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BBC Radio 4

News-making original journalism documentary series, investigating stories at home and abroad.

File on 4

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 missing evidence. But sources say the IT bug was known about for years before action was taken.

Original journalism by Alys Harte.
Reporter: Datshiane Navanayagam.
Producers: Lorna Acquah, Fergus Hewison.
Editor: Tara McDermott.
Technical Producer: Nicky Edwards.
Production Co-ordinator: Tim Fernley.

The IT bug that's caused chaos in the courts

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 the scale of the problem and hears from medical professionals who fear it could be a crisis that’s going under the radar. 

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar
Producer: Alex Collins
Sound: Nicky Edwards
Production Coordinator: Tim Fernley
Editor: Nick Holland

Chemsex: Hidden Pleasures, Hidden Harms

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: Alastair Fee
Producers: Jim Booth 
Technical Producer: Craig Boardman
Production Coordinator: Tim Fernley
Editor: Tara McDermott

High Stakes: Gambling in the armed forces

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 new documents, this File on Four documentary makes you think about the food in front of you in a new way.

Presenter: Georgie Styles
Producers: Georgie Styles and Dan Ashby
Sound Design: Jarek Zaba
Executive Producer: Philip Abrams
Commissioning Editor: Hugh Levinson

Abused For Our Food is a Smoke Trail production for BBC Radio 4 and was produced as part of the Bertha Challenge Fellowship.

Abused for Our Food

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. Selling tea and coffee from the burger van is where those with a culinary eye can learn new skills and start to feel valued for being part of legitimate endeavours. Similar interventions include social enterprises working in bicycle maintenance, hair and beauty and podcasting. 

As the adult prison population has soared in England and Wales, the number of under-18s behind bars has dropped markedly in the past 20 years, from around 3000 to 400. File on 4 Investigates spends time with the Youth Justice Service in Swindon to find out how it rehabilitates young offenders in the local community, and asks if the success of the youth system could hold lessons to address chronic overcrowding problems in adult prisons. 

Chris Marston, who presents shows on National Prison Radio and spent 10 months in prison discovers that what’s going on in Swindon is very different from his own experiences of the adult criminal justice system.

Reporter: Chris Marston
Producer: Beth McLeod
Technical Producer: Craig Boardman
Production Co-ordinator: Tim Fernley
Editor: Nick Holland

Main Image: Presenter Chris Marston in front of the Solid Ground coffee van in Swindon.

Youth Justice: The project keeping young offenders out of custody

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 to recover lost assets.

Adrian Goldberg joins City of London Police as they carry out a series of raids as part of Operation Swipe. They have recovered more than three thousand handsets in the last three months alone.

Reporter: Adrian Goldberg
Producer: Paul Grant
Technical Producer: Nicky Edwards
Production Co-ordinator: Tim Fernley
Editor: Tara McDermott

Have you had your phone snatched? Tell us your story via Your Voice, Your BBC News.
Email: bbcyourvoice@bbc.co.uk 
WhatsApp: 07756 165 803
Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist and have your comments included online or appear on TV/radio.

Image credit: PA\City of London Police

Swiped. Inside London's phone theft epidemic

It's a familiar story from the outside. Around 32,000 people are housed in migrant hotels around the UK and protests outside them have been violent and vocal.

Sue Mitchell has spent the summer getting to know a different side of the story - what life is like Inside the migrant hotels - and she's seen and heard some striking things:

Families who have been seeking asylum for nearly a decade;, a stream of prepaid taxis taking migrants to medical appointments and transporting them across the UK, families cooking meals in secret in hotel bathrooms and a system that appears to be broken, according to the people within it.
 
These are the first recordings that have been made of this kind. It's a story that has dominated the news, but hasn't been heard from the inside until now.

All names have been changed to protect the identities of hotel residents and staff

Reporter: Sue Mitchell
Producer: Joel Moors
Executive producer: Joe Kent
 
Inside the Migrant Hotel is a BBC Studios Production for BBC Radio 4

Inside the Migrant Hotel

In a broadcasting first, the BBC has followed a team from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons as it investigates conditions in a prison near Rugby in Warwickshire. 
The result is a unique insight into the problems faced by the prison system. 

This portrait of a prison on trial reveals how under-resourced prison staff are failing to stop copious amounts of drugs being brought in, and are struggling to provide a safe and productive environment in which prisoners can be prepared for release back into society.

His Majesty’s Prison Onley is a category C, medium security prison, housing 740 inmates. Its governor, Mark Allen, says Onley is among the top ten prisons for incursion of drugs via drones and admits many of his staff are too inexperienced to handle the inmates, resulting in frustration among prisoners, and violence. 

In its last inspection three years ago, Onley was found to be struggling in various areas, and it doesn’t take the inspection team long to find out that things are, if anything, getting worse. 

Inspectors meet prisoners who complain about everything from lack of laundry facilities to failure to provide meaningful work opportunities, or help with their offender behaviour. 

One inspector has to intervene when she finds a prisoner ‘spiced up’ and in need of immediate help. Another prisoner is refusing to leave the relative safety of the segregation wing, because he’s being threatened with violence over his debts to drug dealers within the prison. Inspectors discover evidence that officers are too ready to resort to force to deal with difficult prisoners and failing to keep accurate records of their restraining methods.

Prison officers talk about the challenges of trying to deal with violence within the prison and of trying to prevent drugs coming in.

In a lighter moment, lead inspector Angus Jones visits the prison library and discovers a surprising inclusion among books the prisoners are not allowed to read.

The inspection ends with the team meeting to agree how to score Onley against their key criteria for a ‘healthy prison’ and then presenting their conclusions to the Governor. 

Presenter: Rex Bloomstein
Producers: Brian King and Rex Bloomstein

A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.

A Prison Inspector Calls

Alison Holt, BBC social affairs editor, has been given exceptional access to the clients of a Nottingham charity that works to reintegrate men who have been convicted of sexual offences. 

'John, Matt, Dan and Liam', not their real names, are determined to turn their lives around after prison sentences. We hear how they work towards this with the help of the staff and volunteers at the Safer Living Foundation, the only charity of its sort in the country. Always mindful of the victims of sexual crime, the principal aim is to prevent further offending and the creation of further harm. 

There are hurdles to overcome - public abhorrence, plus grave difficulties with accommodation and work among them . 

The Foundation also runs Aurora, an online advice scheme for people who have not offended but who are worried about their sexual thoughts. 

Presenter: Alison Holt
Producer: Susan Marling
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4

Sex Offenders: The Long Way Back

Leila Nathoo investigates the risk assessment system for domestic abuse, and asks whether it is any longer fit for purpose.

The DASH form is the gateway for victims and survivors of domestic abuse - used by the police, charities and social workers to assess people who may be at risk of domestic abuse. It is deeply embedded in the whole system and plays a central role in deciding what further support victims receive. But Leila reveals troubling evidence that DASH too often incorrectly identifies those at the highest risk, meaning they do not get the support they need. And people across the system tell her that the form has not kept pace with the latest research about domestic abuse. Leila asks those who use the form, those who have studied its use, and those who developed it, what improvements need to be made, and why it has taken so long.

Producer: Daniel Kraemer.

Domestic Abuse: Beyond the Checklist

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 to turn unused properties into homes for families among the record numbers who are now homeless.

Reporter/producer: Simon Maybin
Technical producer: Neil Churchill
Production coordinators: Ellie Dover & Tim Fernley
Editor: Richard Vadon

Ghost Houses

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