There was a catalogue of police mistakes, police crimes, and a belief the Met was rotten. Then the inquiries, reports, and apology after apology.

And yet still the head of the Metropolitan Police Service, Dame Cressida Dick, stayed in place. Until last week.

Today, Simon Israel, our former Senior Home Affairs correspondent, looks back at the tenure of Dame Cressida Dick and the long journey to change the culture in the Met Police and discusses whether the canteen culture that has been revealed over the past few years, can really be weeded out.

Boris Johnson has announced that all Covid rules could be scrapped next week in England, but with daily Covid cases still high and millions of people still unvaccinated, how should scientists and the government talk to those who are hesitant to get the coronavirus jab? 

On today’s episode we speak to David Halpern, Chief Executive of the Behavioural Insights Team, about why some people have not yet had the Covid vaccine. 

We also ask him what more the government could do to ensure as many people as possible get the jab, and why people in some countries have adhered to Covid rules better than in others.

Image based abuse, so-called ‘revenge porn’, can be soul-destroying for victim-survivors, leaving them feeling violated and humiliated.

 

The government says the new Online Safety Bill will make the UK ‘the safest place in the world to be online’ but critics argue that it’s not clear or robust enough to stop abusers.

 

Minnie Stephenson has been speaking to victims and finding out why so few abusers face prosecution.

For weeks and weeks, there has been tension on the border between Russia and Ukraine, with both sides accusing the other of aggression.

But after all this time, talk and tanks, what’s the truth: is war coming ?

Paraic O’Brien explains the views from the border, and tries to figure out the facts from the fiction as world leaders continue to figure out a way through this geopolitical drama.

In the summer of 2021 desperate people in Kabul tried to board the last flights out of the Afghan capital as the Taliban took control.

 

At that time, a man called Pen Farthing was fighting to get the staff from his animal charity and 150 animals on a plane out.

 

After a public campaign for help from the public and the government, a plane suddenly left Kabul taking the animals and Pen Farthing to safety.

 

But how did they manage to get out when so many were left behind? And was the Prime Minister involved?

 

Sources: Sky News, Metro, LBC, GMB

Rape is being used as a deliberate weapon in the civil war in Ethiopia. 

 

Thousands have been killed in massacres, thousands more have fled and countless women and girls have been violently raped. 

 

Today, we speak to our Africa correspondent Jamal Osman about the stories he’s uncovered from this ongoing civil war that gets so little coverage - and we talk to Donatella Rovera, a senior investigator at Amnesty International, about whether justice will ever come to those whose lives have been scarred forever. 

 

Warning: this episode contains distressing content and accounts of rape. 

 

If you’ve been affected by the detail in this podcast, you can seek help by going to channel 4.com/support

For weeks, Westminster has been waiting for the Sue Gray report. How many parties? Was Boris Johnson there? Was ABBA played? After all that time, we’ve only got 12 pages. But there’s a Met Police investigation to come and maybe more from Sue Gray herself.

Our political editor Gary Gibbon looks back at the week that was in Westminster.

Sources: BBC News, ITV News

With inflation rates in the UK at a 30 year high, energy bills set to increase at a record rate in April, how is the government responding to the cost of living crisis? 

And why could Russia’s potential invasion of Ukraine mean we have to pay higher gas bills in the UK?

On today’s Fourcast, we speak to our Business and Global Trade Correspondent, Paul McNamara, about why the UK’s cost of living is soaring, meaning many people are having to choose between heating or eating.

Sources: DW News, Bloomberg, BBC News

The day the statue of Edward Colston fell in June 2020 was a defining moment for Bristol.

It was also a defining moment for Britain’s relationship with its past as well as its approach to protest.

Recently, the four people accused of causing criminal damage to the statue were acquitted. To some it was justice, to others it represented a system that’s flawed.

In today’s podcast, our Home Affairs Correspondent Andy Davies details the legacy of Colston and the government’s response to the statue’s toppling.

And we hear from one of the Colston Four themselves as well as the former Lord Mayor of Bristol about the pivotal moment in the city’s history.

Sources: BBC Breakfast, ITV News

A coroner’s report this week identified “very serious and very basic investigative failings” by the Metropolitan Police over the investigations into the killing of four young men by the serial killer Stephen Port between 2014 and 2015.

 

Police repeatedly missed opportunities that might have stopped Port.

 

The families of his victims said they were “incensed” that the jury had not been allowed to consider whether homophobia might have played a role in police failings.

 

In today’s episode, correspondent Minnie Stephenson details what went wrong and how innocent men died.

 

Sources: BBC News