5 Live Investigates

Fire and Rescue services in the UK are called out to assist severely obese people more than ten times a week. Each incident can cost up to several thousand pounds. Adrian Goldberg hears the stories behind the rescues and the calls by fire officers for special training and equipment to deal with the problem.

Thousands of public sector workers have unwittingly been part of a massive tax avoidance scheme to save their employer millions of pounds - but which has left the taxpayer out of pocket. Adrian Goldberg investigates the company behind the scheme and reveals that the government has ignored warnings about this hidden scandal.

Can you trust the claims of a care home? We hear about the care homes awarded a five star rating, but which are failing to meet even the minimum standards of the national regulator. Adrian Goldberg investigates the private companies behind the star ratings and asks why some local authorities are paying premiums to care home owners whose ratings don't match up with reality.

Take a look at your pay slip. If you work for a temp agency, beware of the tax deal hitting low-paid workers and the taxman. Recruitment agencies employing minimum wage workers are paying large sums of their wages in tax-free expenses and pocketing the lion's share of the savings. But experts tell Adrian Goldberg it's the workers who could risk being chased by the HMRC for unpaid tax.

Imagine if you had a job where you could earn nineteen thousand pounds in four minutes? A job where you could live a luxury life-style of fast cars, paradise beaches and private jets. In 5 Live Investigates this week Adrian Goldberg looks at a company which dangles this possibility. Sign up for a free seminar to learn the tricks of trading in the currency markets and you too could change your life. The programme talks people who've signed up for this and found themselves paying out thousands of pounds for further courses. One man spent over twenty two thousand pounds in pursuit of this dream. He says the company has not provided him with the skills needed to trade successfully. And we hear from insiders about the hard sell to enrol people on these courses.

5 Live Investigates the mystery bills which some drivers are getting through the post after an incident on the motorway. Take the case of Sheila. She was driving up the M1 when she skidded on an unexpected patch of water. Her car spun out of control and she ended up facing the wrong way on the hard shoulder of the motorway. She dialled 999 and within minutes a police patrol officer arrived and got her and her car off the motorway. The officer said how lucky she was that there was no damage other than a minor scratch on the bumper of her car and there had been no other vehicle involved. Yet a few weeks later she received a bill for almost £3,000 pounds from a company that clears up motorway accidents and incidents on behalf of the Highways Agency. Sheila has no idea why she had been charged this amount including £266.62 for a 7.5 tonne tipper hire and driver and £1830.91 for the closure of the hard shoulder. 5 Live Investigates has learnt of other cases where drivers have been billed for significant amounts completely out of the blue with no knowledge of the work carried out. Adrian Goldberg and the team get to the bottom of these motorway charges and talks to insurance and transport industry experts who are worried about the lack of transparency in the charges to motorists.

Adrian Goldberg presents cutting-edge investigative journalism, as well as taking on listeners' campaigns and consumer issues.

Miscarriages of justice are happening in the Magistrates Court system because of a drive to reduce delays, say defence lawyers. They say some cases are being dismissed because prosecutors and the police haven't been able to file the necessary papers in time - in other cases, defendants are coming under undue pressure to plead guilty.

Also - the fight to control the trade in smuggled cigarettes and tobacco.

And... the £2.5 million being spent to boost the number of immigration officers on duty during the London Olympics. Some of the money will be used to re-hire staffs who've taken early retirement or voluntary severance.

Football fans say the police are heavy-handed in the way they impose some travel restrictions on travelling supporters. They say the actions of the police are disproportionate, and ignore their civil rights. The fans are critical of "bubbling" in which they are told to assemble at a location some distance away from the fixture and then are escorted to the ground by the police. The tactic is being used despite a sharp reduction in the number of arrests at football matches.

Also, the truckers getting behind the wheel of their vehicle high on drugs. It's a minority of drivers, some of whom are evading the restrictions on working hours and need the drugs to stay awake. The senior Traffic Commissioner says she is going to meet with leaders of the transport industry to discuss the problem.

And the school computer leasing scam that may run into hundreds of millions of pounds.

Organisers of the London 2012 are being accused of heavy handed tactics in the way they're protecting the Olympic brand. Architects who've been involved in designing some of the facilities are being prevented from staging an exhibition of their work - and a woman arranging a festival of British life found herself locked in discussion with 7 different lawyers to win the right to use '2012' in its title. Also, the heart patients dying needlessly because of poor quality care. And the bailiffs accused of levying unjustified charges on people struggling with debt.