File on 4 Investigates

File on 4 reveals the true scale of child sexual grooming and abuse online and asks whether social media companies are doing enough to prevent paedophiles from targeting children. The investigation follows the rape and murder of 15-year-old Kayleigh Haywood from Leicestershire who was groomed online before meeting her killer in person. File on 4 reveals the number of children being groomed online...

Painkillers in sport: a form of legal doping or an excessive reliance on medication that puts the long-term health of athletes in jeopardy? With evidence of widespread use of over the counter anti-inflammatories to support performance or recovery at amateur level, File on 4 looks asks if there is enough regulation of painkilling drugs in sport across the ranks. About half of players competing at t...

Headlines involving abuse in care homes normally centre on allegations against staff, but is aggression among residents being overlooked? With homes increasingly taking care of those with more complex needs such as dementia and other mental health disorders, are staff able to cope with some who have challenging behaviour? File on 4 has found evidence that some residents are suffering serious assau...

From the Hillsborough Inquest to Plebgate, from the revelations about undercover officers to the shooting of Mark Duggan, the last few years have been as controversial as any in the history of British policing. The government has introduced a range of new measures to try and make the police service more accountable. These have included the strengthening of the Independent Police Complaints Commiss...

There's a quiet revolution going on in our Town Halls. With funding slashed, Local Government is tasked with finding new ways to raise money and deliver services, or face failing to comply with its legal obligations. As councils in England are tasked with becoming more self sufficient, File on 4 examines the different approaches councils are taking in an effort to balance the books. As some invest...

Prisons are a crucible for corruption, a former governor claims. Staff are working in the toughest conditions the system has seen in decades. Thousands of experienced staff have left and some areas are struggling to replace them. Morale is falling amid record levels of violence. The use of new psychoactive substances is out of control - fuelling yet more violence. Mobile phones are flooding in, ma...

In January a haulage boss and his mechanic were jailed for a tipper truck crash which killed four people. The brakes on six of the truck's eight wheels weren't working properly. The expert examiner from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency said Grittenham Haulage's vehicle would have been taken off the road if it had been stopped in a roadside check. But are there sufficient roadside and on-sit...

With an ageing population the need for carers to help elderly people stay healthy and safe in their own homes has never been greater. From making a meal, to help getting out of bed or having a shower, domiciliary carers provide a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of elderly and vulnerable people. But what happens when things go wrong and carers inflict serious abuse and neglect on the people who...

Over 300,000 children were excluded from school in England and Wales last year - almost 6 thousand of them permanently. Many of these children will end up in "alternative provision", sometimes known as pupil referral units (PRUs) - schools for kids that the mainstream can't handle. But five years on from the Taylor Review, a report that found 'a flawed system' that failed to provide good education...

Two years ago the first independent report into the treatment of whistle-blowers in the NHS was published. The Freedom to Speak Up report was commissioned by the government amid concerns not enough progress had been made to create a more open culture within the NHS following the Mid Staffs inquiry which unearthed the poor care and high mortality rates at Stafford Hospital. The report - which consi...

Five people have been found guilty for their roles in bank corruption and fraud costing hundreds of millions of pounds. A sixth, it can now be revealed, had already pleaded guilty. Lynden Scourfield, a middle-ranking banker with Halifax Bank of Scotland, accepted bribes in cash, foreign holidays and sexual entertainment. In exchange he would require small business customers to hire a firm of consu...

In the UK three people die every day waiting for an organ transplant. People from ethnic minorities face a particular shortage of donors - the NHS aims to achieve 80% consent rates by 2020, but at the moment only 34% of families from ethnic minorities consent to donate organs when asked, and rates of living donation have started to fall. File on 4 finds that a small number of patients are so despe...

Revealed: the secret UK immigration dodges on offer on the high street. Theresa May has promised to stick to a promise to bring down net migration to the tens of thousands, and post the vote for Brexit, is under pressure to be tough on immigration. But File on 4 has found a market in fake documentation is helping some migrants who aren't eligible to come here, to get the necessary visas. High stre...

File on 4 sets off on a new series to find the forgotten children of Europe's refugee crisis. As winter sets in, Phil Kemp heads to Greece in search of the teenagers who have arrived alone from Syria and Afghanistan, living by their wits on the streets of Athens. The controversial deal struck between the EU and Turkey to return migrants who don't claim asylum or who have their claims rejected - an...

With the Government claiming to lead the way in plans to crack down on global corruption, how come so little is being done in Britain to tackle the vast sums of money allegedly laundered through the UK by corrupt foreign officials and international crime gangs? Allan Urry investigates claims that not enough is being done by the UK to tackle the laundering of corrupt assets or to assist nations who...

The number of people who are homeless is on the rise. In London it shot up almost 80 per cent in 4 years. Latest government figures show councils in England took on 15,000 new homeless households between April and June this year - a 10 per cent increase on the previous year. Increasingly councils are having to use temporary accommodation and even bed and breakfasts to cope with a shortage of affor...

This July, days after walking into the top job at number 10, Theresa May renewed her commitment to crack down on modern day slavery, describing it as "the great human rights issue of our time". The 2015 Modern Slavery Act gave prosecutors more options to pursue offenders, it handed judges the ability to dole out life sentences and promised more protection for victims. But in the clamour to tackle...

The world's first tidal lagoon power station in Wales, which was in the Conservative manifesto, has stalled, as the government seems to be baulking at the price. The Swansea Bay lagoon, and five more that would follow around the country, would generate as much electricity as Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. But does the government's commitment to the wave of new nuclear threaten the future o...

Following the BHS scandal, Allan Urry investigates other cases in which employees claim they've lost out because companies have ditched their full pension fund commitments. It's the job of the Pensions Regulator to ensure employers follow the rules and to protect the benefits of those who've been paying in. So how good are they at keeping your pension safe? The programme untangles the complex fina...

The split and part privatisation of the UK probation system in June 2014 saw huge changes to the service, with high risk offenders managed by the new National Probation Service and low to medium risk offenders managed by Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs). Two years on, probation officers report a system that has been 'ripped apart', with two sides often failing to communicate. There are co...

Valued at £80 billion, the UK's junior stock market is hyped as the most successful growth market in the world. Government incentives - including stamp duty and inheritance tax breaks - mean that more ordinary UK investors are opting for the Alternative Investment Market (AIM). Set up in 1995 to allow smaller companies to raise funds, AIM is a less-regulated alternative to its big brother, the mai...

For a long time, society didn't want to believe child sex abuse was happening - but now are sex crimes against elderly victims being dismissed in the same way? File on 4 reveals new figures about the scale of alleged sex offences taking place in residential and nursing homes. Whether 5 or 85, should the victims of sexual assault be treated any differently? Claire Savage hears from the families of...

Five years after shocking revelations about the abuse of patients at Winterbourne View, File on 4 asks what progress has been made on the promise to get people with learning disabilities and autism out of hospital units and into homes in the community with good support. Families of those still stuck in these units say patients are trapped in the system with no clear plan or apparent will to get th...

Earlier this year, the government introduced legislation banning the production, distribution, sale and supply of legal highs. Designed to stop what has been described as a tsunami of chemicals flooding into the UK, it has resulted in the closure of the high street shops which had been selling exotically named substances like Spice, Mamba and China White. So why are they still finding their way on...

Police are investigating allegations of abuse made by people who, as children, were sent for psychiatric treatment at Aston Hall Hospital in Derbyshire. Some patients say they were only sent there because they were difficult to manage or had behavioural problems. The Medical Superintendent is accused of 'experimenting' on his child patients, giving them an anaesthetic called sodium amytal in thera...