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BBC Radio 4

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

File on 4

There are over 6,000 abandoned lead mines across the UK leaking hundreds of tons of metals into our rivers each year. With climate change causing an increase in flooding, contamination is likely to get worse. Is this lead ending up in our food chain, water system and blood?

Presented by Lucy Taylor and Dan Ashby
Producers: Pūlama Kaufman and Kelly Windsor Burgin
Researcher: Charlie West

A Bite Your Tongue production for BBC Radio 4

Rivers of Lead

File on 4 Investigates reveals how surgeons had raised concerns about a faulty replacement knee eight years before its US manufacturer finally decided to withdraw it from use.

Knee replacement surgery is one of the most common operations carried out by the NHS, with over 100,000 procedures carried out each year. It’s a surgical success story - but things can go wrong. 

Around 10,000 problematic 'NexGen' knee implants, made by the US medical tech giant Zimmer Biomet, were fitted into UK patients over the past decade or so, until they were withdrawn in 2022. 

But File on 4 Investigates exclusively reveals that warnings were given to both the company and the government regulator eight years before the product was recalled. 

Reporter Adrian Goldberg talks to patients who had to endure the agony of new corrective surgery and orthopaedic surgeons whose reputations were thrown into doubt.

Reporter: Adrian Goldberg
Producer: Jim Booth
Story and Development Producer: Nazrin Wilkinson 
Technical Producer: Nicky Edwards
Production Coordinator: Tim Fernley
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Image: Deborah Booker following her knee replacement operation in 2016

My Faulty Knee Replacement

Psychedelics are having a moment — hailed as miracle cures for depression, PTSD and addiction. But what happens when the trip doesn’t end?

In Trip Shocked, writer and researcher Ed Prideaux takes a hard look at the risks lurking in the psychedelic renaissance. Drawing on his own long-term side effects from LSD, Ed explores a hidden history of harms: from persistent hallucinations and underground support groups to therapy sessions that crossed the line.

As billionaires, biotech firms and media stars race to mainstream psychedelics, are we ignoring inconvenient truths about safety, science and consent?

Producer: Nadia Mehdi
A Tempo+Talker production for BBC Radio 4

Trip Shocked

In We Are Not A Conspiracy School, Darryl Morris sets out to meet the people behind HOPE Sussex, a community of home educators founded during the pandemic. 

On a sprawling site in the East Sussex countryside, a number of families gather to learn together, away from the mainstream. What’s taught there is contested. The media has called it a “conspiracy school", but the founders say it’s a community centre that encourages critical thinking. 

What are people actually doing there? And in a world where shared beliefs have fractured, and more are turning away from the mainstream, why do they feel a community like theirs is needed? 

Producer: Louisa Adams
Sound Design: Craig Edmondson
Executive Producer: Ailsa Rochester
An Audio Always production for BBC Radio 4

We Are Not a Conspiracy School

When the parent of a patient in a psychiatric hospital questioned why he couldn’t see CCTV footage of an incident involving his son it led to a series of extraordinary discoveries.
Glynn Brown was told that cameras had never been switched on despite being present throughout wards at Muckamore Abbey Hospital, in Northern Ireland.
In fact, the cameras had been recording for six months without staff knowing. In all, they captured 300,000 hours of footage which is reported to show appalling abuse and cruelty against patients – many of whom are non-verbal and have complex needs. File on 4 Investigates has spent months examining what happened and highlights how – eight years on from the discovery – no criminal cases have yet come to trial. It also considers why the scandal has not drawn more public outrage, and what lessons are being learned to protect patients elsewhere?

Reporter: Noel Titheradge
Producer: Fergus Hewison
Technical Producer: Nicky Edwards
Production Coordinator: Tim Fernley
Editor: Richard Vadon

Hospital abuse caught on camera

Nine in ten people in the UK who buy a car use finance. The sector is the second largest lender to consumers in the UK after mortgages. But the industry is bracing itself for a Supreme Court judgement which could see lenders forced to pay out tens of billions in compensation for selling deals with 'secret' commissions. File on 4 Investigates hears from industry insiders and those who tried to raise the alarm on a scandal that some believe could rival PPI.

Reporter: Helen Catt
Producer: Phil Kemp
Technical Producer: Nicky Edwards
Production Coordinator: Tim Fernley
Editor: Lisa Baxter

Car finance

A deep-dive into the new generation of get-rich-quick gurus and the social media smoke and mirrors some use to shield themselves from criticism. This investigation uncovers the tactics used by some TikTok landlords and online ‘finfluencers’ who use the promise of property riches to sell advice and training to people hungry to make fast money and break free of the rat race.

Thriving in a largely unregulated social media ecosystem, it highlights the intersection of disinformation, influencer culture and power dynamics, showing how unchecked behaviour has far-reaching implications for society and democracy.

When journalist Will Coldwell wrote a long form article about his investigation into property trainer Samuel Leeds, he had hoped that highlighting some of what he saw as the guru’s hard sell tactics and sharing the stories of some of his unhappy customers might lead to him having to change his methods.

But Samuel Leeds, ever keen to tell his own story, co-opted the article and claimed it as a victory - amplifying his own name and brand further.

The report incorporates a full response from Samuel Leeds - who strenuously denies using hard sell tactics or that he seeks to suppress criticism – and maintains that his methods are legitimate and work for his many happy customers.

This is the story of the immersive power of the influencer ecosystem and the invincibility of the personalities that dominate it. It is a story about the limitations of traditional journalism to cut through the content. It is a story about why this investigation isn’t going to work.

Producer: Louise Orchard 
Presenter: Will Coldwell 
An ITN production for BBC Radio 4

The Invincible TikTok Gurus

When a Church of England volunteer in Leicester rejected a proposal to go on a date, it started a (sinister) stalking campaign against him. His stalker was a female preacher. As her harassment worsened, her victim pleaded for help to the police and the Church, including to a cleric tipped to be the Church’s next leader. File on 4 Investigates reveals how their mistakes left the victim feeling they had failed to protect him…

File on 4 Investigates: Stalker in the Church

High street gambling venues, known as adult gaming centres, promise a safe and sociable experience; the chance to have a chat, a coffee and a flutter, under the supervision of trained staff. And they’re proving to be popular, with an increasing number springing up across the country, some of which are open 24 hours a day.
But File on 4 Investigates hears concerns some venues are failing to protect people struggling with gambling addictions - with devastating consequences. AGC's are supposed to ensure staff are trained to spot problem gamblers and intervene. They also operate a self-exclusion scheme which allows problem gamblers to self-exclude from AGC's. Staff should intervene if they spot somebody who has self-exlcuded and should ask them to leave the premises. It's a sensible plan - but does it actually work? 

Reporter: Alastair Fee
Producer: Ben Robinson
Researcher: Michael Gaughan
Technical Producer: Nicky Edwards
Production Coordinator: Tim Fernley
Editor: Carl Johnston

Adult Gaming Centres

Ketamine was designed as an anaesthetic but its use as a recreational drug is growing fast, particularly among young people. It can have life-changing health consequences, yet the use of the drug increased by 85 per cent between 2023 and 2024. Paul Kenyon investigates the ketamine trade and discovers how tonnes of the drug are able to find their way into the UK undetected. 

Reporter: Paul Kenyon
Producer: Paul Grant
Technical producer: James Bradshaw
Production coordinator: Tim Fernley
Editor: Carl Johnston

Details of organisations offering support and information with addiction are available at bbc.co.uk/actionline

The Ketamine Trail

Will the Rana Plaza factory tragedy mean Bangladeshi garment workers no longer have to work in death traps? It's five months on from the collapse of the 8 storey building in Dhaka, in which more than a thousand workers died, and several thousand lost arms or legs or were paralysed. Jane Deith reports from Dhaka on what's happened since. Just how much medical and financial help have survivors and families of the dead received?

Campaigners said the disaster should be a "game changer" in forcing international brands who source cheap clothes in Bangladesh to take more responsibility for conditions within the factories they use. Safety inspections of hundreds of premises are due to begin in earnest. But the Western manufacturers are split on who should pay for expensive improvements - the clothing brands or the factory owners? It's estimated that it could cost $3bn to bring all the factories up to scratch.

But there are those who argue that Western shoppers who buy the cheap clothes, and the brands that sell them, don't deserve all the blame. The Bangladeshi government continues to limit the power of trade unions and is accused of failing to act against powerful manufacturing bosses when people die in their factories.

The safety campaigners agree that Western brands pulling out of Bangladesh would be the worst result for the country's four million garment workers and the families who rely on their earnings.

So is it possible to keep them in work and keep them safe?

Producer: Sally Chesworth.

What Price Cheap Clothes?

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