File on 4 Investigates

BBC Radio 4
  • 4.4 (31)
  • DOCUMENTARY
  • UPDATED MONTHLY
File on 4 Investigates

News-making original journalism documentary series, investigating stories at home and abroad.

  1. APR 15

    What’s Happening to Your Vet Bills?

    Pet ownership has rocketed since the covid pandemic, but so have vet prices. In fact, bills have increased by more than 60% in the last ten years. The Competition and Markets Authority is so concerned about the increases it has a launched an investigation into the industry and is due to reveal its findings this year. Datshiane Navanyagam investigates the pet industry and the corporate takeover of high street vets – talking to whistleblowers about how they feel they're being measured on the amount of money they bring in. Reporter: Datshiane Navanayagam Producers: Jim Booth and Tom Wall Technical Producer: Richard Hannaford Production Coordinator: Tim Fernley Editor: Carl Johnston

    39 min

  2. MAR 25

    The Tyre Scandal

    Every year the UK produces around 50 million tyres for disposal. They’re supposed to be sent for recycling. Instead, big money is being made by diverting tyres to illegal and dangerous 'pyrolysis' plants they're melted down to extract oil and steel. File on 4 Investigates, together with a team of journalists from Source Material, a not-for-profit group specialising in climate and corruption, follow the tyres from the UK to India using tracking devices. The team discovers just how large scale this largely illicit business has become. Earlier this year, a makeshift pyrolysis plant exploded near Mumbai, killing four people. It had been processing tyres from abroad, almost certainly Europe and the UK. Reporter Paul Kenyon confronts a tyre trader in the north of England who admits to shipping his waste tyres to India for pyrolysis. Reporter: Paul Kenyon Producer: Anna Meisel Technical producer: Craig Boardman Production coordinator: Tim Fernley Editor: Carl Johnston

    43 min

  3. MAR 11

    Femicide

    At least two women are murdered every week in the UK in a domestic abuse situation. Newspapers often call it a crime of passion. ‘He lost control’. But what if that’s not true? What if there was a blueprint that, if recognised, could save a woman’s life? The Homicide Timeline contains eight stages that track the escalation of a controlling relationship from before a couple even meet right up to homicide. Families often say “I wish I’d known”. This programme will tell them the signs to look out for so that they do know, and can stop it.

    42 min

  4. MAR 4

    Locked up: Woman held in mental health facility for 45 years

    File on 4 Investigates tells the story of Kasibba – a woman locked up as a schoolgirl in a mental health hospital. She languished there for 45 years - despite not being mentally ill. She was finally freed two years ago after the intervention of a rookie psychologist. Reporter Carolyn Atkinson asks why so many autistic people and/or those with a learning disability, including children, are still locked up and why successive governments have failed to meet their promises to move people from hospital to home. Reporter: Carolyn Atkinson Producer: Ben Robinson Technical Producer: Nicky Edwards Production Coordinator: Tim Fernley Editor: Carl Johnston

    38 min

  5. FEB 25

    Generation K: Kids on Ketamine

    File on 4 Investigates goes to Burnley in Lancashire to meet the young people and their families as they grapple with a ketamine epidemic. Used in human and veterinary medicine as an anaesthetic, experts say the drug is being used by increasing numbers of young people because it's cheap, easy to obtain and fashionable. But the health implications can be catastrophic - even fatal. It can cause mental health problems and irreversible bladder and kidney damage. Reporter Jane Deith hears from the Burnley vicar who has had to set up a support group for desperate parents; families whose children have experienced addiction, grooming, abuse and ill health and a young man who is being forced to undergo gruelling medical treatment for what’s known as “ketamine bladder”. Reporter: Jane Deith Producers: Jill Collins and Nicola Dowling Technical producer: Richard Hannaford Production coordinator: Tim Fernley Editor: Carl Johnston

    43 min

  6. JAN 28

    Abramovich, the Yachts and the Tax Dodge

    With the billions he made at the expense of Russian taxpayers, Roman Abramovich bought six luxury superyachts over the years. Among them were the 162-metre-long Eclipse, with swimming pools, helipads and a missile defence system - and the Pelorus - sometimes lent to Chelsea footballers. They could each cost up to one and a half million dollars just to re-fuel. If they’d been declared as being for his own personal use, VAT would have been payable on costs like that. Instead, for more than a decade, tax authorities were led to believe the superyachts were being rented out to commercial customers. Financial investigations correspondent Andy Verity working with The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and The Guardian discovers that the firms renting the boats ultimately belonged to a trust held by - Roman Abramovich. Under the scheme devised for him, the sanctioned oligarch was hiring out his superyachts - to himself. Mr Abramovich has denied either directing or knowing of any deception. Reporter: Andy Verity Producer: Paul Grant Editor: Richard Vadon

    43 min

  7. JAN 14

    Cannabis Kids: The parents breaking the law to help their children with epilepsy

    Tens of thousands of children and young people across the UK suffer from severe forms of epilepsy which are resistant to treatment. For those with intractable epilepsy the options for treatment are limited and the risk of a catastrophic seizure is very real. But a growing body of evidence has pointed to cannabis having a positive effect on preventing seizures even in people who don't respond to other drugs. In 2018, medicinal cannabis was legalised following a high profile campaign led by parents of children with intractable epilepsy. They hoped the change in the law would lead to the drug becoming widely available on the NHS. But more than six years later File on 4 Investigates has discovered families going to extreme lengths to access a drug they say is keeping their children alive. Reporter Alastair Fee meets families who claim they have been forced to give their children illegal cannabis sourced online and follows others who regularly break the law importing medicine from the Netherlands.

    43 min

  8. JAN 7

    Bad Medicine: Inside the hospital trust at centre of a police investigation

    Michael Buchanan examines why the University Hospitals Sussex NHS trust, once considered one of England’s best, has now got the largest number of patients waiting over 18 months for treatment. On top of this there is a growing police investigation into allegations of poor care. Rporter: Michael Buchanan Producer: Charlotte Rowles Technical Producer: Richard Hannaford Production Coordinator: Tim Fernley Editor: Richard Vadon

    43 min
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    Ratings & Reviews

    4.4
    out of 5
    31 Ratings

    About

    News-making original journalism documentary series, investigating stories at home and abroad.

    Information

    • Creator
      BBC Radio 4
    • Years Active
      2005 - 2025
    • Episodes
      451
    • Rating
      Explicit
    • Copyright
      © (C) BBC 2025
    • Show Website
      File on 4 Investigates

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