The Untold

Grace Dent tells the story of a maverick lawyer and his attempt to win asylum for a Pakistani man who says that - because he's gay - he will be persecuted if returned to Pakistan.

Mike McGarvey is the lawyer: He's eccentric, disorganised and very dyslexic; he failed at school and didn't pursue education until his adult years. He runs his own business which is based in a small suite of offices near the main station in Cardiff. One wall in his office has a distinctive collage of pictures from Disney, Star Wars and the Blues Brothers: things that are 'designed to cheer me up' because 'nearly everyone who comes here tells you they're going to be killed'.

We follow Mike for five months as he tries to find ways to prove that his client is indeed gay. This involves mining his phone for evidence of activity on gay dating sites, and seeking witnesses who will be prepared to say in court that they had a relationship with him.

Producer: Karen Gregor.

Kira is an 18 year old Gloucester teenager who has just got her A level grades. The only girl from her school to be offered a place at Cambridge University, Kira is meant to be off to read history at the end of September.

But she is a carer for Rachel, her mum.

Rachel is bipolar, diabetic and arthritic. Virtually bedroom bound, she is heavily dependent upon Kira. Although hugely proud of her daughter, Rachel is not sure how she will cope if her daughter leaves.

Kira is keen for a new start. Perceived to be the poor kid at school, her teenage years were not particularly happy. And caring each evening for her mum, means parties, sleepovers and teenage freedoms have somewhat passed her by.

But Kira is consumed by worry and guilt.

Can she find a way to leave her mother and if she did, would she actually enjoy life as a Cambridge undergraduate?

Narrated by Grace Dent and produced by Sarah Bowen.

17-year old Rachel Carstairs speaks and sings in Doric. It's a dialect not commonly used outside Rachel's native north-east Scotland, but she has grown up unusually steeped in local folk traditions.

She started singing the area's unique traditional farm-worker's songs, known as 'Bothy Ballads', aged just 4, when she entered a music festival competition.

This is why her music teachers now see her as an exciting 'tradition bearer'; with the potential to be a leading voice in the Scottish folk scene's next generation.

But before that can happen, she has just 15-minutes to impress an audition panel at the world renowned Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Will she take her place at Scottish traditional music's top table?

Producer: Dave Howard.

Rob Lawrie first met four year old Bru and her father when he volunteered at the Calais jungle. He ended up on trial in a French court after being arrested trying to get the girl to her relatives in Leeds. With the jungle demolished his search to find out what's happened to them takes him to the streets of Paris.

There are thousands of refugees sleeping rough in Paris and as the police step up their efforts to clear the makeshift camps from the streets, Rob Lawrie focuses on the Afghan refugees, finding out what's been happening to them and also whether they know where Bru and her Dad have ended up.

The Untold first reported on Rob Lawrie's work with the refugees earlier this year, with listeners alongside him as he awaited trial in France. He was given a suspended sentence following his attempt to smuggle Bru across the border in his van. He had been taking donations of clothes to the Calais jungle and her father had begged him to take the little girl to relatives living close to his own home in Leeds.

Listeners moved by the story sent in money and letters of support for Bru and her Dad, who described their long trek to safety after fleeing Afghanistan. In Paris Rob hears from many others who have made that same journey, including Ali, who lost his leg in a Taliban bomb blast. He describes being wedged into a small gap under a lorry and travelling for 36 hours just inches from the ground. He, along with so many others, are now waiting to see what happens next as Europe wrestles with the growing refugee crisis.

Twenty three year old May Brown needs a bone marrow transplant to survive: her sister's a perfect match but she lives in Nigeria and has been refused a visitors visa to enter the UK. For May and her husband, Mike, the Home Office decision is a huge set-back. They had their hopes resting on the transplant and fear what will happen next. There are no other matches for May on the register kept by the African and Caribbean Leukaemia Trust, where staff have mounted a social media campaign to challenge the Government's decision.

The Home Office reasoning is that May's sister, Martha, doesn't meet the income threshold for a visitor's visa - as a teacher her wages are only around £200 a month. For Orin Lewis, from the ACLT, this overlooks the compassionate grounds which he is urging the Minister to take into account. Grace Dent tracks May's private fight against acute myeloid leukaemia alongside the public pressure for a reversal of the decision

May is in an isolation unit in the hospital at the start of the recordings and hasn't seen her two year old daughter, Selina, for three months. With her chemotherapy underway she is discharged to be seen as an outpatient and goes back to Weymouth to be with Mike and Selina. The couple's marriage was investigated for more than two years before immigration officers were satisfied that it was genuine. Now it's another waiting game as the case for allowing Martha in is reconsidered: Grace Dent tracks what happens next.

Grace Dent follows Untold listener Shirley as she tries to find out the exact circumstances of her estranged son's death from drinks and drugs.

Shirley had just arrived at work when she got a phone call which changed her life - the student finance company wanted her son's death certificate for their records. Six months previously Ben, who was sleeping rough, had disappeared - but Shirley had no idea he'd died.

Shirley needs to know more about her son's death. Three years on, she hopes to meet the rough sleeper who was with him when he died - and visit the drop-in centre which tried to help him.

Producer: Sara Parker.

Mark Godwin has a problem. "A lot of the animals don't really like me. I'm usually the bad news person - if something bad's going to happen, I turn up."

The rhinos do seem to like him, but now he has to move one of them on the back of lorry around the M25. Astrid is a celebrity rhino, a bit of a diva they say. When she was born even the Prime Minister came to pay his respects. But now Astrid is three years old she has to be moved, or her dad Monty could try to mount her. But Astrid won't even go in her crate.

Grace Dent introduces a zoo tale with a difference, featuring a blunt speaking keeper just trying to do his job.

The producer is Miles Warde.

With Grace Dent.

Since leaving the army, John’s never slept in his bed. He barely sleeps at all, but when he does, it’s on the floor of the living room in the sheltered accommodation for army veterans suffering post-traumatic stress disorder - PTSD.

Now it’s closing. And John has no idea what to do. He fears he could end up on the streets.

John left school at 16 and trained as a bricklayer, but after a fortnight of work being rained off and his girlfriend breaking up with him, he headed to the army careers office to sign up. He was 18 and went on to serve in Northern Ireland and both Gulf wars. It’s been 20 years since he left, but he hasn’t been able to move on.

Like the other war veterans in the house in Wolverhampton where he lives, PTSD has scarred his life. In the past decade he has shut out friends and family. Panic attacks, injuries sustained in service and drug addiction have left him unable to work, and he has served prison sentences. And now he is about to lose his home – purpose-built accommodation for army veterans with mental health issues. He fears he’ll end up on the streets.

Grace Dent follows John as he tries to arrange somewhere to live, and as he makes the first tentative steps towards reconnecting with old friends and family, seeking help, and starting to live again.

Producer Georgia Catt

In the Northumberland fishing village of Newbiggin by the Sea, local ice cream van owner Tommy Brash has lost the prime spot in the car park for selling ice creams. The council put it out to tender, and the tender was won by 'foreigners'. Variously described as Polish and then Iraqi, it seems no one actually knows who they are, and they've kept a low profile since winning the tender, even though the news made the headlines.

A local petition is launched to get Tommy's patch back, a march is held, but the newcomers are staying.

Tracking them down for this programme, we discover who the new ice cream sellers really are and follow them over the summer as they battle local hostility, rain, Brexit and health issues.

As they prepare for Newbiggin's big annual event, the Lifeboat fund-raiser - a sure-fire money-spinner, will they finally make their new business a success and will they get the welcome they're looking for?

Grace Dent presents.

Producer: Alice Lloyd.

Sherrie Smith, a florist and Romany Gypsy from Hertford, wants to take the first ever UK Gypsy and Traveller group to an annual Holocaust memorial event at Auschwitz-Birkenau. She sees it as vital for getting up to half a million Roma deaths more widely acknowledged, and - by extension - improving the lives of modern day Gypsies and Travellers. But the cost of flights has tripled and Sherrie's meagre budget means it might no longer be possible. Can she raise the extra funds to get the trip back on track? Grace Dent follows her story.

Producer Dave Howard.