File on 4 Investigates

Going back: The people reversing their gender transition

26 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

An increasing number of people are questioning their gender identity. Waiting lists for specialist clinics treating both children and adults with gend...

Drug Shortages

19 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Medical professionals say shortages of commonly prescribed drugs are currently worse than ever before - impacting on patient care and potentially cost...

Anatomy of a fraud

12 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Dodgy diamonds, missing millions - and the victims failed by justice.It starts with a phone call. Cynthia Tuck, a retired nurse and widow in her 80's,...

Crash Landing - The demise of Thomas Cook

22 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

To its thousands of employees left unemployed or 150,000 holiday makers stranded overseas, the collapse of Britain’s oldest travel firm came as a bi...

Lost on the line: The county lines gangs recruiting girls

15 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

New figures have revealed at least four thousand young people are currently caught up in county lines – meeting orders for heroin and cocaine placed...

Can sex offenders and violent criminals be rehabilitated in prison?

08 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The decision to scrap the Sex Offender Treatment Programme raised major concerns about the rehabilitation of prisoners and the impact on victims. The ...

Families versus the state: An unfair fight?

01 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Julie Montacute-Carter (pictured left) was found drowned in a lake after suffering from depression for many years. But when it came to the inquest int...

The therapy business

24 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

When BBC reporter Jordan Dunbar sought help for his mental health he was told he'd face a long wait on the NHS. So like thousands of others he decided...

Harassed students ‘re-victimised’ by universities

17 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

File on 4 exposes serious flaws in the way many universities mismanage reports of sexual assaults and harassment and how some students believe they’...

Sex Offenders Fleeing Abroad

10 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Every year thousands of offenders are convicted of sexual offences and subjected to a monitoring regime designed to minimise their risk to the public....

Hidden Figures? The True Scale of Military Sexual Allegations

16 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Ten years ago the alleged rape and subsequent suicide of Royal Military Police Corporal, Anne-Marie Ellement, highlighted problems with the way the B...

Bitter Brew

09 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

With the rise in ethical consumerism, File on 4 explores the hidden suffering of tea workers in Africa. Attacked because of their tribal identity, rep...

Steeling for the Future

02 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

With British Steel going into liquidation last month File on 4 investigates the story behind the collapse of the iconic British brand. Reporting from...

Beyond Grenfell: The Cladding Lottery

25 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Last month, the government announced a £200 million pound fund to remove and replace Grenfell style cladding on 170 privately owned tower blocks. But...

The Right Place for Reg?

18 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On December 21st 2018, 94-year-old, World War 2 veteran, Reginald Herbert Thompson was taken to hospital after a fall at his home near Leicester. So...

The Spy in Your Pocket

11 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Anti-obesity campaigners in Mexico, human rights advocates in London, and friends of the murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi all claim they’ve been ...

On Whose Authority?

04 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The law says decisions about care for people who can not decide for themselves should be done collaboratively with the person’s best interests alway...

A Load of Rubbish

28 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Households in Britain are recycling more than ever, with millions of us dutifully sorting through our rubbish every week in an effort to help save the...

At Risk? Children in Residential Care

21 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Children's homes offer sanctuary to young people whose childhoods have been disrupted by abuse, neglect or family breakdown. More than 2,200 homes are...

Opioids: A Painful Prescription?

14 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Opioids like morphine, tramadol and fentanyl are super-strength painkillers. They’re often prescribed by doctors for chronic pain, despite little ev...

The Crossing

19 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the autumn of 2016 the authorities in France closed down a large migrant camp in Calais known as The Jungle. At its height more than 9,000 people f...

The Crypto Factor – The Winners and Losers in Virtual Investment

12 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

You can't take money with you when you die.... or can you?In this episode of File on 4 the stranger than fiction story that's the latest cryptocurrenc...

Winging It?

05 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The UK's Military Flying Training System trains pilots on aircraft from fighter planes to navy helicopters. It takes years for trainees to get their w...

The Compensation Catch

26 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

If you’ve been the victim of sexual or violent crimes then you can apply for compensation from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA). ...

Swipe Right for Crime

20 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Police across the globe have successfully infiltrated leading dark web criminal markets. The result is that the trade in illegal drugs, stolen credit ...

No Place Like Home - The Inside Story of Supported Living

12 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Transforming Care is the NHS policy which should be moving learning disabled people out of hospital units and into their own supported homes. But File...

Can we Fix it? The Inside Story of Match Fixing in Tennis

05 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Last month, law enforcement officials in Spain said they had broken up a major match fixing ring in tennis. The Guardia Civil said 28 players competin...

Inside the World of the Class A Student

30 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Tom Wright investigates the normalisation of drug taking amongst Britain’s students. A recent graduate, he says Class A drugs like MDMA are bought a...

Finding Freedom - The Fight Against Modern Slavery

22 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Modern slavery and human trafficking in the UK are more prevalent than ever before. Police estimate tens of thousands of victims are hidden in towns a...

The Orphanage Business

16 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Uganda is a country that has seen massive growth in the number of 'orphanages' providing homes to children, despite the numbers of orphans there decre...

Youth Justice?

20 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

When secure training centres were launched nearly two decades ago they offered child offenders the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and get th...

Power Games

15 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Northern Ireland has some of the highest rates in Europe of pollution linked to agricultural waste – the by-product of intensive pig, poultry and ca...

The Unorthodox Life of Miriam

06 Nov 2018

Contributed by Lukas

When Miriam left the Hasidic Jewish community she had to say goodbye to her parents, siblings and children. The night she fled she knew she would be o...

My Homeless Son

30 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

What happens when you’re 17 years old and you suddenly find yourself homeless? As a child, you would expect that social services and other authoriti...

Criminal Waste

23 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

It’s been called “the new narcotics”, a crime that promises high-rewards with little fear of being detected, and it is attracting criminal gang...

Fuelling the future?

16 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Five years ago the UK’s biggest bioethanol plant opened in Hull as part of a £1 billion investment in renewable biofuel. Last month, the Vivergo si...

Paying the Price - Private Hospitals

11 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

For many NHS patients, being referred for private treatment can sound quite appealing; you'll often be seen and treated quickly, with a more luxurious...

Transforming Care - Is it Working?

02 Oct 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In the aftermath of the Winterbourne View scandal the government pledged to transfer people with learning disabilities and autism out of unsuitable ho...

Debt Killed My Dad

25 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In August, Jessica Hurst wrote to the media asking them to investigate how her dad’s debts of just under £12,000 became a bill of just under £73,...

Paralympics – Gaming the System?

18 Sep 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Last year, File on 4 investigated whether some athletes and coaches game the paralympic classification system in order to win medals. We heard allegat...

Counting the Cost: Antidepressant Use in Children

24 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

More antidepressants than ever before are being prescribed to young people in Britain, despite fears that they can cause harm in some cases.What are t...

Prison, drugs and debts - who's paying the price?

17 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

File on 4 goes inside Altcourse Prison in Liverpool to meet the staff trying to stem the supply of drugs into the jail. Perimeter security has been ti...

Construction in Crisis?

16 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

In January, Britain's second biggest construction firm, Carillion, spectacularly collapsed under a £1.5 billion debt pile. Thousands of jobs were los...

The Private World of the NHS

03 Jul 2018

Contributed by Lukas

As the NHS reaches its 70th anniversary, Adrian Goldberg investigates why the very mention of the word "private" - or, even more, privatisation - in U...

Falling Short - Fake News and Financial Markets

26 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

If fake news is poisoning public debate, then what is it doing to the financial markets?Short-sellers - investors who bet on a company's shares fallin...

Back Home from ISIS

19 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

For years, the so-called Islamic State has managed to attract thousands of wannabe jihadis and jihadi brides to join their caliphate. The extremist pr...

Failed by Forensics?

12 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

File on 4 investigates mounting concern about forensic science in England and Wales - hearing the cases of two men who almost went to prison for rape ...

Citizenship for Sale

05 Jun 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Selling passports. It may sound illicit but 'citizenship-by-investment' is a global industry worth billions - and it's completely legal.The idea is si...

Criminal Records?

29 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Knife crime in England and Wales rose by a fifth last year, with stabbings in London at their highest level for a decade. So far this year, there have...

The Lost Children of Marianvale

23 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

During much of the 20th century unmarried women who became pregnant faced being condemned, stigmatised and shunned by their communities. Across the Re...

The Invisible Man of Britain’s Far Right

04 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Simon Cox investigates the anti-immigration, anti-Muslim organisation Knights Templar International - not to be confused with the medieval Knights Tem...

A Place of Safety?

20 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Simon Cox investigates a series of failures in a mental health trust. Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust was formed last year from two ...

Squalid Prisons - Who's to Blame?

13 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The collapse of the construction giant Carillion has focused attention on the contracts it had with the Government, one of which involved cleaning, la...

The Missing Bitcoin Billions

07 Mar 2018

Contributed by Lukas

As controversy rages around whether the Bitcoin bubble is about to burst, File on 4 investigates the mystery of the missing Bitcoin billions.In 2014 o...

Disclosing the Truth

27 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The Police and the Crown Prosecution Service have been accused of failing to disclose important information in several recent high profile sexual assa...

On the Critical List? Britain's Ageing Hospitals

20 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Can the NHS afford to run and replace its ageing hospitals? Many hospitals are crumbling and have huge backlogs of required maintenance work. It affec...

Dying on the Streets

13 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

The homeless being denied end of life care.File on 4 hears the stories of the terminally ill left to die in hostels and on the street.An estimated 475...

Potters Bar, Ukraine's stolen billions and the Eurovision connection

06 Feb 2018

Contributed by Lukas

UK companies are being used to launder dirty money as new transparency rules are flouted. One, registered in a Hertfordshire commuter town, helped the...

A Deadly Prescription

30 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

There were a record 3,744 drug related deaths in England and Wales last year. While many were linked to street drugs such as heroin, a growing number ...

Sheltered from Harm

23 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

There are more than half a million people living in sheltered housing, accommodation that offers additional support to the elderly, disabled or vulner...

Degrees of Deception

19 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

File on 4 exposes a multi-million pound global trade in fake diplomas.A complex network of online universities sells degrees, doctorates and professio...

What's New about the New Far Right?

14 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

The head of counter terrorism Assistant Commander Mark Rowley has warned the extreme right wing pose a growing threat in the UK. He told the Home Affa...

Paradise Papers: Profits from the Poor

07 Nov 2017

Contributed by Lukas

What does the leak of files from offshore law firm Appleby reveal about how money is transferred out of the developing world and into the pockets of t...

The Nuclear Option - Powering the Future and Cleaning Up the Past

31 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

There a risk we won't get new nuclear hooked up to the grid in time to back up renewable energy like wind power. There's an aim to generate 16GWe of n...

Crossing the Line - Britain's Teenage Drug Mules

24 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Drug dealers from big cities are exploiting thousands of teenagers to traffic Class A drugs to smaller rural towns in what's known as County Lines. Ch...

Police Protection? The Murder of Kevin Nunes

17 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Fifteen years ago, promising young footballer Kevin Nunes was shot dead on a country lane in Staffordshire. Five men were convicted of his killing, an...

Elderly Patients in Hospital - Who Cares?

10 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

How well do NHS hospitals look after their elderly patients? Allan Urry investigates concerns about a lack of basic care. Is it proving fatal for some...

Extremism: Hidden in Plain Sight

03 Oct 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Manveen Rana uncovers hate speech, sectarianism and even support for Jihad in some of Britain's Urdu language newspapers, radio stations and TV channe...

Adoption: Families in Crisis

26 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Adoption can transform lives. Today, most children available for adoption have had a difficult start. Removed from birth parents and taken into care, ...

Paralympic Sport - Fair Play?

20 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

The ethos of the paralympic movement is fair and equal competition. At its heart is the classification system designed to ensure people of equal impai...

The Secrets of Smyllum Park

12 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Over many generations the Catholic church provided shelter and care for vulnerable children whose families had been broken by death or poverty. But ma...

About a Boy - The Hidden Victims of Grooming

18 Jul 2017

Contributed by Lukas

What happens when your teenage son is targeted by abusers? File on 4 tells one family's story of fighting the authorities to get support and justice a...

Car Emissions - Coming Clean?

11 Jul 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Volkswagen Group faced a 15 billion fine after the US environmental protection agency found it had fitted cars with software designed to cheat officia...

Mental Health Parity: Progress or Pipe Dream?

05 Jul 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In 2015, reporter Adrian Goldberg investigated the state of England's mental health provision and measured the promise of equal treatment for psychiat...

Preventing TB

30 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Around 1.5 million people die from tuberculosis each year. The Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine was introduced nearly a hundred years ago, but i...

Children with ME

27 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

File on 4 investigates claims that parents whose children suffer from a crippling illness that leaves them sick and permanently exhausted have been fa...

What Lies Beneath: The Legacy of Landfill

20 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

The toxic legacy of Britain's industrial heritage lies festering beneath our feet in 20 thousand former landfill sites. But now Government has ended t...

Online Grooming

13 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

File on 4 reveals the true scale of child sexual grooming and abuse online and asks whether social media companies are doing enough to prevent paedoph...

Gain Without the Pain: Legal Drugs in Sport

30 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Painkillers in sport: a form of legal doping or an excessive reliance on medication that puts the long-term health of athletes in jeopardy?With eviden...

Killings in Care Homes

23 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Headlines involving abuse in care homes normally centre on allegations against staff, but is aggression among residents being overlooked? With homes i...

Policing the Police

16 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

From the Hillsborough Inquest to Plebgate, from the revelations about undercover officers to the shooting of Mark Duggan, the last few years have been...

Councils in Crisis

21 Mar 2017

Contributed by Lukas

There's a quiet revolution going on in our Town Halls. With funding slashed, Local Government is tasked with finding new ways to raise money and deliv...

The Prison Contraband Crisis

14 Mar 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Prisons are a crucible for corruption, a former governor claims. Staff are working in the toughest conditions the system has seen in decades. Thousand...

Rogue Hauliers

07 Mar 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In January a haulage boss and his mechanic were jailed for a tipper truck crash which killed four people. The brakes on six of the truck's eight wheel...

Neglect: The Story of UK Homecare

28 Feb 2017

Contributed by Lukas

With an ageing population the need for carers to help elderly people stay healthy and safe in their own homes has never been greater. From making a me...

Outclassed: The Kids Excluded from School

22 Feb 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Over 300,000 children were excluded from school in England and Wales last year - almost 6 thousand of them permanently. Many of these children will en...

Speaking Up - Whistleblowing in the NHS

07 Feb 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Two years ago the first independent report into the treatment of whistle-blowers in the NHS was published. The Freedom to Speak Up report was commissi...

The Turnaround Game

31 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Five people have been found guilty for their roles in bank corruption and fraud costing hundreds of millions of pounds. A sixth, it can now be reveale...

The Cost of a Kidney

24 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In the UK three people die every day waiting for an organ transplant. People from ethnic minorities face a particular shortage of donors - the NHS aim...

Breaking Into Britain

19 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Revealed: the secret UK immigration dodges on offer on the high street.Theresa May has promised to stick to a promise to bring down net migration to t...

A Greek Tragedy

10 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

File on 4 sets off on a new series to find the forgotten children of Europe's refugee crisis.As winter sets in, Phil Kemp heads to Greece in search of...

London Calling

08 Nov 2016

Contributed by Lukas

With the Government claiming to lead the way in plans to crack down on global corruption, how come so little is being done in Britain to tackle the va...

The Hidden Homeless

01 Nov 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The number of people who are homeless is on the rise. In London it shot up almost 80 per cent in 4 years. Latest government figures show councils in E...

Behind Closed Doors

26 Oct 2016

Contributed by Lukas

This July, days after walking into the top job at number 10, Theresa May renewed her commitment to crack down on modern day slavery, describing it as ...

Changing Tides: Can the UK keep its renewable energy promises?

18 Oct 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The world's first tidal lagoon power station in Wales, which was in the Conservative manifesto, has stalled, as the government seems to be baulking at...

How Safe Is Your Pension?

11 Oct 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Following the BHS scandal, Allan Urry investigates other cases in which employees claim they've lost out because companies have ditched their full pen...

Transforming Rehabilitation: At What Cost?

04 Oct 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The split and part privatisation of the UK probation system in June 2014 saw huge changes to the service, with high risk offenders managed by the new ...

Little Brother's Big Secrets

27 Sep 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Valued at £80 billion, the UK's junior stock market is hyped as the most successful growth market in the world. Government incentives - including sta...

The Last Taboo

20 Sep 2016

Contributed by Lukas

For a long time, society didn't want to believe child sex abuse was happening - but now are sex crimes against elderly victims being dismissed in the ...

Homes Not Hospitals

13 Sep 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Five years after shocking revelations about the abuse of patients at Winterbourne View, File on 4 asks what progress has been made on the promise to g...