File on 4 Investigates

MPs and supporters are calling for an overhaul of the way English football is governed after a series of clubs were hit by financial problems. Bolton wanderers, Wigan Athletic and Charlton have all flirted with financial disaster while Bury FC were expelled from the Football League altogether after problems with creditors. File on 4 hears claims that the root of the problem is the Owners' and Dire...

Six months since Britain was instructed to ‘stay at home’, File on 4 examines the decisions that affect new mothers and their babies and asks if the potential for long term damage outweighs the risk of spreading the virus. For pregnant women, many of the hospital restrictions implemented at the height of the pandemic remain. Many women must attend antenatal scans or go through early labour on thei...

Last month Alex Sartain took a homemade gun and shot his neighbour James Nash dead in his front garden. The 34 year old then fled on his motorbike before he lost control and fatally crashed on a winding tree-lined road. His family had made repeated requests to mental health services for help as they saw his condition deteriorate. But they say no help was forthcoming and days later he killed 42-yea...

After Coronavirus, the survivors left with life-changing and long term conditions. The physical and psychological aftermath of Covid 19 and the pressure on rehabilitation services. Nearly 3 million people in the UK have had symptomatic coronavirus. More than one hundred thousand so severely, they needed hospital treatment. This is a new disease, so doctors are guessing when it comes to the symptom...

How does an abused teenager get a criminal record while her abusers walk free? This is untold story of the Rochdale grooming scandal - how one young woman has been denied justice and how her attackers are still at large. For the very first time, 'Daisy' tells her harrowing story to File on 4. How, from the age of 12, she was groomed, raped and abused by a gang of men. The abuse led her to be invol...

Lockdown is easing now as worries about physical ill-health recede. But could the stress and anxiety of the last few months lead to a second wave of the epidemic - one centred on the nation's mental health? File on 4 investigates the impact coronavirus has had on those already diagnosed with serious mental illness, and others for whom depression and anxiety are entirely new experiences. The progra...

With the words ‘I can’t breathe’ reverberating around the world, the Black Lives Matter movement in the UK has put the issue of racial justice at the top of the political agenda. Twenty-one years after the Macpherson inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence labelled the Metropolitan Police ‘institutionally racist’, File on 4 explores concerns black, Asian and ethnic minority officers still face...

Last year, a 16-year-old boy from Durham became the youngest person ever convicted of planning a terrorist attack in the UK, spurring reporter Daniel De Simone to delve deeper into this shadowy world. Police say right-wing extremism is the fastest growing terrorist threat - and that the coronavirus pandemic may be leaving teens vulnerable to radicalisation. As he investigates the movement, Daniel...

Since the UK went into coronavirus lockdown something strange has been happening –attacks on telephone masts and telecom workers are being reported all across the country. That’s because some people think that 5G can make you sick –from corona virus to cancer and a whole host of other symptoms. Even more worryingly, some scientists say they can prove that it’s harmful. But at a time when many busi...

While Britain and France were brought to a standstill during the coronavirus lockdown, record numbers of migrants in Calais were on the move, boarding small boats to make perilous journeys to the UK. But what is motivating migrants to risk their lives and take to the sea in such numbers? File on 4 investigates conditions on the ground for migrants in northern France and hears claims a lack of food...

The covid-19 pandemic continues to have a profound effect on society - including the world of serious organised crime. The closure of international borders and global lockdown has made some criminal activities impossible while at the same time creating opportunities for new ones. While law enforcement around the world grapple with this new challenge, criminals seek to profit from the pandemic. In...

From the Olympics to Euro 2020, the world’s biggest sporting events have fallen like dominoes because of coronavirus. But as the global pandemic was declared and most European countries closed their sports stadiums, the UK allowed events to carry on with hundreds of thousands of fans coming together to watch everything from Champions League football to the Cheltenham Gold Cup. File on 4 casts a fo...

The awful impact of Covid-19 on the lives of care home residents and staff is now well understood. But many in the industry believe the authorities, both local and national, didn't recognise the threat of the virus on the most vulnerable elderly early enough and didn't react quickly enough to stop it spreading through their homes. File on 4 hears from those who say opportunities to collect and sha...

They’re the intensive care staff we see on the TV news. In their protective equipment, we can’t see their expressions – even their own colleagues find it hard to recognise them behind their masks. We can’t read their faces, but we can hear their thoughts - as they record a series of diaries as the weeks in the grip of the virus go by. In these recordings for File on 4, doctors and nurses take off...

Great Ormond Street Hospital in London has a global reputation for providing outstanding care to children with the most complex medical conditions who need expert help. The hospital, known as GOSH, boasts more specialist services for children under one roof than any other and employs some of the country's leading doctors to staff them. The vast majority of the 43,000 children who stay at GOSH ever...

Usman Khan was released from prison in 2018 for plotting a terror attack. He'd undertaken two de-radicalisation programmes designed to turn him away from violent extremism. Yet despite efforts to rehabilitate him, Khan launched an attack near London Bridge - killing two people. It was the first of two violent attacks involving convicted extremists in a little over two months. So just how effective...

When a video of one of the UK's biggest rap stars being attacked went viral, it marked the start of a series of events that left three young people dead. They died when tensions escalated between rival gangs in Tottenham and Wood Green in the north London borough of Haringey. File on 4 has been told the events that led to their deaths were triggered by an attack on a rapper called Headie One from...

In January 2020, a British Airways flight from Athens to London issued a "Mayday" emergency call when the pilot flying the plane became incapacitated during a "fume event". The airline industry does not reveal how often fume events happen, but according to some estimates they occur every day on airlines worldwide.. They are thought to be caused by air containing chemicals from engine oil passing i...

In recent years, betting companies have invested millions in Britain’s professional football leagues through sponsorship deals and blanket advertising campaigns. The ever-increasing collaboration between the two has been labelled as the ‘Gamblification of professional football’ – a term which, for many, raises serious concerns. File on 4 puts this controversial relationship under the microscope, a...

For decades sewage sludge from waste treatment works has been used as a fertiliser on agricultural land. But File on 4 hears serious concerns over whether it could pose a risk to human health and whether tougher regulation is needed. The practice is perfectly legal. Treated sewage known as 'sludge' or 'biosolids' provides a rich and cost-effective source of nutrients for soil which is then used to...

File on 4 has been tracking the roll-out of facial recognition tech across Britain’s streets, shopping centres and football grounds. The Metropolitan Police has announced it will use live facial recognition cameras operationally for the first time on London streets. The force sees the technology as a vital tool in the fight against crime. But privacy campaigners say it's a 'serious threat to civil...

Few who saw the pictures of the devastating floods which hit the Yorkshire village of Fishlake will forget those images of houses and fields sunk beneath the waters of the River Don. But who knows what life looks like for the residents after the water has receded? Reporter Anna Cavell discovers a village fighting not only to get back into their homes, but also trying to find out what can protect t...

When Sophia was growing up, she had an imaginary friend. It was only later she learned that the little girl she played with in her mind was not imaginary at all, but a distant memory of an older sister. The two had been separated when they were in care, and contact between them was soon lost. It might sound like a Dickensian tale of misery, but it’s not rare for siblings to be forced apart whilst...

An increasing number of people are questioning their gender identity. Waiting lists for specialist clinics treating both children and adults with gender dysphoria are increasing, with some having to wait years to been seen. Many who transition to a gender different to the one they were assigned at birth live happy lives. But, File on 4 has spoken to some who now regret the taking of cross-sex horm...

Medical professionals say shortages of commonly prescribed drugs are currently worse than ever before - impacting on patient care and potentially costing lives. The government has banned the export of some medications from the UK in an attempt to protect dwindling supplies but desperate patients are still travelling abroad to get the medication they need or, rationing their supply or going without...