File on 4 Investigates

English football clubs enjoy a high profile around the world, leading to many companies vying to do business with them. But have some football clubs entered into financial deals with companies with questionable backgrounds?

File on 4 explores whether clubs are vulnerable to companies and individuals who use the reputation of English football to lend credibility to their activities. But what due diligence do clubs undertake when securing such deals? Allan Urry looks at the relationship between soccer and sponsorship. He hears from some of the victims who've lost money, because they believed those who do business with the biggest names in football, could be trusted.

Reporter - Allan Urry

For the past 22 years Thomas Bourke has been in prison for a double murder he says he didn't commit.

Police forces in England and Wales are to get an additional fifteen hundred firearms officers to help protect the public from terrorism and organised crime.

The Serious Fraud Office has begun an investigation into allegations of corruption in the award of multi-million pound oil contracts in the Middle East. A Monaco based company, Unaoil, denies that it helped British and other companies win contracts by corrupting politicians and government officials.

This week's massive leak of confidential documents from the Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca, has given unprecedented access to the way the rich and powerful have used tax havens to hide their wealth. But within the eleven and a half million documents, there is also evidence of how some of the shell companies set up by the firm, or the individuals that owned them, have been the subject of international sanctions and have been used by rogue states and oppressive regimes including North Korea and Syria.

Two months ago a File on 4 investigation into match-fixing in tennis made headlines around the world.

As more and more migrants seek asylum in the UK, is the system for processing their applications reaching breaking point? Allan Urry investigates the impact of a drastic reduction in the numbers of courts hearing cases. At the same time, appeals are going up and key rulings against Home Office decisions to return people to other countries are also piling on the pressure.

Special guardianship orders are a way of giving legal status to those - usually grandparents, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters - who come forward to care for children when their parents can't. SGOs were designed to let children grow up with family, instead of in care - once a relative is granted special guardianship, the council steps backs and the guardian can raise the child without social services interfering.

It's estimated there are around 620,000 people in England with dementia. Prime minister David Cameron says fighting the disease is a personal priority and doctors in England have been encouraged to proactively identify people with early stage dementia.

The PM says that an early diagnosis allows families to prepare for the care of a relative, but others argue there's no treatment for such a diagnosis and no robust evidence to justify a process that might lead to harm. Deborah Cohen hears from doctors who are concerned the drive to raise diagnosis rates is leading to people being misdiagnosed.

The Government has also pledged millions of pounds to help make England "the best place in the world to undertake research into dementia and other neuro-degenerative diseases". Scientists leading the research say they are making progress to find tests which could identify people at risk from the disease and develop a cure. But other researchers say money is being wasted because current directions in drug development are following the same path as those of the past which have ended in failure.

Producer: Paul Grant.

Are international conflicts creating tensions between Sunni and Shia Muslims in the UK?

Shabnam Mahmood reports from both Sunni and Shia communities and reveals how divisive messages from the Middle East are fuelling intolerance here.

Organisations which monitor hate crimes say sectarian violence, while low level, is increasing.

One Shia man tells the programme: "It is now becoming quite dangerous. It is an attack on me as a Shia that really scares me."

Mahmood reports from one of an increasing number of unity events being staged across the country to foster good relations. A Sunni imam tells her: "These are dangerous times and the religious leadership need to be seen to be doing things to bring communities together."

So can such work prevent tensions escalating in the face of the sectarian propaganda that's increasingly available online and on satellite television channels?

Producer: Sally Chesworth.