File on 4 Investigates

File on 4 Investigates

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File on 4 Investigates episodes

  • The Turnaround Game

    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 revealed, had already pleaded guilty.

    Lynden Scourfield, a middle-ranking banker with Halifax Bank of Scotland, accepted bribes in cash, foreign holidays and sexual entertainment. In exchange he would require small business customers to hire a firm of consultants called Quayside Corporate Services.

    The consultants claimed to be able to turn the business customers' fortunes around - but the truth was very different. File on 4 follows the story of two small Hbos clients, former rock and rollers, who fought for a decade to expose the fraud, even as the bank sought to repossess their home.

    We ask how this could happen, and how to prevent the ongoing mistreatment of small business customers by the banks.

    Reporter: Andy Verity

    Producer: David Lewis
    Editor: Gail Champion.

    38 min
  • The Cost of a Kidney

    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 aims to achieve 80% consent rates by 2020, but at the moment only 34% of families from ethnic minorities consent to donate organs when asked, and rates of living donation have started to fall.

    File on 4 finds that a small number of patients are so desperate they will risk their health by looking for a kidney abroad. Most British patients head to Pakistan, where an equally desperate group of people are coerced into giving up their kidneys, placing their lives in the hands of organ traffickers.

    But now a new, sinister trade is emerging in Pakistan. In October Pakistani police raided an apartment building in Rawalpindi and behind a metal grill, found 24 terrified people locked inside. They had been lured with offers of jobs, but when they arrived were kidnapped and told a kidney would be removed.

    As a worldwide shortage of organs fuels an increase in transplant tourism, Allan Urry, working in conjunction with local journalist Nosheen Abbas hears from the people caught up in this illegal trade and asks whether enough is being done to prevent it.

    Reporters: Allan Urry with Nosheen Abbas

    Producer: Ruth Evans
    Researcher: Usman Zahid.

    38 min
  • Breaking Into Britain

    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 the tens of thousands, and post the vote for Brexit, is under pressure to be tough on immigration.

    But File on 4 has found a market in fake documentation is helping some migrants who aren't eligible to come here, to get the necessary visas.

    High street immigration advisers, and even a solicitor tell the programme's undercover researcher how to buy their way in using fake documentation.

    The programme asks what the authorities are doing to catch the crooks.

    Reporter: Jane Deith

    Producer: Paul Grant
    Editor: Gail Champion.

    38 min
  • A Greek Tragedy

    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 the teenagers who have arrived alone from Syria and Afghanistan, living by their wits on the streets of Athens.

    The controversial deal struck between the EU and Turkey to return migrants who don't claim asylum or who have their claims rejected - and the closing of borders with Greece - has been blamed for making the situation worse for many migrants who now find themselves in limbo in Greece. The millions pledged by the EU don't seem to be bringing relief on the ground either.

    The programme hears from the lucky ones who have found spaces at shelters for unaccompanied children in Greece's capital. Here they are fed, clothed and supported in their legal cases.

    Others, on the island of Samos, are celebrating securing asylum in Greece. But most children on the island are not celebrating. They feel stuck in a system that cannot cope and held in a country that was meant to be a transit point, not a place to stay.

    Increasingly the locals in Samos don't want them to say either. Tensions are flaring in the area around the vastly overcrowded camp, with Golden Dawn active nearby. Around 3,000 residents turned out to protest about their sense of abandonment by the Greek government and the EU. Local officials describe the island as 'trembling on a bridge above troubled water.'

    With an estimated 2300 unaccompanied migrant children in Greece, more than half of whom are on the waiting list for shelter, File on 4 asks whether the EU is doing enough to care for those most in need of protection.

    Reporter: Phil Kemp

    Producer: Sally Chesworth
    Editor: Gail Champion.

    38 min
  • London Calling

    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 vast sums of money allegedly laundered through the UK by corrupt foreign officials and international crime gangs?

    Allan Urry investigates claims that not enough is being done by the UK to tackle the laundering of corrupt assets or to assist nations who ask for help in getting their money back. The programme also hears complaints that British law enforcement is refusing to investigate cases.

    Reporter: Allan Urry

    Producer: David Lewis.

    38 min
  • The Hidden Homeless

    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 England took on 15,000 new homeless households between April and June this year - a 10 per cent increase on the previous year.

    Increasingly councils are having to use temporary accommodation and even bed and breakfasts to cope with a shortage of affordable accommodation. It has become an increasingly profitable business for landlords. Research this year for London councils found that they had spent over £650 million in the capital on temporary accommodation in just one year. Charities say changes to the benefit cap which comes into effect next week will make the situation for families looking for a home, even worse.

    File on 4 reports from the front line of the homelessness crisis. The programme meets the families sent by councils to live in cramped, filthy conditions.

    We hear from the doctors who claim emergency accommodation in one city is affecting people's mental health and contributing to an increase in deaths and the local authority keeping families in B&B accommodation longer than they are legally allowed to.

    Reporter: Simon Cox

    Producer: Nicola Dowling.

    37 min
  • Behind Closed Doors

    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 "the great human rights issue of our time".

    The 2015 Modern Slavery Act gave prosecutors more options to pursue offenders, it handed judges the ability to dole out life sentences and promised more protection for victims. But in the clamour to tackle modern slavery, has the plight of overseas domestic workers, who toil in the homes of wealthy overseas visitors as nannies, cooks and cleaners, been forgotten?

    This summer File on 4 followed migrant domestic workers as they escaped abusive employers in the dead of night. Through their stories, the programme questions whether recent measures go far enough to adequately protect an invisible workforce who've been tricked and trapped into a life of exploitation.

    Reporter: Phillip Kemp

    Producers: Sarah Shebbeare & Ben Robinson.

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

    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 the price. The Swansea Bay lagoon, and five more that would follow around the country, would generate as much electricity as Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. But does the government's commitment to the wave of new nuclear threaten the future of renewable energy in the UK?

    Jane Deith hears about the options the government's considered to meet an EU target of providing 15% of energy from renewables by 2020. Does the answer lie in buying in renewable power from Norway, or 'credit transfers' from countries who've hit their targets? Or does the commitment need to renegotiated completely?

    With growing pressure to keep a lid on bills, will renewables come second to economic interests?

    Reporter: Jane Deith

    Producer: Rob Cave.

    38 min
  • How Safe Is Your Pension?

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

    It's the job of the Pensions Regulator to ensure employers follow the rules and to protect the benefits of those who've been paying in. So how good are they at keeping your pension safe?

    The programme untangles the complex financial engineering that goes on as some foreign investors try to wash their hands of any on-going obligations to their UK workforce.

    And one former director whose actions cost a pension fund millions of pounds is confronted at his home.

    Producer: Paul Grant

    Reporter: Allan Urry.

    38 min
  • Transforming Rehabilitation: At What Cost?

    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 National Probation Service and low to medium risk offenders managed by Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs).

    Two years on, probation officers report a system that has been 'ripped apart', with two sides often failing to communicate. There are concerns over rising caseloads, falling staffing levels and the number of murders committed by offenders released from prison on licence.

    File on 4 speaks to families who have lost loved ones, and hears how they have had to fight to find out the full extent of the failings of the probation system in their cases.

    Charities report particular concerns over vulnerable women in the probation system, with many being recalled to prison for breaching probation orders, following short sentences for minor offences.

    As Transforming Rehabilitation is scrutinised by the Public Accounts Committee and Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Probation, File on 4 asks if the changes are putting the public at risk?

    Reporter - Melanie Abbott

    Producer - Ruth Evans.

    38 min

About File on 4 Investigates

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

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