5 Live Investigates

Adrian Goldberg investigates a new type of property deal that experts warn is highly risky.

People struggling to sell their home are being approached by investors who want to take a 'lease option' on their property - the would-be sellers agree a price that the investor can buy the house at, at a future date, and the investor agrees to cover the mortgage payments in the meantime, so the owners can move out and move on.

It could be a win-win situation, but experts warn that this is an unregulated area and sellers could end up losing out - and even losing their home.

Adrian Goldberg and the team investigate the companies offering to store blood from your baby's umbilical cord, which they say could one day save their life.

Parents are told it's a "once in a lifetime opportunity" to save and store valuable stem cells that have the potential to fight a range of diseases.

But some medical experts say it's a waste of money.

5 live Investigates assesses the claims made by private cord blood banks and investigates the NHS hospitals signing agreements with companies to allow the practice on their premises, despite the Royal College of Midwives and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists saying there's not enough evidence to justify the practice.

Got a story? Contact the 5 live Investigates team by emailing [email protected].

Adrian Goldberg asks why Trading Standards is receiving money from a loans company whose customers complain that they have had payments taken from their bank accounts without permission.

5 live Investigates has heard from consumers who say they have had their accounts debited by loans broker SGE Loans, even after refusing a loan deal, and who have since spent months demanding a refund.

This programme has also discovered that West Yorkshire Trading Standards, under whose authority the Leeds-based company comes, receives money from SGE Loans in exchange for providing advice to the business.

It also admits it has investigated a number of similar complaints about the company and that some consumers believe they have been misled.

But West Yorkshire Trading Standards says that taking payment for services from a company does not affect its ability to deal with complaints impartially.

The loans broker denies that it has debited money from customer accounts without authorisation and insists that all complaints are resolved within 28 days.

Plus, the landlady of a Portsmouth pub, Karen Murphy, speaks exclusively to 5 live Investigates ahead of Tuesday's ruling by the European Court of Justice on whether the EU single market means she should be able to use any European satellite service to screen Premier League football. Sky and ESPN have the broadcast rights to Premier League football in the UK. And we hear from the chief executive of Wolverhampton Wanderers, Jez Moxey, who complains that the screening of 3pm matches by local pubs is hitting Wolves' match ticket sales.

If you have a story for the 5 live Investigates team, email [email protected].

Adrian Goldberg finds that cannabis farming is increasingly a suburban phenomenon.

He interviews a professional woman from a leafy village in the North West of England who is growing cannabis in her spare room, and a drug dealer from the West Midlands who has a number of middle-class professionals letting their spare room to him for a share of his cannabis-farming profits.

They tell him that cannabis growers now prefer to rent rooms from willing landlords - rather than take over whole houses - because it is easier to avoid police detection.

Adrian also speaks to DCI Martin Hurcomb from West Midlands Police about the changing nature of cannabis farming and what the authorities are doing about it.

Plus, we reveal the high-street shop that's been selling customers a camcorder they didn't want. It says the camera was a better model than the one advertised, but was it really?

And we hear the inside story of BBC Newsnight's investigation into international boxing.

If you have a story for the 5 live Investigates team, email [email protected].

In the news this week: the doctors and nurses who can't speak English. But 5 live Investigates can reveal the problem is even bigger than that.

We hear that the poor English of some overseas professionals is causing confusion, mistakes and bad treatment across the whole of the healthcare system in the UK.

We talk to patients and health insiders who say that some care workers, dentists and pharmacists - as well as doctors and nurses - cannot properly understand their patients.

People arriving from the European Union do not have to pass English language tests to register to work. The General Medical Council, the Nursing and Midwifery Council and other healthcare bodies, say this needs to change.

It's up to employers to assess an individual's fluency before they are given an actual job, but not all of them do this.

And, 5 live Investigates finds, even some overseas NHS staff from outside Europe, who have passed language tests, struggle to communicate clearly.

Who's watching you online? Cyber stalkers are using increasingly sophisticated means to target their victims. In some cases, they are deploying spyware to get remote access to their quarry's computer - to access files and personal information. They might even be able to turn on the webcam to secretly film their victim.

5 live Investigates talks to senior police officers who say they need tougher powers to be able to investigate cyber stalking more effectively.

The programme hears from the victims of online stalking who've endured years of harassment and hate.

To contact the programme, tweet @5LInvestigates.

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

Some nurses are defying their own professional standards when it comes to administering Botox. Botox is a prescription-only drug and has to be prescribed by a specialist nurse or a doctor in a face-to-face consultation. But some nurses are defying their own professional regulator by using what's called a remote prescribing service. A remote prescriber is a doctor who is contacted on the phone and issues a prescription after talking to the patient - sometimes for just three or four minutes. But new instructions from the nursing regulator, the UK Nursing and Midwifery Council, say remote prescribing should not be used for Botox. The regulations have been tightened to improve patient safety. But some nurses seem intent on defying them. 5 Live Investigates asks why - and examines the role of a Harley Street practice that still offers remote prescribing.

Also, the number of people dying or made ill through carbon monoxide poisoning is being grossly under-estimated by the authorities. A charity that promotes the safety of heating systems says in cases of unexplained deaths, scientists are failing to test for signs of carbon monoxide. 5 Live Investigates looks into one case where a man died as a result of carbon monoxide and no one realised, leaving other tenants exposed to the poisonous gas for a further week which left them ill. The Health and Safety Executive has also been accused of not doing enough to investigate possible carbon monoxide cases.

Some businesses are facing massive bills because their energy companies failed to read the meter properly. One company says it is facing closure because it says it can't afford the demand that's dropped through the letterbox. 5 Live Investigates finds that some of the problems have come about because meter readers didn't jot down all the figures.

And the wrong sort of passengers forecasts: as the row over the new high speed rail route between London and the north of England intensifies, 5 Live Investigates asks why the rail industry doesn't seem to be able to correctly predict passenger figures.

To contact the programme, email [email protected] - or send comments via Twitter to @5LInvestigates.

Gap year safety. A coroner has called on the Government to review the safety procedures of companies offering gap year adventure trips. It follows the death of a student on a conservation holiday in Fiji. We investigate how well the companies are implementing safety procedures.

Many police forces are still failing when it comes to investigating reports of disability hate crime, according to a number of leading charities. They say officers have not heeded the lessons of the tragic case of Fiona Pilkington who set fire to herself and her disabled daughter more than 3 years ago. The mother had been driven to despair by years of abuse targeted at the family.

5 Live Investigates talk to a woman with learning disabilities who's endured 20 years of abuse. She's been spat at, had chewing gum put in her hair, had kids get into her home and has been physically assaulted. The last time her mother reported it to the police she was told by an officer that it was naïve to think that her daughter would not be subjected to taunts.

And tackling uninsured drivers... Following last week's debate about new plans to tackle uninsured drivers, and concerns that new penalties wont be tough enough, the Roads Minister Mike Penning comes onto the show to defend the scheme.

Russia has pledged to tackle racism in football ahead of the 2018 World Cup. We investigate the depth of prejudice at one of Russia's most successful clubs. Zenit St Petersburg competes regularly at the top level of European football but has never signed a black player. The club has a following of dedicated fans called the Ultras - and they say they're proud that the club has never had a player of African heritage. The club says it trying to tackle racism. The Russian football authorities say they have launched a campaign to eradicate intolerance across football more generally. We ask if the approach is working.

Also, we examine the epidemic of liver disease brought on by the way we lead our lives - and the impact it is having on an already-stretched NHS.

And it's been a long time coming... the crackdown that's designed to get uninsured drivers off the roads.

Adrian Goldberg investigates the rise in fuel crime as the price of petrol and diesel reaches a high at the pump.

Nearly two-thirds of hauliers say they've had fuel stolen from their lorries or from tanks in their storage yards in the past year, according to an industry questionnaire. Fewer than half of the affected trucking firms reported the thefts to the police - some feeling fuel crime gets a low priority. Garage owners are reporting an increase in the number of motorists who fill up and drive off without paying. And organised crime is involved in fuel racketeering - investigators from customs and revenue are busting more diesel laundering plants, where the dye put in duty-exempt agricultural diesel is washed out - so it can be passed off as diesel for general use. The loss in duty is believed to cost the public purse about £800 million a year.

Also, just how safe is the UK nuclear industry? And we examine the work of the analysts using satellite images to track the unfolding crisis in Libya.