Legal aid has been withdrawn from a long-running case against a pharmaceutical giant. Children born with severe disabilities, including spina bifida, were suing the manufacturer of an anti-epilepsy drug which their mothers took during pregnancy and which they blame for causing birth defects - a claim the company denies.

After years of legal proceedings which the claimants' solicitors say have so far cost £3.25m, the Legal Services Commision refused a much smaller sum to take the case to trial, just weeks before hearings were due to start. As a result, more than a hundred claimants are left with no chance of their day in court.

Their case was not deemed strong enough to pass the standard test which requires them to prove that the drug doubled (at least) the risk of harm. This test is called into question by experts in cases against pharmaceutical companies in Britain and the USA. A lower level of proof is needed in American courts.

The government has announced that future patients in England and Wales alleging clinical negligence or personal injury can expect to have their applications for legal aid refused under its programme of spending cuts.

No such change of policy is planned in Scotland. A case is proceeding there with support from legal aid by a patient who took another drug, for relieving arthritis, which is blamed for increasing the risk of heart attacks and strokes - again this is denied by the company concerned. Patients in England and Wales who took the same drug and suffered heart attacks have been turned down for legal aid funding and have shelved their cases.

Will government cuts effectively put wealthy pharmaceutical companies beyond challenge in the civil courts?

Reporter: Gerry Northam

Europe's Missing Millions

Over the last seven years, the European Union has paid out billions of Euros in grants designed to revitalise Europe's poorest regions.

But an investigation for File on 4 has revealed the extent to which these payments are open to widespread fraud, abuse and mismanagement.

Angus Stickler tracks how money has gone astray across the 27 member states and asks why funding continues in regions with proven records of corruption and fraud. Throughout the EU there is evidence that money has been wasted or even stolen. In Southern Italy, money has gone to Mafia-controlled construction companies and bogus energy projects. Across the EU expensive projects lie unused and unfit for purpose, despite receiving funding of millions of Euros.

The EU has created its own anti-fraud agency, OLAF, to stop these abuses, but are critics right when they claim it's underfunded and ineffective?

File on 4/Bureau of Investigative Journalism co-production.

Producer: Gail Champion

A new law regulating care homes in England came into force last month. All homes must be registered and ensure they meet certain standards of quality and safety. The regulator - the Care Quality Commission - is promising to monitor homes and take action against those who fail to meet standards.

Producer: Paul Grant.

It's been dubbed the Great Train Robbery, but Allan Urry asks who's robbing who?

Producer: Ian Muir-Cochrane.

Under the Prime Minister's project for The Big Society, the coalition government wants charities to have much greater involvement in the running of public services.

Jenny Cuffe investigates how British-based Somalis are being lured into fighting for the al-Qaeda-linked Islamists of al-Shabaab.

There have been consistent rumours that dozens, perhaps scores of British-based Somali men have travelled to Somalia to join the militant Islamist group which was banned by the British Government earlier this year.

In September the rumours were given new urgency when the Director of MI5, Jonathan Evans, warned it was only a matter of time before the UK suffered an act of terrorism committed by al-Shabaab-trained Britons.

File on 4 explores the techniques used by Al-Shabaab to persuade young members of the 250,000-strong British Somali community to sign up for Jihad in Somalia. Members of the close-knit and reticent British Somali community tell Jenny Cuffe of their fears that youngsters are being seduced through the internet and by shadowy recruiting sergeants for the Horn of Africa's most feared military force.

And the programme travels to the state of Minnesota to see how a vigorous FBI investigation and cooperation from the Somali community have laid-bare a pipeline which first lured, then transported young American Somalis to the training camps and battlefields of Somalia.

Producer: Andy Denwood.

While the government axes public spending to try to cut the deficit, Michael Robinson investigates loopholes which let big businesses slash their UK tax bills.

The drive to make acute hospitals more prudent and independent through foundation trust status was meant to usher in a new era of prudent spending for the whole of the NHS.

But now the process is faltering, as a series of foundation trusts hit grave financial, managerial or care quality problems.

And though the NHS was meant to be ring-fenced from the deep cuts now hitting the rest of the public sector, a number foundation hospital trusts are facing bed closures and serious job losses.

In some cases emergency measures have been adopted to turn failing trusts around by bringing in highly paid crisis managers. But these have alienated staff and unions and seemingly pushed some hospitals further into the red.

So where does this leave the Government's plans for all hospitals to be run by foundation trusts? Julian O'Halloran reports.

Producer: Ian Muir-Cochrane.

Do Insolvency Practitioners measure up to the high standards expected of them when they are called in to a stricken business? Allan Urry examines concerns that some IP's don't always act in the best interests of creditors who are owed money when companies fail. Are landlords right to complain they've been getting a raw deal because some corporate undertakers side too much with their retail paymasters, who are pushing for reduced rents because their businesses are in trouble.

The Office of Fair Trading is calling for far reaching reforms amid concerns about high fees and low recovery rates for some creditors. So is there proper oversight of a profession which takes a billion pounds in fees each year, but isn't subjected to much public scrutiny?

PRODUCER: Paul Grant.

The planned withdrawal of British and other foreign troops from Afghanistan relies on the Afghan army and police to take over security duties.

Producer: David Lewis Editor: David Ross.