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BBC Radio 4

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

File on 4

File on 4 Investigates reveals new data showing a significant rise in housing disrepair claims, now a growing market for unscrupulous No Win No Fee lawyers. Adrian Goldberg asks, has the Solicitors Regulation Authority learned its lessons from the collapse of the law firm SSB which left hundreds of householders with huge legal bills, and are they able to protect vulnerable social housing tenants from potentially risky NWNF claims? 

File on 4 Investigates have been told by 5 major housing providers across England and Wales that housing disrepair claims have been growing significantly. 

One social housing provider in the South of England with an estate of 85,000 homes has told us its seen a 375% rise in the number of legal claims launched by tenants in the last 5 years. We speak to John Golding, a 74 year old pensioner living in a housing association flat in Staffordshire about how a canvasser knocking on his door tried to pressurise him into pursuing a housing disrepair claim with a Manchester based No Win No Fee solicitors' firm.

Reporter: Adrian Goldberg
Producer: Jim Booth
Additional research: Laura Longworth
Technical Producers: Richard Hannaford & Cameron Ward
Production Coordinator: Tim Fernley
Editor: Tara McDermott

No Win No Fee... No thanks?

Do you give homeless people cash? Many people fear any donation will be misspent but a ground-breaking study in the UK is currently recruiting 125 homeless people to receive a large one-off cash payment, paid directly to them. There's no restrictions on what they can buy with the money. It can be used for anything, it’s entirely up to the individual how they choose to spend it. The aim of the project is to see if it will help people move on from homelessness for good. With exclusive access to the ongoing study, Michael Buchanan follows some of those who’ve been given the cash to see how the money is being spent and what impact it‘s having on their lives.

Reporter: Michael Buchanan 
Producers: Emma Forde and Rob Byrne 
Editor: Tara McDermott
Production Coordinator: Tim Fernley

Can cash grants help end homelessness?

Industrial firefighting foams are an essential part of on-site safety in UK factories. But for decades some of these familiar canisters contained potentially dangerous, toxic chemicals. 

File on 4 Investigates discovers that 3M the multi-billion dollar chemical company responsible for producing the chemicals knew about the risks as early as the 1960s because their own internal studies on animals and tests on workers indicated a possible increase in rates of cancer. Despite this, the company failed to warn its workers of the dangers associated with using the foams for decades and was involved in an environmental accident at one of its sites that led to the chemicals being released into a Welsh river.

The programme obtained never seen before documents showing the regulator warning the company it thought it had committed an offence but choosing not to prosecute it.

In 2004, with evidence of the risks to the environment of the two specific forever chemicals PFOS and PFOA, a report commissioned by the government recommended any remaining firefighting foams containing the chemicals be incinerated. But we discover in the years after that companies struggled to dispose of legacy stock of foams, and, appearing unaware of the unofficial advice, discharged them straight into the sewer with no treatment, in one case with permission from the water company.

3M said that the health and safety of its workers and their families were “critical priorities" for the company.

Reporter: Esme Stallard
Producer: Anna Meisel
Technical Producer: Richard Hannaford
Production Coordinator: Tim Fernley
Editor: Tara McDermott

Firefighting's forever chemical legacy

Anne Dyer is a trailblazer - becoming the first female Bishop in the Scottish Episcopal Church when she was appointed more than seven years ago. But since then, accusations of bullying and misconduct have dominated her period in charge - even for a time leading to her suspension and calls for her resignation. 

Bishop Dyer denies any wrongdoing, while the church itself acknowledges there are deep wounds within the diocese of Aberdeen and Orkney. 

Now File on 4 Investigates has discovered new complaints against the bishop, which she says are "totally without merit".

Reporter: Steve Swann
Producer: Fergus Hewison
Editor: Tara McDermott 
Production Coordinator: Tim Fernley
Technical Producer: Richard Hannaford

An unholy row over bishop accused of bullying.

File on 4 Investigates discovers a world of lies and blame within adoption in the UK. The BBC has conducted the most extensive Freedom of Information request ever into adoptions that have broken down, finding that more than 1,000 adopted children in the UK have returned to care in the past five years. That is much higher than the figure in a recent government report - but the true number is likely to be even larger, as only a third of authorities said they collected this data as standard practice. Some adoptive parents say they’ve been given so little support that they’ve been forced to return their children to the care system. 

This programme explores the scale of the crisis as we hear from parents pushed to the limit, a teenager returned to care and a social worker giving a rare view of the system from the inside.

Producer: Ashley Kennedy & Claire Kendall
Reporter: Judith Moritz
Sound designer: Richard Hannaford
Production coordinator: Hattie Valentine
Editor: Tara McDermott

(Photo: Close-up portrait of couple Verity & Ian standing outdoors. Credit: Brij Patel)

Details of advice and support with adoption are available at www.bbc.co.uk/actionline

Adoption: The Blame Game

Multi cancer detection tests or MCDs can detect many cancers through a simple blood test. Many detect fragments of cancerous DNA that have broken off a tumour and are circulating in the blood. They can often then identify where the cancer may be.
 
The NHS is currently involved in the words largest trial of one such test. The Galleri test is made by US firm Grail and the company says its mission is to detect cancer early when it can be cured. Heavyweight investors include Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.

More than 140,000 volunteers took part in the trial and the results will be known next year. If successful, the test may be rolled out further. 

File on 4 Investigates looks at how effective such tests are and whether the trial will show it can save lives.

Medical journalist Deb Cohen speaks to one woman whose cancer was found by the test and successfully treated. But she also hears from firefighters in America - where it's available to the public - who say it missed some cancers and some people who got a positive result were found not to have the disease after undergoing diagnostic procedures - a so called false positive.

With many hospitals trusts missing cancer treatment targets, what is the best way forward for the NHS to improve outcomes.

Reporter: Deb Cohen
Producer: Paul Grant
Technical producer: Craig Boardman
Production co-ordinator: Tim Fernley 
Editor: Tara McDermott

Multi-Cancer Testing - Hype or Hope?

An ambitious plan to digitalize the courts was meant to remove the need for hundreds of thousands of paper documents. But File on 4 Investigates has discovered an IT system, introduced as part of a £1bn project, has been plagued with technical faults - causing crucial information to go missing, be overwritten, or appear lost. 

The government body that runs the courts in England and Wales has now checked hundreds of thousands of benefit and child support appeals to identify if any were affected by missing evidence. But sources say the IT bug was known about for years before action was taken.

Original journalism by Alys Harte.
Reporter: Datshiane Navanayagam.
Producers: Lorna Acquah, Fergus Hewison.
Editor: Tara McDermott.
Technical Producer: Nicky Edwards.
Production Co-ordinator: Tim Fernley.

The IT bug that's caused chaos in the courts

File on Four explores the risks some gay men are taking by habitually mixing their sex lives with drug use. The practice, known as Chemsex has been on the gay scene for more than a decade. It involves taking illegal and addictive substances like Crystal Meth and GHB.
 
While the programme hears from some who say they can manage their use and it heightens their sexual pleasure, others are falling into destructive patterns of addiction, decline and even death.
 
Reporter Mobeen Azhar tries to assess the scale of the problem and hears from medical professionals who fear it could be a crisis that’s going under the radar. 

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar
Producer: Alex Collins
Sound: Nicky Edwards
Production Coordinator: Tim Fernley
Editor: Nick Holland

Chemsex: Hidden Pleasures, Hidden Harms

File on 4 Investigates examines the scale of problem gambling in the armed forces and the devastating impact on those serving, veterans and their families. 

A new study seen exclusively by the team reveals nearly half of naval trainees who gambled were at risk of harm. This latest research builds on a growing body of evidence that points to a hidden problem across the forces that’s on the rise. 

We ask if the MOD is aware of the challenge and if it’s doing enough to help those in need.

Reporter: Alastair Fee
Producers: Jim Booth 
Technical Producer: Craig Boardman
Production Coordinator: Tim Fernley
Editor: Tara McDermott

High Stakes: Gambling in the armed forces

When journalist Georgie Styles is sent unpublished videos of farm workers in Britain being ‘treated like animals’, she begins to investigate the dark side of our food system.

She uncovers numerous referrals of labour exploitation, and hears allegations of workers living in moldy caravans, being trafficked, verbally abused and forced to urinate in bottles.

Her year-long investigation goes from farm workers to our favourite supermarkets.

With gripping first-person testimony, unheard recordings and new documents, this File on Four documentary makes you think about the food in front of you in a new way.

Presenter: Georgie Styles
Producers: Georgie Styles and Dan Ashby
Sound Design: Jarek Zaba
Executive Producer: Philip Abrams
Commissioning Editor: Hugh Levinson

Abused For Our Food is a Smoke Trail production for BBC Radio 4 and was produced as part of the Bertha Challenge Fellowship.

Abused for Our Food

To the west of Edinburgh, construction of the new £1.5bn Forth road bridge will use steel from Poland, Spain and China. 
A local steel plant near Motherwell lost out as part of a consortium bidding for the work. It says the contract could have secured hundreds of local jobs.
Officials insist that they have to follow EU rules which state that any company across the single market can bid for public contracts. But analysts complain that UK authorities interpret these rules more narrowly than their European counterparts, to the detriment of British firms. French public spending goes outside France at only half the rate that British contracts go abroad.
With the economy struggling, the Government has pledged support for British business but accepts that public projects are too often awarded in a way that disadvantages domestic companies. So can it take action to support UK jobs without being accused of protectionism?

Reporter: Gerry Northam
Producer: Gail Champion.

A Bridge Too Far?

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