Strange But True Crime

Carrie Jade, a disability campaigner living in Ireland, goes viral after claiming Airbnb guests are suing her because of her Huntington’s disease. But when investigative journalist Katherine Denkinson sees the story, some of the details don’t add up.

Kat travels to County Kerry looking for answers and finds a trail of people with troubling stories of their own. What begins with questions about one social media claim develops into an investigation involving different identities, elaborate deceptions and a past that stretches back years.

Kat tells Rima how she pursued the story, what she discovered about the woman known as ‘Carrie Jade’, and how that identity led her back to a woman called Samantha Cookes.

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Presenter: Rima Ahmed

Rima Ahmed explores bizarre true crime, including audacious heists, drug smuggling, elaborate frauds, scams, catfishing, identity theft and cybercrime, alongside BBC reporters who have covered the cases first-hand.

Nathan Newby steps outside St James’s Hospital in Leeds for a vape and finds himself face-to-face with a man carrying a bomb. Nobody else knows what’s happening, and Nathan realises that keeping him talking may be the only way to stop an attack.

The man is Mohamed Farouk, an NHS worker who has built a pressure cooker bomb and planned an attack on the hospital where he worked. As patients and staff remain inside, Nathan spends more than two hours trying to move Farouk away from the building, understand what he intends to do and persuade him to change his mind.

BBC Yorkshire’s Home Affairs correspondent Emma Glasby tells the story of the St James’s Hospital plot, the investigation into Farouk and the extraordinary actions that later earned Nathan Newby the George Medal.

Get in touch with us [email protected]

Presenter: Rima Ahmed

Rima Ahmed explores bizarre true crime, including audacious heists, drug smuggling, elaborate frauds, scams, catfishing, identity theft and cybercrime, alongside BBC reporters who have covered the cases first-hand.

Liverpool councilor Christine Banks starts receiving anonymous poison pen letters at her home. They’re abusive, deeply personal and relentless. At one point, as many as five arrive in a day. And Christine has a strong suspicion about who is sending them.

She soon discovers she isn’t the only target. Other people connected to Liverpool politics have received remarkably similar letters, and one name keeps coming up: former councillor and prominent community campaigner Gerard Woodhouse.

BBC journalist Marc Waddington joins Rima to trace the poison pen campaign, the clues that pointed towards its author and the fingerprint that finally gave police their breakthrough. How did a respected local figure become the man behind a campaign of anonymous abuse?

Get in touch with us [email protected]

Presenter: Rima Ahmed

Dive into a world of bizarre true crimes with brazen criminals that will leave you scratching your head for answers. Rima Ahmed explores audacious heists, secret drugs bunkers and stolen identities with reporters who have lived and breathed these true crime cases.

Essex drugs boss, Ben Ransome, is a wanted man. Before police can arrest him he flees the UK and disappears.

Ransome continues to sell drugs from his new hideout in Thailand whilst reinventing himself as a prizefighter.

Police chip away at his network of trusted drugs couriers in the UK. But who will be first to deliver a knockout blow?

Get in touch with us [email protected]

Presenter: Rima Ahmed

Dive into a world of bizarre true crimes with brazen criminals that will leave you scratching your head for answers. Rima Ahmed explores audacious heists, secret drugs bunkers and stolen identities with reporters who have lived and breathed these true crime cases.

A mum says severe anxiety has made everyday life a struggle and left her needing financial support. But an anonymous tip-off raises questions about whether the life she has described matches the one she is actually living.

Investigators start digging into Catherine Wieland’s benefit claim, using bank records, social media and covert surveillance to compare what she’s said with what they can prove. The deeper they look, the harder those two versions of her life are to reconcile.

Get in touch with us [email protected]

Presenter: Rima Ahmed

Dive into a world of bizarre true crimes with brazen criminals that will leave you scratching your head for answers. Rima Ahmed explores audacious heists, secret drugs bunkers and stolen identities with reporters who have lived and breathed these true crime cases.

A Warwickshire couple leave their home and beloved pets in the care of a trusted house sitter while they go on holiday. But when they return, a few strange details suggest something is very wrong. Their home looks tidy, yet small clues begin to raise unsettling questions about what happened while they were away. As they look closer, suspicions grow around the woman they trusted with their keys.

Get in touch with us [email protected]

Presenter: Rima Ahmed

Dive into a world of bizarre true crimes with brazen criminals that will leave you scratching your head for answers. Rima Ahmed explores audacious heists, secret drugs bunkers and stolen identities with reporters who have lived and breathed these true crime cases.

Model and former reality TV star Matt Peacock discovers his photos are being used to create fake dating profiles and catfish women.

What begins as an unsettling case of online identity theft soon becomes far more serious. Women come forward with stories of intimate messages, explicit photos and relationships with a man they believed was Matt.

Fake profiles appear as quickly as Matt can have them removed. So, he teams up with private investigator Rebecca Jane to uncover the person behind the deception. Their investigation leads to a dramatic sting operation and a confrontation with the man who has been impersonating Matt.

Get in touch with us [email protected]

Presenter: Rima Ahmed

Dive into a world of bizarre true crimes with brazen criminals that will leave you scratching your head for answers. Rima Ahmed explores audacious heists, secret drugs bunkers and stolen identities with reporters who have lived and breathed these true crime cases.

Tanya Nasir’s stellar CV lands her a prestigious job on the neonatal unit at the Princess of Wales Hospital. But is she really who she says she is?

Get in touch with us [email protected]

Presenter: Rima Ahmed

Dive into a world of bizarre true crimes with brazen criminals that will leave you scratching your head for answers. Rima Ahmed explores audacious heists, secret drugs bunkers and stolen identities with reporters who have lived and breathed these true crime cases.

Recorded at the 2026 Crossed Wires Festival, Rima Ahmed takes you inside a BBC investigation to catch a catfish.

Ray McDonald is a prolific scammer with a cruel knack for love bombing women and stealing thousands of pounds from them. He’s been jailed numerous times but as soon as he’s out, he’s back on dating apps and looking for his next victim to con.

How do you stop a professional love bomber, like Ray McDonald?

Get in touch with us [email protected]

Presenter: Rima Ahmed

Dive into a world of bizarre true crimes with brazen criminals that will leave you scratching your head for answers. Rima Ahmed explores audacious heists, secret drugs bunkers and stolen identities with reporters who have lived and breathed these true crime cases.

Peter Brooks is a high-flying plastic surgeon and burns specialist. But he has major beef with his fellow plastic surgeon, Graeme Perks. To make matters worse, he’s facing an employment tribunal and Perks is a key witness against him.

Brooks’s career, his life, everything is on the line and he sees no way out. So he plots to take out his rival by burning their house to the ground - whilst they’re inside!

Get in touch with us [email protected]

Presenter: Rima Ahmed

Dive into a world of bizarre true crimes with brazen criminals that will leave you scratching your head for answers. Rima Ahmed explores audacious heists, secret drugs bunkers and stolen identities with reporters who have lived and breathed these true crime cases.