File on 4 493041

The market where carbon offsets are bought and sold has been projected to grow and grow, as big companies look to prove they can reach net zero. But where achieving reductions in emissions is impossible or expensive, an alternative is to try and arrange for carbon to be taken out of the atmosphere instead. The markets have thrived on linking buyers of carbon offsets - big firms, and even governments - to development projects in poorer countries, where land and labour for tree planting are cheap. But can these projects be safely verified and measured? Are local communities being exploited to try and make the maths add up? And can the industry afford to it when a project is underperforming the expectations according to which carbon credits have been sold? Investigative reporter Max de Haldevang hears from experts and individuals directly involved in high profile carbon offset projects to find out. Producer: Robert Nicholson A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4

How did a former British soldier become an international people smuggler? Annabel Deas investigates, taking us deep into the UK's hidden criminal landscape. From BBC Radio 4 - Shadow World: The Smuggler. Listen to the full series now on BBC Sounds.

Nicola Packer went to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for help after she delivered a 26-week-old foetus in her bathroom. But she was reported to the police - and arrested as she lay in bed recovering from major surgery. She was then escorted to a waiting police van and forced to spend the night in a police cell. File on 4 Investigates hears her story and reveals how, behind the scenes of the investigation, police had serious concerns over her controversial arrest. She believed she was only six weeks pregnant when she took abortion medication during lockdown - but she was prosecuted anyway. Her ordeal lasted nearly half a decade and, she says, it has had life-changing consequences for her. The case has also led to renewed calls from MP's and health professionals for a change in the law. Reporter: Kate West Producer: Anna Meisel Assistant producers: Jim Booth and Ben Robinson Techincal producer: Richard Hannaford :Production coordinator: Tim Fernley Editor: Carl Johnston

The story of Gisele Pelicot shocked the world. For almost a decade, the 72-year-old French grandmother’s husband Dominique secretly sedated her with sleeping pills and anxiety medication and raped her. He invited fifty other men to rape her too - documenting the abuse in thousands of photographs and videos. Dominique Pelicot has been jailed for 20 years. But Gisele is not alone. One British woman, Kate (not her real name) has told File on 4 Investigates how she confronted the unthinkable – that the man she thought loved her, had been secretly drugging and sexually assaulting her for years. He laced her bedtime cup of tea with medication so he could commit his crimes in secret. Kate talks to reporter Jane Deith about what it’s like to discover you’re married to a monster. Kate’s children describe the devastating impact on learning their father was a rapist. File on 4 investigates hears from the police detective who built the case against Kate’s now ex-husband, and how he almost avoided being brought to justice after the Crown Prosecution Service initially said there wasn’t enough evidence to put him on trial. It was left to Kate to fight the system to get justice – and keep herself safe. File on 4 Investgates discovers domestic spiking is disturbingly common in cases of domestic abuse. One academic has coined the term ‘chemical control ’ to describe the istration of medication to physically subdue women. Unlike physical violence, spiking may leave no trace and hence go unnoticed by victims, the police, doctors, and social workers. A new named offence of spiking is soon to be introduced. But with much of the focus still on spiking in settings like bars and clubs, will it address the threat behind closed doors? Reporter: Jane Deith Producer: Emma Forde Technical Producer: Nicky Edwards Editor: Carl Johnston

Around the UK, a hidden crisis has been growing over the past eight years. Since the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, something extraordinary has become clear about many of Britain's high-rise residential buildings. They are nothing like as safe as we had imagined. In fact, the latest statistics show that more than 5,000 high-rise buildings have faults so serious they pose a risk to life. Clearing this up has quietly become one of the biggest infrastructure challenges of our generation, with a bill totalling £16.6 billion and rising, and a project which could continue for the next 20 years. Author and housing journalist Peter Apps investigates the building safety crisis through the story of one building which has many of the problems afflicting places across the country. What is the reality for people living there? Why was it built like this? And with the government's promise of 1.5 million new homes over the next five years, do we risk making the same mistakes again? Presenter: Peter Apps Producer: Ant Adeane Assistant Producer: May Robson Executive Producer: Anishka Sharma Mix: Mike Woolley A Reduced Listening production for Radio 4

2024 experienced the wettest period since records began and extreme rainfall events are becoming more frequent because of climate change. So what's being done to protect us from flooding - and is it enough? The Government has said it will build 1.5 million new homes by the end of the current parliament - but File on 4 Investigates has discovered that hundreds of thousands of homes have already been built in areas at high risk of flooding. And a measure to protect new properties against flash floods caused by intense rainfall has never been made compulsory - despite being introduced 15 years ago. Reporter: Adrian Goldberg Producer: Fergus Hewison Technical Producer: James Bradshaw Production co-ordinator: Tim Fernley Editor: Carl Johnston

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 cooridnator: Tim Fernley Editor: Carl Johnston

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 its to shipping his waste tyres to India for pyrolysis. Reporter: Paul Kenyon Producer: Anna Meisel Editor: Carl Johnston

At least two women are murdered every week in the UK in a domestic abuse situation. Newspapers often call it a crime of ion. ‘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.

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

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 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

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

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 importing medicine from the Netherlands.

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.

The BBC's religion editor Aleem Maqbool hears from sexual abuse victims who say they were let down by senior church leaders for decades. Priest David Tudor was allowed to continue working within the Church of England - despite widespread concerns about his behaviour. Now there are calls for the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell to resign over his handling of the case. He is due to take temporary charge of the church in the New Year following the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. The Church of England says File on 4's investigation into the case of David Tudor has 'revealed a catalogue of past safeguarding decisions, that allowed someone who was considered a risk in the 1980s to return to ministry in the 1990s.' This, they say, should never have happened. Reporter: Aleem Maqbool Producers: Steve Swann and Hayley Mortimer Technical producer: Craig Boardman Production coordinator: Tim Fernley Editor: Carl Johnston

Universities in the UK are facing a financial crisis, and with fears some may become bankrupt many institutions are making savings by cutting courses and staff numbers. Falling numbers of international students, who pay higher fees than their domestic counterparts, is partly to blame for the funding gap. File on 4 investigates if universities have become too reliant on overseas students, in some cases favouring the ability to pay over academic ability and overlooking the poor English language skills of some of those they enrol - even ignoring concerns over cheating. It also hears from a whistleblower about the multi-million-pound recruitment industry that feeds students from abroad into universities here – all at a cost. Reporter: Paul Kenyon Producer: Fergus Hewison Technical Producer: Craig Boardman Production Coordinator: Tim Fernley Editor: Carl Johnston

The government has pledged to stop using hotels to house asylum seekers. But in early November nearly three hundred people were moved into a hotel in Altrincham in Greater Manchester. The decision has provoked widespread concerns from the community and there are fears that far right protestors could target the premises. It follows violent demonstrations outside hotels in Rotherham, Hull, Tamworth, Manchester, Aldershot and Bristol in the summer. Hotel accommodation is often provided in some of the UK’s poorest communities where residents are already facing difficulties in accessing vital services. So what is the government’s plan to stop the use of hotel accommodation? And when will it end? File on 4 hears from some of those who live in the hotels – and from the communities who live nearby – and discovers who’s profiting from the asylum business. Reporter: Datshiane Navanayagam Producer: Vicky Carter Technical Producer: Craig Boardman Production Coordinators: Tim Fernley and Ellie Dover Editor: Carl Johnston This programme contains descriptions of graphic violence. Details of organisations offering information and are available at: www.bbc.co.uk/actionline

A series of scandals involving babies and mothers being harmed in hospital have shaken some people’s confidence in NHS maternity care. As a result, many women are looking for alternatives when they give birth. Some are seeking help from outside of the NHS; including paying independent midwives, and even ‘freebirthing’, where they receive no medical at all. But how safe is this, and is more regulation needed? Presenters: Rachel Stonehouse and Matthew Hill Producer: Fergus Hewison Production co-ordinator: Tim Fernley Technical producer: Richard Hannaford Editor: Carl Johnson

File on 4 investigates the cosmetic beauty trade after the first death in the UK following a liquid BBL procedure. Jane Deith meets women who have been disfigured by this and other cosmetic procedures, and considers why existing regulation is struggling to keep up with a growing industry. A beauty salon in Clapham, London is exposed for the first time in this programme by a trainee who is horrified by what she witnesses. Several women have complained, claiming they were injured and disfigured by the treatment they received there. . Reporter: Jane Deith Producer: Kate West Technical Producer: Richard Hannaford Production Coordinator: Tim Fernley Editor: Clare Fordham

When the rock band Oasis announced they were reuniting, 10 million fans from all over the world ed the queue for tickets. It was the UK’s biggest ever concert launch. Tickets quickly sold out and within hours, many were being offered for sale on secondary ticketing sites at vastly inflated prices. File on 4 investigates the online ticketing market to discover who's ahead of you in the queue - and how they're getting there. Reporter: Adrian Goldberg Producer: Hayley Mortimer Technical Producer: Richard Hannaford Production Coordinator: Tim Fernley Editor: Carl Johnston