There are more empty homes than homeless households in this country. Why? Filled with cobwebs, windows broken, and rats scurrying about in their overgrown gardens, the UK has hundreds of thousands of ghost houses - properties where no one lives. The UK also has the worst homelessness problem in the rich world. So could we use those empty homes for the people in dire need of a home? Simon Maybin investigates the phenomenon of empty homes and, over nine months, follows the work of someone trying t...
Jul 09, 2024•43 min
New laws aimed at preventing protestors causing disruption, more severe punishments and fewer defences in court have led some to question if the freedom to protest is coming under threat. Josephine Casserly investigates the growing volume of prosecutions against environmental protestors and examines how the criminal justice system is dealing with such cases. She also examines the increasing use of private injunctions by corporations and public authorities to restrict protests at locations such a...
Jul 02, 2024•43 min
There are two compensation schemes for veterans who’ve suffered injury or illness as a result of service - the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme - or AFCS - and the War Pension Scheme. The schemes are managed by Veterans UK which is an organisation run by the Ministry of Defence. But veterans have long criticised both schemes. Some say they reject claims unfairly, and are slow to resolve them. File on 4 has been told in some cases it’s taken almost 12 years for a final decision to be made. How do...
Jun 25, 2024•42 min
In the headlines about NHS waiting lists, children don’t often get a mention. Yet hundreds of thousands are waiting to start hospital for treatment. Jane Deith investigates the reasons for the gap between adult and paediatric surgery. She hears from children whose conditions are deteriorating, some of whom could be left inoperable if they aren’t operated on soon. NHS leaders admit long waits can have life-long consequences for young people’s development and say hospitals are working hard to tack...
Jun 18, 2024•42 min
The most senior family court judge in England has described the growing use of Deprivation of Liberty orders for vulnerable children as a 'crisis.' File on 4 hears from young people who were held under the order supposedly for their own safety. But they say they were under constant supervision, denied access to their phones and the internet and kept away from their families. Some say they were subjected to physical restraints and even supervised when they were having a shower. And one teenager w...
May 22, 2024•43 min
There are some two million people with long Covid in the UK - and most of them - around one and a half million - have symptoms that interfere with day to day activities. Fatigue, breathlessness, heart palpitations and severe dizziness are just some of the conditions people experience. Currently there’s no test for long covid and it could be years before we know for sure how best to treat the condition. This struggle to get help is leaving some very unwell people desperate - and willing to try an...
May 21, 2024•38 min
Manchester City are dominating English football, with a trophy cabinet full of silverware. The club’s success has been bankrolled by money from Abu Dhabi. Now Newcastle United have followed in their wake, with backing from a Saudi consortium transforming a sleeping giant of English football into perhaps the world’s richest club. But with the money comes accusations that the clubs are being used to launder the reputations of repressive regimes accused of human rights abuses, and that the cash fro...
May 14, 2024•38 min
Three years ago, dozens of memory sticks were discovered in a sealed box at a school for children with special educational needs. There was 500 hours of footage which showed children being held in so-called 'calming rooms.' The videos showed the children being hit and denied access to a toilet. File on 4 investigates why a subsequent police investigation and an independent inquiry didn't lead to staff being sacked. File on 4 reveals how staff who were filmed hitting, kicking, and leaving childre...
Apr 30, 2024•37 min
The discovery of 35 bodies and an unknown quantity of unidentified human ashes at a Hull funeral home has become one of the most harrowing investigations in the history of Humberside Police. Linsey Smith investigates what went wrong and hears from some of the many families who've been left devastated by the discovery - some of whom now know the ashes they were given didn't belong to their loved ones. File on 4 also hears how the funeral industry is largely unregulated and how concerns raised mor...
Apr 16, 2024•37 min
Slimming World is the leading diet organisation in the UK. It has 700,000 members and, at a time when obesity is spiralling in the UK, it has helped millions lose weight. It has contracts with the NHS and local government. If you meet the criteria, your doctor can sign you up for free. But could the Slimming World diet be encouraging disordered eating by some members? File on 4 hears from people who believe that Slimming World has seriously damaged their health and destroyed their relationship w...
Apr 09, 2024•42 min
Jodie had everything - a good job, great friends and a busy social life. But her world was turned upside down when she was targeted by an online abuser who posted pornographic deepfakes of her online. Initially turned away by the police, she turned detective herself - but nothing could prepare her for what she eventually discovers. She now struggles to trust anyone. And what happened to Jodie could happen to any of us. Here she tells her story for the very first time. Reporter: Kate West Produce...
Apr 02, 2024•43 min
As the cost of living crisis continues to increase the strain on families, a record 142,000 children in England are homeless and living in what should be short term temporary accommodation. Children are being consigned to B&Bs and hotels, former office blocks - even shipping containers – some without a bed of their own, living among rats and cockroaches - conditions the children’s commissioner has condemned as Dickensian. With the help of young people and their families, File on 4 investigat...
Mar 19, 2024•38 min
‘Employee Assistance Programmes’ - almost 25 million workers in the UK have access to one through their employer. They’re designed to help people deal with personal problems that might affect their performance at work by offering advice, support or counselling sessions. But are all providers offering a good service? File on 4 investigates. Reporter: Alys Harte Producers: Vicky Carter and Ella Rule Technical Producer: Craig Boardman Production Coordinators: Jordan King and Tim Fernley Editors: Cl...
Mar 12, 2024•37 min
"Maria" ended up in A and E after being assaulted by her 11-year-old child. There’s nothing unusual about children being rude or sometimes abusive to their parents, particularly when they’re adolescents. But some parents are attacked and abused by their children on a regular basis. It’s a pattern of behaviour that can begin as young as three years old and become unmanageable by teenage years. Many parents remain silent out of shame and out of fear of the consequences if they seek help, worried t...
Mar 05, 2024•38 min
It’s a scandal that went uncovered for 30 years. Body parts and organs from former workers in the nuclear industry were systematically removed for research. But the families of those former workers were never told. The truth only came to light following a three year inquiry published in 2010. But was this practice contained to one industry, or was this happening on behalf of others too? News reports around the time of the Sellafield scandal claimed that organs of coal miners were also being rout...
Feb 27, 2024•37 min
The case of Carla Foster made headlines last year after the mother-of-three was initially sentenced to two years in prison for taking abortion pills after the legal cut-off. Since then, several other women have appeared in English courts accused of having illegal abortions, with increasing numbers of women under police investigation. Reporter Divya Talwar hears from women who have been investigated on suspicion of procuring illegal abortions, meets one woman who was prosecuted and sentenced, and...
Feb 20, 2024•37 min
File on 4 tells the story behind the brutal killing of schoolgirl Brianna Ghey. She was attacked in a park near Warrington in Cheshire on a Saturday afternoon in February 2023. Two teenagers - Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe - who were obsessed with murder and torture, have been convicted of her murder. In the build-up to the killing, they exchanged text messages outlining details of their plan. The girl even wrote a detailed plan of how they would go about the murder which was found by p...
Feb 02, 2024•37 min
When three young children and their carer were stabbed outside a school in Dublin, protests against immigration began, fuelled by rumours on social media. A night of rioting then followed, with shops looted, vehicles set alight, and police attacked. The rioting has placed immigration centre stage of Irish politics, with one of the country’s most famous sports stars, mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor, claiming Ireland is “at war” and saying he wants to be president. File on 4 investigates...
Jan 30, 2024•38 min
Councils in England and Wales are owed half a billion pounds - mainly in uncollected taxes and fines; money that's needed for essential services. Now, more and more, many are turning to bailiffs to recover the money. File on 4 hears from those on the receiving end - and industry insiders who say their colleagues are incentivised to behave badly. Mark Lobel also speaks to those at the forefront of industry reform who believe say the industry still needs to clean up its act. Reporter: Mark Lobel P...
Jan 22, 2024•38 min
Handguns which fire blanks are being converted into deadly weapons by criminals. File on 4 has discovered they're now being used more often than real handguns. Adrian Goldberg meets victims of gun crime and explores the UK's trade in illegal firearms. He discovers how easy it is to buy a blank firing pistol which can be illegally converted into a lethal weapon in 20 minutes, and hears from a former gangster who warns the law has too many loopholes. The UK has some of the strictest firearm laws i...
Jan 15, 2024•37 min
A group of women turned to a private specialist eating disorder clinic in Bath hoping they would receive life-changing treatment. They say their mental and physical health deteriorated while the psychologist in charge subjected them to psychological abuse. The clinic has since closed its doors, but the former patients say they have been left with life-long scars Reporter: Divya Talwar Producer: Ellie Layhe
Jan 11, 2024•37 min
The story of the Post Office IT scandal has gained new momentum in the wake of an ITV dramatisation about how dozens of subpostmasters were falsely accused of theft and fraud and hauled through the courts. After 20 years, campaigners won a legal battle to have their cases reconsidered and in 2019 the Post Office lost a High Court battle and agreed to pay nearly £60 million to more than 550 of its staff. Some ended up in prison, others bankrupt - many more have been left with their health and rep...
Jan 09, 2024•37 min
For more than twenty years, Zholia Alemi worked as a psychiatrist for the NHS. She practiced the length and breadth of the country, treating vulnerable patients with dementia, learning disabilities and mental illness. And then she was caught in a lie. Alemi was found guilty of forging a dementia patient’s will. But this deception was only the beginning. From Crowd Network, Doctor of Deception investigates how one woman’s web of lies reveals historic flaws in the system designed to keep patients ...
Jan 03, 2024•37 min
File on 4 tells the story behind the brutal killing of 16-year-old transgender schoolgirl Brianna Ghey. She was attacked in a park near Warrington in Cheshire on a Saturday afternoon in February 2023. Two teenagers, who were obsessed with murder and torture, have been convicted of her murder. In the build-up to the killing, they'd exchanged text messages outlining a details of their plan. Reporter Katie Barnfield speaks to Brianna’s mother and the detective involved in bringing her killers to ju...
Dec 20, 2023•35 min
Felicity Hannah explores how climate change is leaving communities 'uninsurable' because of the rising risk of them being hit by extreme weather events. She speaks to one businessman living in 'Hurricane Alley' in Louisiana, who has seen his premiums rise by $200,000 in just three years, and learns how many residents are now having to run the risk of living without insurance, because the cost is just too high. In Australia, she speaks to residents resigned to the fact that their hometown is cons...
Dec 19, 2023•38 min
File on 4 reveals how hundreds of vulnerable women and children are being trafficked to the UK by organised crime gangs to work as shoplifters. The victims are forced to live in squalor in overcrowded houses in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Investigators have discovered there are 154 known members of one gang which is making millions for the gangmasters from Eastern Europe. High street stores have reported a 25 per cent increase in the number of shoplifting incidents over the last year...
Dec 12, 2023•38 min
Lucy Letby was allowed to continue working with new-born babies despite her colleagues raising concerns about her for months. Her conviction highlighted how NHS executives put the reputation of the Countess of Chester NHS Trust ahead of patient safety. But what happened in Cheshire was far from a one-off. File on 4 hears from doctors with unblemished medical careers who were sacked after raising patient safety concerns. The programme follows one medic through an Employment Tribunal as he attempt...
Dec 05, 2023•38 min
Artificial intelligence, or AI, makes it possible for machines to learn - and in the future it will perform many tasks now done by humans. But are criminals and bad actors ahead of the curve? AI is already being used to commit fraud and other crimes by generating fake videos and audio; fast emerging threats that form just part of a potential new crime wave. File on 4 investigates. Reporter: Paul Connolly Producer: Fergus Hewison Editor: Carl Johnston
Nov 28, 2023•38 min
When people who don't speak English, including refugees arriving in the UK after fleeing war, they are entitled to receive the support of interpreters when dealing with public sector organisations. The service provides a lifeline for some of society's most vulnerable people to help them navigate places like hospitals, social services and courts. But reporter Matthew Hill hears allegations the service is seriously failing those who need it most - with tragic consequences. Data obtained exclusivel...
Nov 21, 2023•37 min
As a young person, Ellen Macleod wasn’t sure whether her disabilities would mean she could never have sex so she turned to the internet. There she found porn featuring disabled adults, but those films threw up dark questions around consent, exploitation and whether disabled people were being made the involuntary subject of a fetish. Now Ellen has teamed up with journalist Nastaran Tavakoli Far to investigate whether what she saw online was extreme role play or very real abuse. Ellen and Nas spea...
Nov 07, 2023•38 min
