File on 4 Investigates

Latest Episodes:

Game Changer: How the UK played on during coronavirus May 26, 2020

Show notes

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 forensic eye over the decisions that were made before the UK went into lockdown, speaks to those at the heart of these big events and asks whether allowing them to go ahead, enabled the virus to spread and put more lives at risk.

Reporter: Adrian Goldberg Producer: Mick Tucker Editor: Carl Johnston

Coronavirus: The care homes catastrophe May 19, 2020

Show notes

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 share information were missed, that vital PPE supplies weren't secured quickly enough and that a policy of discharges of untested patients into care homes was ill thought-out and badly executed. The effect this has had on residential elderly care, they say, isn't just measured in the deaths of those who went too soon, but also in the threat the virus now poses to the survival of the whole private care industry. With testimony from those at the front line at the very beginning of the crisis, File on 4 examines the fight to keep care home residents safe on the frontline and investigates the circumstances which led to care homes becoming one of the most significant crucibles for the virus.

Editor; Ciaran Tracey Producers; Rob Cave and Helen Clifton Reporter; Jane Deith

Coronavirus: Stories from behind the mask May 12, 2020

Show notes

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 their masks and reveal their private emotions and professional fears. They talk from the heart, sharing how they feel about their patients and the emotional toll on them and their families. For the diarists, it’s a rare moment to stop and reflect, to mourn the losses and hold on to the glimmers of hope.

Reporter: Jane Deith Producer: Paul Grant Editor: Carl Johnston

Critical Condition: Allegations of failings at Great Ormond Street Mar 17, 2020

Show notes

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 every year receive care which befits its reputation. But when things go wrong, is the hospital being transparent about its failings and does it do everything it can to prevent mistakes being repeated? When serious mistakes happen hospitals are duty-bound to launch serious incident investigations to understand what exactly happened and report them to external bodies. But File on 4 investigates claims that in some cases the hospital has failed to declare serious incidents despite evidence of harm. Reporter Michael Buchanan began investigating how the hospital deals with errors after attending the inquest of 14-year-old Amy Allan, from North Ayrshire, who died following elective back surgery. Michael returns to Scotland six months later to investigate how the hospital responded to Amy's death and meets other families who say they cannot get the answers they're seeking.

Producer: Ben Robinson Reporter: Michael Buchanan Editor: Carl Johnston

Extreme measures: Can extremists be de-radicalised? Mar 10, 2020

Show notes

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 are schemes designed to de-radicalise offenders? For the first time, File on 4 hears from those at the heart of these programmes - the 'intervention providers' tasked with turning offenders away from violence. Some say offenders are able to cheat the system and convince the authorities they've changed their ways. So how can these intervention providers ever know when their work has been successful? The programme hears from a serving prisoner in a maximum security jail who says convicted terrorists are "gaming" the system by pretending to comply with "de-radicalisation" courses - and he warns that non terrorist offenders are being dangerously radicalised.

Reporter: Adrian Goldberg Researcher: Luke Radcliff Producer: Helen Clifton Editor: Carl Johnston

Taking the Rap Mar 03, 2020

Show notes

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 the Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham. Tensions were escalated via social media - violent tit-for-tat attacks filmed and posted on Snapchat and You Tube. Livvy Haydock hears the stories of those at the heart of this feud and from those whose lives it has devastated.

Reporter: Livvy Haydock Producer: Oliver Newlan Editor: Carl Johnston

Something in the Air? Feb 26, 2020

Show notes

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 into the cabin.

Pilots and cabin crew say that sudden fume events and long term low level exposure to toxic cabin air can make them seriously ill. In some cases they claim exposure to affected air has caused premature death.

The industry insists that serious leaks of toxic gas into cockpits and cabins are relatively very rare, given the number of flights each day. And that no causal link between toxic cabin air and health problems has yet been proven.

But the industry faces multiple court cases this year. On File on 4 one representative of the airline industry agrees to face questions on fume events, claims of a lack of transparency and claims that the health of hundreds of pilots, cabin crew and frequent fliers is being affected.

We reveal confidential airline and Coroners' reports in connection with fume events and so called "aerotoxicity". We hear about pilots and crew who say they've been poisoned by toxic cabin air. And from scientists about research being done on potential links between airline cabin contamination and neurological health.

Presenter: Mike Powell Producer: Paul Waters Editor: Andrew Smith

Fair game? The secrets of football betting Feb 18, 2020

Show notes

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, asking if football’s public endorsement of gambling companies is helping to normalise, even encourage, a pursuit which, for those most vulnerable, can lead to addiction, financial devastation and suicide in extreme cases.

In addition, we investigate the failure of gambling companies to stop millions in stolen money from being wagered on the beautiful game by customers involved in criminality. Firms should carry out anti-money laundering checks when large sums of money are lodged, won or lost by customers. But File on 4 has learned that some betting companies ignore these obligations, opening the door for the proceeds of crime to be gambled - and potentially laundered. In hearing the testimony of industry whistle-blowers, and that of problem gamblers who stole hundreds of thousands to fuel their addiction, we lay bare the sometimes darker matters associated with the fusion of the football and gambling industries.

Reporter: Paul Connolly Producer: Paul Grant Editor: Carl Johnston

Sewage Sludge Feb 04, 2020

Show notes

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 grow crops. The process saves more than three and a half million tonnes of human waste going into landfill or being incinerated. But reporter Claire Bolderson hears from scientists worried about the chemicals, plastics and medicines that could be damaging soil and making their way into the food chain. And she investigates the process of regulating the treatment, storage and use of sludge, amid claims from experts that rules are outdated and oversight lacking.

Recycling sewage as fertiliser fits today’s environmental agenda for waste. But do we know enough about what the potential impact of the practice might be in the future?

Reporter: Claire Bolderson Producer: Ben Robinson Editor: Carl Johnston

Facial Recognition Jan 28, 2020

Show notes

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 liberties.'

The pace is frenetic – new computer systems can watch thousands of people at once, with the most powerful able to operate at distances of over a mile. They can do all of this in “real-time”, meaning everyone who passes by the camera can be scanned against a “watchlist” of suspects.

But technology like this means more and more innocent people are affected. Yet the public are not always explicitly warned, and neither are the regulators.

File on 4 has been given new details of a trial at Meadowhall shopping centre in South Yorkshire in which police and retailers worked together to scan millions of shoppers, looking out for three suspects and a missing person (the latter was found as a result). It was one of several trials conducted by police and private companies, which went ahead despite requests from the Surveillance Camera Commissioner for police to ask him before implementing such schemes.

The legislation surrounding facial recognition is new and mostly untested, leading to calls for stricter, more specific laws to be passed.

Meantime, the Surveillance Camera Commissioner has called for a regime of inspections of the technology for both public and private bodies; a call backed by the veteran Conservative MP David Davis.

Facial recognition may be new, but it still begs an urgent answer to an age-old question: who watches the watchers?

Reporter: Geoff White Producer: Helen Clifton Editor: Carl Johnston