We call her Emma | Tortoise Investigates

Twenty years ago, Rudy Giuliani was “America’s mayor”. Now he’s been indicted, along with Donald Trump, for allegedly attempting to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. Will Rudy die in jail for The Don? Listen to the three part series today. For the premium Tortoise listening experience, curated by our journalists,  download the free Tortoise audio app . For early and ad-free acc...

Twenty years ago, Rudy Giuliani was “America’s mayor”. Now he’s been indicted, along with Donald Trump, for allegedly attempting to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia. Will Rudy die in jail for The Don? Listen to the three part series today. For the premium Tortoise listening experience, curated by our journalists,  download the free Tortoise audio app . For early and ad-free acc...

The police say they are not looking for any more victims of David Boyd but we met other women who were confronted by the killer. This episode contains descriptions of child sexual abuse. Listen to the full series today. For the premium Tortoise listening experience, curated by our journalists,  download the free Tortoise audio app . For early and ad-free access to all our inves...

Sharon's case should be extraordinary but it isn't. A few miles away from Sharon another mother was left to solve her own daughter's murder after being let down by police.  Listen to the full series today. For the premium Tortoise listening experience, curated by our journalists,  download the free Tortoise audio app . For early and ad-free access to all our investigative serie...

The number one suspect is interrogated by police until he confesses but it's not until 30 years later that the right man is put on trial. Listen to the full series today. For the premium Tortoise listening experience, curated by our journalists,  download the free Tortoise audio app . For early and ad-free access to all our investigative series and daily and weekly shows, subsc...

Rumours choke the case and a vulnerable suspect is arrested. The first 48 hours after a crime are crucial: what did the police get so wrong in the days after Nikki went missing? Listen to the full series today. For the premium Tortoise listening experience, curated by our journalists,  download the free Tortoise audio app . For early and ad-free access to all our investiga...

In 1992 on a council estate in Sunderland a seven year old girl is murdered. It took the police 30 years to find the killer, a convicted child sex offender who lived three doors away from where Nikki Allan went missing. What happened on the night of her disappearance? Listen to the full series today. For the premium Tortoise listening experience, curated by our journalists,  do...

Introducing Three doors down: a murder, a mother and a thirty year investigation In May in a packed room at Newcastle Crown Court, David Boyd, was found guilty of the brutal murder in 1992 of seven year-old Nikki Allan. Sharon Henderson, Nikki’s mother, called for a public inquiry into why it had taken the police so long to find and convict her daughter’s murderer.  When Nikki was murder...

In the final episode, Ceri travels to meet Rob in a peaceful garden in rural Wiltshire. What unfolds is a heated exchange about what Rob's story really is and what adds up to the whole truth.  Listen to the full series today. For the premium Tortoise listening experience, curated by our journalists,  download the free Tortoise audio app . For early and ad-free access to all our...

When Global Witness out Rob in 2015, things quickly fall apart. He loses everything that matters to him but to this day he believes that if his voice had been heard, it would have all worked out differently.  Listen to the full series today. For the premium Tortoise listening experience, curated by our journalists,  download the free Tortoise audio app . For early and ad-free a...

Rob is adamant that in all the years he was undercover, he never sent information back to his spymasters that harmed the campaigners. But when you're the only one in control of the decisions, can you always get it right?  Listen to the full series today. For the premium Tortoise listening experience, curated by our journalists,  download the free Tortoise audio app . For early and a...

Rob Moore says he can justify going undercover among anti-asbestos campaigners because he was following a Buddhist principle, turning poison into medicine. To this day he believes that if the people he infiltrated would really listen to his story they'd understand him differently. But does his story really stand up to scrutiny? Listen to the full series today. For the premium Tortoise listeni...

It’s 2012 and Rob Moore goes 'into the dirt', undercover, to infiltrate a group of campaigners fighting for a ban on deadly asbestos. None of them knew they had a private spy in the camp. But it's hard to stay hidden forever. Listen to the full series today. For the premium Tortoise listening experience, curated by our journalists,  download the free Tortoise audio app . For early a...

Three years ago a former private spy came to our newsroom at Tortoise. He told an incredible story about infiltrating a campaign group, deceiving people for years but all the while being a 'double agent', before his world fell apart. And it all played out in the opaque world of corporate intelligence.  Since then, journalist Ceri Thomas has been asking who Rob Moore really is and what his mot...

Over three years in the making, Tortoise introduces Into The Dirt – investigating the extraordinary story of private spy, Rob Moore and the shadowy world of corporate intelligence. Rob was tasked with working undercover to extract information from an environmental campaign group but he ended up turning on his employers and supporting the group he was meant to be infiltrating. Only it wasn’t that s...

Polly Curtis returns to investigate the world of private trans healthcare, and speaks to Gender GP and its founder Helen Webberley, labelled by one newspaper as one of Britain’s most controversial doctors.  Listen to the full series today. For the premium Tortoise listening experience, curated by our journalists,  download the free Tortoise audio app . For early and ad-free acc...

Polly Curtis investigates why NHS England accelerated the closure of GIDS and what the future of the service could look like for children and young people.  Listen to the full series today. For the premium Tortoise listening experience, curated by our journalists,  download the free Tortoise audio app . For early and ad-free access to all our investigative series and daily and...

The public debate around the work of the Tavistock is getting louder. Kiera Bell wins a landmark ruling at the High Court which halts all new referrals for puberty blockers for under 18s on the NHS in England and Wales. She was prescribed puberty blockers at 16 but later decided she wants to detransition. The Tavistock appeals and the ruling is overturned. But for many people the narrative of the...

The internal divisions at GIDS and the wider Tavistock centre spill out into the open. Whistleblowers are publicly critical of GIDS. One accuses the service of fast tracking young people onto puberty blockers after just one meeting with clinicians. The senior leadership team at GIDS desperately tries to hold the team together. Meanwhile the numbers on the waiting list tick up and up.  Listen...

As the increase in referrals to the Gender Identity Development Service increases, the profile of the young people seeking treatment changes too. There are now two natal girls for every natal boy, a complete reversal of what it had been a decade before. Polly Curtis tries to make sense of this change and goes to Blackpool which has the highest referral rate of anywhere in England.  Listen to...

Polly Carmichael became the director of the Gender Identity Development Service at the Tavistock in 2009. “I remember our office was literally a room that had probably been a broom cupboard at one stage”, she recalls. But the decision in 2011 to start offering puberty blockers to under-16s, and in 2016 to widen the professionals who could refer a child to GIDS had a major impact. The numbers...

In the summer of 2022 the NHS announced it was winding up the Gender Identity Development Service for children and young people at the Tavistock. Critics of the service celebrated, its supporters were left in despair. Journalist Polly Curtis has spent months trying to understand what happened. Why has it attracted such criticism and what is the best way going forward of treating young people with...

This is the story of the Gender Identity Development Service for children and young people at the Tavistock. The Tavi, as it’s known is the only clinic in England and Wales which has treated children suffering from body dysphoria. Its critics have accused it of fast-tracking young people into changing gender. Its supporters argue it has provided help and support, even a lifeline. Now, the clinic w...

In the last episode of the series, the team finally hears from a man they’ve been chasing for months. And they return to Maine, to tell Christopher’s parents what they have discovered about their son's life and death. Listen to the full series today. For the premium Tortoise listening experience, curated by our journalists,  download the free Tortoise audio app . For early and ad-free&nb...

The team tries to understand the connection between Chris's trip to South Sudan, and one taken by a group of American fighters just weeks before. Could this explain why Chris was called a white rebel? And after months investigating, Basia finally speaks to the fighter who fascinated Chris, and she asks – how close really were you?  Listen to the full series today. For the premium Tortois...