File on 4 Investigates

Suicide or attempted suicide is not a criminal offence. But, as Adrian Goldberg discovers, mentally ill people are still being punished for attempts to take their own lives. They can be charged with 'intentionally or recklessly causing a public nuisance,' 'railway trespass' or 'obstruction of highways.' File on 4 hears from people who believe they should have been given care and compassion rather...

200 children have gone missing from hotels used by the Home Office to temporarily house lone asylum seekers. File on 4 investigates what’s being done to find them and why so many have disappeared. Reporter: Livvy Haydock Producer: Kate West Researcher: Nathan Standley Editor: Carl Johnston Image credit: Ben Stansall\Getty

Levi Davis - a 24-year-old rugby player and X-Factor star went missing in Barcelona at the end of October last year. He’s not been seen or heard from since. Four months on, File on 4 pieces together his last known movements - speaking to his family and friends to try and understand more about what happens when someone goes missing overseas without a trace. Reporter: Rachel Stonehouse Producer: Aly...

A damning report into the culture of London Fire Brigade found a toxic mix of racism, sexism, misogyny and bullying. Launched after a young firefighter of colour took his own life, the review included terrible anonymous accounts from those serving in the capital, women groped during exercises, a black man who had a noose left on his locker. Now File on 4 has discovered shocking new evidence of pro...

They were born in the same month of the same year: Emily, Nadia, and Christie. The three young women who lived close to each other in the North East of England became friends, their lives intertwined due to severe mental health problems. They shared their innermost fears, their thoughts and laughs. But their tragic deaths came within eight months of each other while under the care of the same ment...

A British woman tells File on 4 about her relationship with controversial social media influencer Andrew Tate, claiming that he pressurised her to work for his webcam company and that he was controlling and violent towards her. Tate is currently in detention in Bucharest along with his brother, Tristan, facing allegations of people trafficking and rape, which both men deny. Prosecutors allege that...

This episode tells the story of a primary school on the frontline of the cost of living crisis, a school doing more than most to make sure children are fed, warm and have somewhere safe to go home to at night. File on 4 spent several months recording at Ingol Community Primary in Preston. It’s in one of the most deprived areas in England; more than half of their pupils are on pupil premium - addit...

File on 4 investigates events that led to the death of two people at London's Brixton O2 Academy in December. The venue was shut down after the fatal crowd crush ahead of a concert by the Nigerian artist Asake. Security guard Gaby Hutchinson, 23, and Rebecca Ikumelo, 33, died in hospital after the incident at the south London venue on 15 December. Some said ticketless fans tried to force there way...

18 months after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, File on 4 hears from people still stuck in hiding; their names blacklisted because of the work they did for the British. Following the fall of the country and the frantic evacuation, the UK Government made a series of promises not to leave behind those who'd helped the UK. The programme investigates the failures of these schemes, which have seen...

The death of a child causes parents’ unimaginable grief, but this is being exacerbated by long delays to post mortem reports due to a shortage of pathologists in the UK. The number of paediatric pathologists means that children and babies are having to be moved around to other parts of the country in order for post mortems to be undertaken, causing even further distress for families. When a child...

The cost of living crisis is placing huge pressure on families across the country, many of whom were already living in poverty and struggling to make ends meet. Now social services say the pressure on parents is causing a significant increase in family breakdowns and the number of children being taken into care. Reporter Paul Connolly speaks to parents who fear the cost of living crisis could see...

Their country is not at war and it's not ruled by an authoritarian regime, yet thousands of young Albanians are making the dangerous journey across the channel to live and work in the UK. File on 4 travels across Albania to discover the truth behind the biggest migration controversy to hit Britain for years, visiting towns where most young men have already left and the rest are planning to leave a...

They’re cheap – but they’re also deadly. Illegal pills costing as little as 50p each are contributing to the deaths of hundreds of people each year in Scotland. Now an expert is warning benzodiazepines, or street Valium, could pose a growing threat elsewhere. Jane Deith talks to those whose lives have been destroyed by benzodiazepines, a category of drugs usually used to treat anxiety that can be...

Before Covid the US gaming platform Roblox was one of many online games children played. Following lockdown and millions of children isolating at home, the company now has a market value of $22bn and is the most popular gaming platform for British children. But is the platform doing all it can to protect them? Concerns have been raised about financial exploitation, grooming, gambling and access to...

From the harrowing 999 calls of people waiting for an ambulance to the paramedics stretched to breaking point, File on 4 goes on the frontline of the ambulance crisis. Rachel Stonehouse speaks to the family of one man who died after waiting nearly 11 hours for an ambulance and the wife who desperately tried to keep her husband alive after an ambulance failed to turn up on time. She goes out on shi...

Paul Kenyon investigates the ‘brain drain’ of doctors from developing countries to work in the UK. The large scale recruitment of foreign doctors from nations with the greatest need to retain their medical personnel is increasing on a massive scale. What’s more, thousands of doctors are being targeted despite guidance which says recruitment from developing countries should not happen. It is though...

Leicester is one of the most diverse cities in England – often presented as a shining example multi-cultural Britain. But tensions between some factions have been brewing in the city for months and boiled over recently when there were violent clashes which led to dozens of arrests. File on 4 investigates why sections of the Muslim and Hindu communities that once lived together in harmony are now d...

There are concerns that British victims of trafficking are less likely than foreign nationals to receive Home Office support to escape exploitation. More and more British victims of organised sexual abuse are being referred to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) – the government’s support pathway for victims of trafficking – following high profile sexual exploitation cases in Rochdale, Rotherham...

It was to be one of the most ambitious just reform programmes in the world – a ‘common platform’ that would share information between the courts, lawyers and police, from arrest to court. But the quarter-of-a-billion pound IT project now stands accused of causing wrongful arrests and unlawful detentions. File on 4 has spoken with whistle-blowers from within the court service who say the system is...

The massage industry has bounced back since covid, but File on 4 investigates the darker side of this industry. Hannah Price speaks to women who were sexually assaulted by massage therapists. In some cases, the therapist went on to assault other women even after they’d been arrested. The programme reveals how the industry is largely unregulated - with no licensing of practitioners. It means anyone...

In March 2022, File on 4 told the stories of six people whose lives were changed forever by war in Ukraine. They were not soldiers, activists or politicians. They were civilians, not used to war or how to deal with it. They kept audio diaries that told a raw truth about loss, hope and even love. Some packed up and left with their children while others remained in the eye of the storm. Among them,...

Last month an independent children’s social care review concluded that providing care for children in residential homes 'should not be based on profit'. The government response was that they have no any objection to profit being made as long as standards of care are properly regulated. But is there a difference in the standard of care between ‘for profit’ and ‘not-for-profit’ children’s homes? Wit...

Around 800,000 people have dementia in the UK. For those suffering from the illness, incontinence can often be seen an inevitable consequence - but that’s not always the case. Deemed as too embarrassing or taboo, it’s a topic that rarely hits the spotlight. Experts say preserving someone’s ability to go to the toilet is crucial to maintaining their dignity and quality of life and should be a prior...

With exclusive access to research – the first of its kind – reporter Livvy Haydock investigates what could be the most common form of sexual abuse that happens within families: sibling sexual abuse. She speaks to families struggling to get help for this distressing form of abuse and those struggling to come to terms with a child harming another child – and fighting to repair their family. As she w...

Gambling is a multi-billion pound industry which is facing change. For years there has been mounting concern that in the digital era betting companies have expanded far beyond the reach of the law and the Government is set to table major new rules to transform how the industry is governed. But the reforms will not consider whether people who have been drawn into criminality by a gambling addiction...