigates why the very mention of the word "private" - or, even more, privatisation - in UK health care provokes fierce opposition. No party dare publicly claim anything less than unswerving support for the NHS and its supporting mantra that health care should be "free at the point of delivery." Yet millions of people are treated by a pri...

If fake news is poisoning public debate, then what is it doing to the financial markets? Short-sellers - investors who bet on a company's shares falling, not rising- have a mixed reputation. For some they play a vital role, exposing weak companies - and can make big profits as a result. But others accuse them of using fake information to deliberately damage otherwise healthy businesses. File on 4...

For years, the so-called Islamic State has managed to attract thousands of wannabe jihadis and jihadi brides to join their caliphate. The extremist propaganda, online videos and recruiters have seen thousands of people from all over the world flock to Iraq and Syria to join IS; including 850 men, women and children from the UK. The brutality of the terror group is now well known, partly due to the...

File on 4 investigates mounting concern about forensic science in England and Wales - hearing the cases of two men who almost went to prison for rape because the police failed to properly investigate crucial evidence on mobile phones. Forensic science is increasingly important both in finding criminals and successfully prosecuting them. It's used for everything from investigating fires like Grenfe...

Selling passports. It may sound illicit but 'citizenship-by-investment' is a global industry worth billions - and it's completely legal. The idea is simple - invest huge sums of money and in return acquire residency rights or citizenship, even visa-free access to all European member states. The UK offers residency in exchange for an investment of £2 million - or for £10 million, the possibility of...

Knife crime in England and Wales rose by a fifth last year, with stabbings in London at their highest level for a decade. So far this year, there have been more than 30 fatal stabbings in the capital - with knife injuries amongst young people also on the rise. What lies behind the rise in violence is complex with cuts in police numbers, use of stop and search, rise in mental health issues and a la...

During much of the 20th century unmarried women who became pregnant faced being condemned, stigmatised and shunned by their communities. Across the Republic and Northern Ireland thousands of women and girls were sent to mother and baby homes to give birth in secret and then gave their babies over for adoption. For some women, the homes which were mostly run by the Catholic Church, provided sanctua...

Simon Cox investigates the anti-immigration, anti-Muslim organisation Knights Templar International - not to be confused with the medieval Knights Templar organisation. In a recent interview its front man Jim Dowson described KTI as a "militant Christian organisation". KTI posts regular ads on social media to recruit new members and seek donations to fight what Dowson calls the "war between milita...

Simon Cox investigates a series of failures in a mental health trust. Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust was formed last year from two former trusts. It provides mental health and community services to patients. Some of whom say there are serious problems at the trust. Some say they don't feel safe on wards, there have been a series of suicides and now there are serious new allegati...