app_store_button

google_play_button

DK - Details page - Device banner - 894x1036

Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst 

BBC Radio 4

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

File on 4

A Romanian Ransom uncovers one of the Cold War's strangest secrets - a covert trade in which Jewish lives were bought and sold for livestock and cash. In 1958, MI5 agents watch pigs being loaded onto a plane in Hertfordshire, bound for Communist Romania. The man behind it, Henry Jakober, was a London livestock trader with hidden ties to Romanian intelligence.

The documentary follows Andrea Bernard and Radu Horaud, two children raised in communist Romania, where Jews faced decades of persecution, from the wartime Holocaust through Ceaușescu's secret police. Both hid their Jewish identity growing up, and both were separated from their parents, who defected to the West. Their reunions, in Tel Aviv and Paris, hinged on a name neither had heard before - Jakober.

Historians and the families reveal how Jakober brokered exit visas for desperate Romanian Jews, paid for with pigs, cattle, and farm equipment, later escalating to cash running into millions. Mossad, alarmed at first, ultimately co-opted the scheme, and Ceaușescu expanded it into an industrial operation, selling around 100,000 Jewish lives for tens of millions of dollars, while his secret police profited from the proceeds.

The documentary wrestles with Jakober's legacy - a Schindler-like rescuer, or a profiteer trading in human freedom? Through testimony and declassified files, we trace the moral complexity of a scheme that reunited families while treating them as commodities.

A Message Heard Media production for BBC Radio 4

A Romanian Ransom

The quality of maternity care in hospitals across the country has been in the spotlight following a series of scandals. On File on 4 Investigates families allege serious failings of care at the Countess of Chester maternity unit - the same hospital where neonatal nurse Lucy Letby was convicted of murdering and attempting to murder 14 babies. 

We speak to families about their experiences and ask what implications the quality of maternity care could have had on the Letby case.

Presenter: Stephanie Hegarty
Producer: Ben Robinson
Production Co-ordinators: Tom Dunster and Tim Fernley
Technical Producer: Nicky Edwards
Editor: Tara McDermott 

Details of organisations offering information and support with traumatic birth or child bereavement are available on the pregnancy related issues page at www.bbc.co.uk/actionline

Letby Hospital: Maternity failings at the Countess of Chester

Whistleblower Simon Andriesz reveals how he unearthed evidence that US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick had failed to disclose a business relationship with the paedophile financier, Jeffrey Epstein. The British broker, who worked at one of Lutnick’s Wall Street firms, made the discovery in the Epstein files, some of which were released earlier this year. 

Mr Andriesz also speaks for the first time about the personal cost of disclosing what was going on inside one of the companies then run by Howard Lutnick and his decade-long battle with courts and regulators. And he reveals how Mr Lutnick's firm was keen to agree a $1m deal with the former Prince Andrew for introductions to wealthy individuals and sovereign institutions. 

This programme has been edited since it was first released to correct errors in dates. 

Presenter: Andy Verity
Producer: Rob Byrne
Production Co-ordinators: Tom Dunster & Tim Fernley
Technical Producer: Cameron Ward
Editor: Tara McDermott

Epstein Files: Lutnick, the Royals and the British Whistleblower

File on 4 Investigates concerns about how some strict discipline measures are being implemented in schools across England. 

We discovered students internally excluded for around 20% of their lesson time, and some much longer. The Outwood Grange Academy in Wakefield put one pupil in an isolation booth for more than half of the academic year. 

We hear from a mother in Devon whose son Taylor took his own life, weeks after he’d expressed his frustration at what he saw as his school, Ivybridge Community College’s punitive and illogical rules. 

Presenter: Jane Deith
Producer: Anna Meisel
Production Co-ordinators: Tim Fernley & Tom Dunster
Technical Producer: Cameron Ward
Editor: Tara McDermott

This programme contains reference to suicide and self harm. 

If you've been affected by some of the issues raised in this programme you can find out more about organisations that can help by going to www.bbc.co.uk/actionline.

Strict schools: Taking discipline too far?

File on 4 Investigates how Immigration Enforcement officers are tackling sham marriages. Claire Jones follows Home Office officials as they apprehend people entering into, and organising fake marriages in order to circumvent the UK’s immigration laws. She discovers details of criminal gangs charging people up to £30,000 for a partner and 'marriage pack', a set of photos and documents designed to create a convincing back story of the fake relationship. After File on 4 Investigates asked the Home Office why more statistics are not available on suspected fake marriages, they have now committed to regularly publishing these numbers 'in due course'. 

Presenter: Claire Jones
Producer: Ashley Kennedy
Editor: Tara McDermott
Production Co-ordinators: Tim Fernley & Tom Dunster
Technical Producer: Richard Hannaford

Fake Marriages - The real story

The Church of England is confronting difficult questions over a £100 million fund to address its historic links to slavery. Aleem Maqbool hears from clergy, historians and politicians as he explores the arguments over reparations, responsibility and whether the Church can make amends for sins of the past.

Presenter: Aleem Maqbool
Producers: Hayley Mortimer & Catherine Wyatt
Technical Producer: Cameron Ward
Production Co-ordinators: Tom Dunster & Tim Fernley
Editor: Tara McDermott

Sins of the past: Should the Church of England pay for its links to slavery?

Liv Nervo is one of the world’s most successful female DJs, who along with her twin sister, make up NERVO. She was starting a family with a man she believed was the love of her life - but at six months pregnant, she discovered he had been living a double life. She says she entered the relationship under false pretences and wouldn't have consented to sex had she known the truth about his other relationship.

What happened to her reveals an intense debate about consent, the law and a lesser-known form of domestic abuse called reproductive coercion.

G for guidance - this programme contains strong language.

Presenter: Alys Harte
Producer: Ben Robinson
Technical Producer: Nicky Edwards
Production Manager: Tom Dunster
Editor: Tara McDermott

Tricked into pregnancy? The Liv Nervo story

Hair Strand Tests can show if parents have been using drink or drugs. Such tests play can a central part in Family Court hearings every year as judges decide whether children should go into care or not. Some barristers have been raising the alarm over the way the tests are presented and interpreted in the Famly Court. And, for the first time, File on 4 Investigates talks to mothers who nearly lost their babies – thanks to hair strand tests.

Presenter: Sanchia Berg
Senior Producer: Anna Meisel
Producer: Mary O'Reilly
Technical Producer: Kelly Young
Production Co-ordinator: Tim Fernley
Editor: Tara McDermott

Image: Lead Senior Scientist Dr Ellie Menzies carrying out a hair strand test

Hair Strand Tests in the Family Court

As the government plans major reform of the England's Special Educational Needs system, File on 4 Investigates goes back to the floor, spending time with councils as funding decisions are made and with families trying to navigate a system in flux. 

From home-schoolers in Whitley Bay to getting on board a school bus in Hackney, we'll hear about the challenges of delivering services to tens of thousands of children with SEN each year. As the number of young people who need extra support rises how will Councils balance their books? 

Over a hundred schools have closed in England in the last five years. Analysis by the BBC’s Data team has shown that pupils with special educational needs have been disproportionately affected by school closures. These pupils made up 29% of those whose school has closed, which is higher than the national average. 

We'll hear how the disruption of a school closing can affect those with additional needs, and their families.

Presenter: Hayley Clarke
Producer: Nicola Dowling
Technical Producer: Craig Boardman
Production Co-ordinator: Tim Fernley
Editor: Tara McDermott

(Thanks also to the BBC News Data Journalism team)

Adding Up: How Councils meet the costs of Special Educational Needs

Police have dealt with scores of cases involving home-made 3D printed guns in the UK in the last three years. Data obtained by File on 4 Investigates from the National Crime Agency shows that criminals and extremists have attempted to manufacture the weapons. 

We hear from police who successfully prosecuted a group who had manufactured printed firearms to sell on to criminal gangs. As Adrian Goldberg asks, how much of a threat are these printed weapons in the UK and what can be done to deter people from making them?

Producer: Paul Grant
Technical Producers: Cameron Ward & Nicky Edwards
Production Co-ordinator: Tim Fernley
Editor: Tara McDermott

Epstein Files: Lutnick, the Royals and the British Whistleblower

Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst

Other podcasts you might like ...