Liv Nervo is one of the world’s most successful female DJs, who along with her twin sister, make up NERVO. She was starting a family with a man she believed was the love of her life - but at six months pregnant, she discovered he had been living a double life. She says she entered the relationship under false pretences and wouldn't have consented to sex had she known the truth about his other relationship. What happened to her reveals an intense debate about consent, the law and a lesser-known f...
Jun 09, 2026•38 min
Hair Strand Tests can show if parents have been using drink or drugs. Such tests play can a central part in Family Court hearings every year as judges decide whether children should go into care or not. Some barristers have been raising the alarm over the way the tests are presented and interpreted in the Famly Court. And, for the first time, File on 4 Investigates talks to mothers who nearly lost their babies – thanks to hair strand tests. Presenter: Sanchia Berg Senior Producer: Anna Meisel Pr...
May 26, 2026•37 min
As the government plans major reform of the England's Special Educational Needs system, File on 4 Investigates goes back to the floor, spending time with councils as funding decisions are made and with families trying to navigate a system in flux. From home-schoolers in Whitley Bay to getting on board a school bus in Hackney, we'll hear about the challenges of delivering services to tens of thousands of children with SEN each year. As the number of young people who need extra support rises how w...
May 19, 2026•37 min
Police have dealt with scores of cases involving home-made 3D printed guns in the UK in the last three years. Data obtained by File on 4 Investigates from the National Crime Agency shows that criminals and extremists have attempted to manufacture the weapons. We hear from police who successfully prosecuted a group who had manufactured printed firearms to sell on to criminal gangs. As Adrian Goldberg asks, how much of a threat are these printed weapons in the UK and what can be done to deter peop...
May 12, 2026•38 min
Finance professionals who paid thousands for training courses in Dubai seemingly endorsed by a government official say they were duped by the British businessman behind them. Participants in the 12-week “accelerator” programmes say they provided little in the way of useful training, while the millions in potential investment offers promised to graduates never materialised. File on 4 Investigates a trail of deception left by the British “finfluencer” behind the course. Presenter: Yemisi Adegoke P...
May 05, 2026•39 min
DNA detectives track down the British soldiers who fathered children in Kenya then disappeared, leaving the children and their mothers without support. With exclusive access to every stage of this cutting-edge process, we follow as a team of lawyers and a leading geneticist travel to Kenya. We witness the groundbreaking legal and scientific detective work used to find the missing military dads. Lawyers believe British soldiers stationed at the army base in Nanyuki, Kenya, may have fathered hundr...
Apr 28, 2026•37 min
Jack Butcher investigates allegations that children in West German welfare institutions were subjected to widespread medical abuse, including medical experiments. During the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, many children found themselves in West Germany's sprawling network of children's institutions. In recent years, Germany has been shocked by revelations that some were used as guinea pigs for powerful new drugs, including potent anti-psychotics, as doctors worked hand in hand with pharmaceutical compan...
Apr 20, 2026•37 min
White disadvantaged girls are being overlooked, school leaders are warning. Whilst white working-class boys remain one of the worst performing group in their GCSEs, white girls from low income homes aren’t much further behind them. File on 4 Investigates has worked with the BBC Data team to compare 2025's GCSE results in England with those of 2019. The team found that white working class girls in England have seen some of the biggest declines in attainment since 2019 - with just 38 percent of th...
Apr 14, 2026•37 min
What happens when the sperm or egg donor you choose isn’t the one you get? Northern Cyprus is a sun-soaked haven for affordable IVF. But behind the glossy clinic websites, parents are discovering their chosen sperm or egg donors might not have been used. For File on 4 Investigates Anna Collinson follows parents searching for answers and children wondering where they have come from. File on 4 Investigates Sunshine & Secrets: The hidden side of IVF Producer: Jo Adnitt Executive Producer: Rob B...
Mar 31, 2026•37 min
The UK was once a world leader in heart and lung transplantation. Pioneering surgeons attracted patients from all over the world. But the NHS has not kept pace with medical and technological developments and today the UK lags far behind most similar countries. It carries out fewer transplants and a lack of resources mean it doesn’t routinely use modern technologies. Many of the health service’s leading surgeons have left to work overseas in recent years, frustrated, they say, at the lack of atte...
Mar 24, 2026•38 min
President Donald Trump won multiple elections thanks to support from the Maga movement - but cracks have begun to emerge in the broad coalition of America's political right. The schism first emerged online as Maga supporters-turned-detractors began to criticise President Trump, saying he has failed to deliver on campaign promises they voted for. Maga congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene - once one of President Trump's most vocal supporters - quit Congress last year after becoming increasingly cr...
Mar 10, 2026•38 min
As the government’s flagship Employment Rights Act (2025) comes into force, File on 4 Investigates a loophole worrying experts: bogus self-employment. We discover hundreds of workers on government contracts are said to be wrongly classified as self-employed. This we are told is the tip of the iceberg as more employers increasingly choose to put workers on self-employed contracts rather than employing them as staff, without all the rights, bolstered under the new laws. Some are suggesting that re...
Mar 03, 2026•37 min
Sexual harassment and assault on the rail network is on the rise across England, Wales and Scotland but a lack of CCTV evidence is preventing justice for victims in some cases. Claire Jones examines how broken cameras and train companies not retaining CCTV footage for long enough has been hampering police investigations. She goes on patrol with British Transport Police on the London Underground, speaks to police and victims about how frustrating it can be when key evidence cannot be accessed and...
Feb 24, 2026•38 min
Boxing is on the rise with streaming giants now broadcasting major fights and heavy investment from Saudi Arabia reshaping the sport. But for boxers facing money or health problems out of the ring, help is not always easy to come by. As File on 4 Investigates discovers, some in boxing are now working towards a unified approach across the sport, which would help fighters throughout their careers, but can they make it work? Reporter: Kal Sajad Producer: Ashley Kennedy Additional research: Clive Ha...
Feb 17, 2026•37 min
Virtual Wards, where patients receive hospital care at home, were heralded as one solution to help deal with the bed crisis in NHS hospitals. The system is popular with patients and has had successes, but some health boards in England have put the brakes on and the number of virtual beds has stalled in the last 12 months. Jane Deith meets the doctors on the front line of providing care to patients with acute conditions in their own homes and the people who benefit from being able to stay out of ...
Feb 10, 2026•38 min
File on 4 Investigates: Missing Billions examines the changes to the financial system over the past ten years, including bank branch closures and the digitisation of the finance industry which has led to many financial assets being lost, mislaid or forgotten. It examines the scandal of £100 billion belonging to you and me, but kept by Britain's trusted financial institutions. The documentary solves the mystery of some missing church silver, helps a frustrated ambulance worker hunt an elusive pen...
Feb 05, 2026•37 min
When a woman reported an allegation of rape against a serving police officer, she found herself in the dock, charged with perverting the course of justice. File on 4 Investigates hears how she went from being a potential victim to a suspect accused of lying. Over the past decade, hundreds of rape complainants in England and Wales have been investigated for making false allegations. The programme examines when and why the justice system turns on those who come forward, and asks whether the safegu...
Jan 27, 2026•38 min
File on 4 Investigates whether the risks associated with the popular hair loss drug Finasteride are understood, after a 2024 review by UK drug safety regulator the MHRA prompted by a lack of awareness of the drug’s side-effects. Finasteride’s most common side effects are reduced libido and erectile dysfunction, affecting more than one in a hundred patients. Some people also report low mood and suicidal thoughts. As Johnny I'Anson discovers some hair loss clinics are failing to adequately warn cu...
Jan 20, 2026•38 min
File on 4 Investigates reveals new data showing a significant rise in housing disrepair claims, now a growing market for unscrupulous No Win No Fee lawyers. Adrian Goldberg asks, has the Solicitors Regulation Authority learned its lessons from the collapse of the law firm SSB which left hundreds of householders with huge legal bills, and are they able to protect vulnerable social housing tenants from potentially risky NWNF claims? File on 4 Investigates have been told by 5 major housing provider...
Jan 13, 2026•38 min
Do you give homeless people cash? Many people fear any donation will be misspent but a ground-breaking study in the UK is currently recruiting 125 homeless people to receive a large one-off cash payment, paid directly to them. There's no restrictions on what they can buy with the money. It can be used for anything, it’s entirely up to the individual how they choose to spend it. The aim of the project is to see if it will help people move on from homelessness for good. With exclusive access to th...
Dec 30, 2025•38 min
Industrial firefighting foams are an essential part of on-site safety in UK factories. But for decades some of these familiar canisters contained potentially dangerous, toxic chemicals. File on 4 Investigates discovers that 3M the multi-billion dollar chemical company responsible for producing the chemicals knew about the risks as early as the 1960s because their own internal studies on animals and tests on workers indicated a possible increase in rates of cancer. Despite this, the company faile...
Dec 16, 2025•38 min
Anne Dyer is a trailblazer - becoming the first female Bishop in the Scottish Episcopal Church when she was appointed more than seven years ago. But since then, accusations of bullying and misconduct have dominated her period in charge - even for a time leading to her suspension and calls for her resignation. Bishop Dyer denies any wrongdoing, while the church itself acknowledges there are deep wounds within the diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney. Now File on 4 Investigates has discovered new compla...
Dec 09, 2025•38 min
File on 4 Investigates discovers a world of lies and blame within adoption in the UK. The BBC has conducted the most extensive Freedom of Information request ever into adoptions that have broken down, finding that more than 1,000 adopted children in the UK have returned to care in the past five years. That is much higher than the figure in a recent government report - but the true number is likely to be even larger, as only a third of authorities said they collected this data as standard practic...
Nov 28, 2025•38 min
Multi cancer detection tests or MCDs can detect many cancers through a simple blood test. Many detect fragments of cancerous DNA that have broken off a tumour and are circulating in the blood. They can often then identify where the cancer may be. The NHS is currently involved in the words largest trial of one such test. The Galleri test is made by US firm Grail and the company says its mission is to detect cancer early when it can be cured. Heavyweight investors include Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates...
Nov 25, 2025•38 min
An ambitious plan to digitalize the courts was meant to remove the need for hundreds of thousands of paper documents. But File on 4 Investigates has discovered an IT system, introduced as part of a £1bn project, has been plagued with technical faults - causing crucial information to go missing, be overwritten, or appear lost. The government body that runs the courts in England and Wales has now checked hundreds of thousands of benefit and child support appeals to identify if any were affected by...
Nov 11, 2025•38 min
File on Four explores the risks some gay men are taking by habitually mixing their sex lives with drug use. The practice, known as Chemsex has been on the gay scene for more than a decade. It involves taking illegal and addictive substances like Crystal Meth and GHB. While the programme hears from some who say they can manage their use and it heightens their sexual pleasure, others are falling into destructive patterns of addiction, decline and even death. Reporter Mobeen Azhar tries to assess t...
Nov 04, 2025•38 min
File on 4 Investigates examines the scale of problem gambling in the armed forces and the devastating impact on those serving, veterans and their families. A new study seen exclusively by the team reveals nearly half of naval trainees who gambled were at risk of harm. This latest research builds on a growing body of evidence that points to a hidden problem across the forces that’s on the rise. We ask if the MOD is aware of the challenge and if it’s doing enough to help those in need. Reporter: A...
Oct 28, 2025•37 min
When journalist Georgie Styles is sent unpublished videos of farm workers in Britain being ‘treated like animals’, she begins to investigate the dark side of our food system. She uncovers numerous referrals of labour exploitation, and hears allegations of workers living in moldy caravans, being trafficked, verbally abused and forced to urinate in bottles. Her year-long investigation goes from farm workers to our favourite supermarkets. With gripping first-person testimony, unheard recordings and...
Oct 22, 2025•37 min
A van selling coffee and sandwiches from an office car park doesn’t sound like anything special, but there’s one in Swindon helping to keep young offenders out of custody. It’s part of an approach being deployed across the country trying to prevent young people from reoffending by encouraging a shift in their identity. The idea is to get to know the young offender, figure out what makes them tick. And then, instead of locking them up, find ways of getting them involved in whatever interests them...
Oct 07, 2025•38 min
Up to 80,000 phones were stolen in London’s streets and transport network in 2024, according to the Metropolitan Police. As File on 4 Investigates discovers, gangs are targeting unlocked phones. We discover that if a phone is unlocked, criminals may be able to access online banking and cryptocurrency accounts within minutes. We hear from one victim who lost £15,000 from a phone stolen from his pocket, another who lost £40,000 in cryptocurrency and about the financial and emotional cost of trying...
Sep 30, 2025•37 min
