Podcasts about live investigates

Last Friday a 27-year-old New Zealand man was found guilty of the murder of British backpacker Grace Millane. During the trial questions were raised over how the press covered the case and how the defence was put together. Campaigners say Grace was blamed for her own death and that other assailants are claiming their victims simply enjoyed ‘rough sex.’ We speak to BBC producer Simon Atkinson who covered the trial in Auckland and discuss why Grace Millane’s sexual history was brought up in court. We also speak to Alys Harte, a journalist for BBC 5 Live Investigates, about her research into the changing attitudes of women towards gagging, choking, slapping and spitting. The responses raise important questions about unwanted violent sex and consent. We also speak to Anna-Louise Adams who has first-hand experience of choking in the bedroom. Mixed by Nicolas Raufast Producer: Lucy Hancock Editor: John Shields Special thanks to: We Cant Consent To This, The High Low.

Fire safety experts have told 5 Live Investigates that many of the 1,700 buildings in England are 'likely to fail' a new round of tests into cladding and building materials. Hospitals, schools, nursing homes and tower blocks are among buildings which could be "at risk", BBC 5 Live Investigates has learned. The government said it will monitor the test results this summer to decide if any immediate action needs to be taken. Two years after the Grenfell Tower fire, 5 Live Investigates has also learned that some people living in flats which were declared safe in the aftermath of the tragedy, have now discovered the buildings they live in DO pose a fire risk. The fire at Grenfell spread over the building in a matter of minutes; largely because of the combustible cladding the tower block was covered with. This type of cladding has now been banned. Government fire safety tests on other types of cladding have just started. Photo credit; Press Association

Four years after the introduction of new laws to target revenge porn offenders, 5 Live Investigates can reveal how cases are on the rise but the number of prosecutions is falling. The revelations come as a charity set up to help victims called the Revenge Porn Helpline reports a 150 per cent increase in the number of calls to its service Photo credit: Antonio Guillem\Getty

Calls for a cross party inquiry into claims that a growing number of families are being accused of inventing or causing their children’s illness. It’s called Fabricated or Induced Illness (FII) and used to be known as Munchausen’s Syndrome By Proxy. It’s a rare form of abuse where parents exaggerate their child’s medical condition – or even cause it. Campaigners and charities say many families have been wrongly accused and want the inquiry to look at what they describe as a “wave of false allegations” and the current guidelines around FII. 5 Live Investigates first looked at this in March when we spoke to mums and dads threatened with having their children taken off them after being accused of FII. Following the programme, we have been contacted by other families who say this has happened to them. We’ve also been told about many other cases. One involves a mother accused of poisoning her two year old daughter and ordered to live apart from her for almost a year until the case was dismissed. Photo credit; Getty/Katarzyna Bialasiewicz

Abbie Bull is 22 and has had serious acne for three years. It got so bad she felt unable to leave the house for fear of being stared at. She developed depression and anxiety but when she went to her doctor for help, she didn’t get it. 5 Live Investigates has learned that thousands who suffer from serious skin conditions like acne, eczema and psoriasis, can’t access the psychological support they need because it either doesn’t exist where they live or they have to join long waiting lists. The programme surveyed 180 members of the British Association of Dermatologists dermatologists and asked them whether they had access to a dedicated psychodermatology service within the region they work. Three quarters of them said they didn't. NHS England say health authorities need to take into account the psychological needs of all patients. The Welsh Government say they expect health boards to put in place services tailored to the individual needs of patients and the Health and Social Care Board for Northern Ireland says it has just commissioned a psychodermatology service which will be available to all trusts in the country.

5 Live Investigates has seen figures which show a big rise in the number of rapes, sexual assaults and stalking cases involving victims who were targeted on online dating platforms and mobile apps. The programme has received figures from more than half of the police forces in England and Wales which show the number of crimes has more than doubled between 2015 and 2018. The programme hears from the mother of a woman who was murdered after meeting a man on a website called Plenty of Fish and a man who had his drinks spiked by a convicted sex offender he met on an app called Grindr. Forensic psychologist Dr Ruth Tully works with offenders who have targeted people via dating apps. She tells 5 Live Investigates the platforms provide ‘opportunity’ and if they didn’t exist, the crimes would never have happened. The Online Dating Association which represents some online dating sites and mobile apps says its members do all they can to protect people from harm. Picture credit: Leon Neal\Getty

5 Live Investigates has seen new evidence that hundreds of vulnerable children with Special Educational Needs are being injured whilst being restrained by teachers and classroom assistants. Physical and mechanical restraint techniques can be used against children as young as four without schools having to report it to anyone - even parents. But after 5 Live Investigates reported on this in 2017, the Government promised to introduce strict new guidelines detailing how restraint techniques should be used safely. Two years on and nothing has happened. Today the Children's Commissioners of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have asked the United Nations to investigate the use of restraint. Photo credit: crossstudio\Getty

‘I try not to call him. I’ll wait for him to call because he tends not to call me when he’s drunk. He drinks most of the time - a bottle of vodka a day.’ Maria is 25, the daughter of an alcoholic and one of a growing number of young adults who has a parent who’s a problem drinker. The National Association for the Children of Alcoholics has told 5 Live Investigates that the number of grown-up children contacting them for help about a parent’s excessive drinking now makes up 80 per cent of their work - compared to half that five years ago. The charity says more and more parents are becoming problem drinkers in later life. But Liam Byrne MP, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Children of Alcoholics, tells the programme that alcohol and drug treatment services have been cut all over the country.

The organ transplant service is at ‘breaking point’ according to one of the UK’s top consultant transplant surgeons. Professor Nizam Mamode who is president of the Chapter of Surgeons at the British Transplantation Society, has told 5 Live Investigates that overworked staff, a shortage of operating theatres and difficulties in recruiting are problems that need to be urgently addressed. His warning follows the announcement earlier this month that opt-out organ donation will become law from 2020. ‘Max and Keira’s Law’ – named after the donated heart of Keira Bell, nine, saved the life of Max Johnson, 10, in 2017 – will mean all adults’ organs can be taken after they die unless they specifically tell the NHS otherwise. The government says it could save as many as 700 lives a year

The victims of the most serious crimes who are having to wait longer than ever for the police to turn up. Figures obtained by 5 Live Investigates reveal some of the biggest police forces in the UK are taking almost twice as long to respond to so called ‘grade one’ emergencies as they were five years ago. The programme hears from the parents of a schizophrenic who made an emergency call to the police saying they feared for his girlfriend’s safety because he was attacking her. When police arrived three hours later Suzanne Brown was found dead from multiple stab wounds. 5 Live’s findings follow a spate of fatal knife attacks this year which have prompted Britain’s most senior police officer Cressida Dick to warn cuts in police numbers are contributing to a rise in violent crime. The Home Office says it ensures police have the resources they need to carry out their vital work.

Teenager Thomas Jones went missing on a night out with friends during his first week at university in Worcester. His body was recovered from the River Severn more than a week later. 5 Live Investigates has been told that Thomas's death and dozens more like it could have been prevented - if only certain safety measures were put in place. 150 young men have died after going missing on a night out over the last nine years. 5 Live Investigates has seen new research which reveals between 10 and 20 men die every year after going missing in towns and cities across the UK – the majority of them under the age of 35. Practical safety measures like late night transport to get people home, improved lighting and barriers between footpaths and waterways could all help prevent similar tragedies in the future, according to campaigners and charities.

5 Live Investigates has discovered three of the UK’s leading supermarkets are misleading customers by selling food which is high in salt or fat in the healthier choices sections of their stores. The British Dietetic Association says the supermarkets are being ‘unhelpful’ and the practise is ‘confusing’ for customers. Researchers visited the top five supermarkets in the UK and found Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Tesco were all selling products high in salt and saturated fat in areas marked as containing healthy or healthier choices food. The Royal Society for Public Health says the findings raise the possibility of the introduction of a supermarket regulator. Tesco has told 5 Live it’s sorry some of its products were mistakenly included under a ‘Healthy and Diet Meals’ sign. Morrisons says their 'Healthier Choices' section gives customers the option to buy an item that is healthier than a product that meets a similar need – even though it might still carry a red traffic light label. And Sainsbury’s say it’s going to update its signage to reflect that vegetarian and plant based meals are now stocked alongside their range of healthier meals. Photo credit: Helen Clifton

Around 60,000 babies are born prematurely in the UK every year. Many can spend weeks or even months in hospital fighting for their lives. But limited maternity and paternity rights mean many parents are having to return to work much sooner than they would like. The charity Bliss which supports families of premature and sick infants has surveyed more than 700 parents and shared its data with 5 Live Investigates. It reveals two thirds of fathers had to return to work whilst their baby was on a neonatal unit and more than a quarter of them had to choose between taking time off when their baby was is in neonatal or when their child went home. The programme hears from parents like Gemma and Andy Reid who were forced to make some tough decisions when their baby Gabriel was born a year ago.

There are now more than half a million vegans in Britain – with more than a quarter of a million people trying out a vegan diet last month – double the number of people who signed up for ‘veganuary’ in 2018. There’s no doubt that veganism is a more humane and potentially more sustainable alternative to a traditional diet containing meat, fish, eggs and dairy products. But could going vegan actually be bad for your health? 5 Live Investigates hears concerns that for some, it could have serious health consequences. Rebecca Hills, 20, tells the programme she used a vegan diet to conceal her eating disorder. But for Rebecca Hills, 20, going vegan wasn’t about 'ethics' and 'healthy eating', like she told people. It was to cover up her eating disorder. “In the back of my mind I was thinking that veganism would be a really good way to lose weight,” she said. The charity Beat Eating Disorders believes Rebecca may not be alone: “Some people may use veganism or vegetarianism to conceal their eating disorder, as it becomes socially acceptable to follow a restrictive diet.” (Photo credit: REDA&CO\Getty)

Thousands of police officers and civilian staff haven't been vetted since the introduction of strict guidelines in 2006. 36 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales responded to a Freedom of Information request from 5 Live Investigates. But 16 of the forces that provided information said they hadn't performed retrospective background checks on a total of 5,966 police officers and staff since the policy was introduced. The programme has also discovered that the number of police officers investigated for abusing their 'power for sexual gains' has more than doubled over a 4 year period - from 84 in 2014/15 to 170 in 2017/18. The revelations follow the conviction in December 2018 of Cheshire PC Ian Naude who was sentenced to 25 years for raping a 13-year-old girl who he groomed after attending an incident at her home. PC Naude passed Cheshire Police's vetting process despite allegations of sex offences being investigated by two neighbouring forces prior to joining the force. (Photo credit:: Press Association.)

Alice Franklin is one of 300,000 people in the UK with Tourette’s Syndrome. For 25-year-old Alice, the condition manifests itself in uncontrollable body movements or ‘tics’ – jerking, twitching, punching walls and windows and involuntarily collapsing to the floor. The physical side of the condition is the hardest to deal with and exhausting she says. But she also swears and hurls impromptu insults at individuals she’s just met – including her new boss and customers in a bar where she worked. It’s a life-changing condition Alice has lived with for more than three years – but for her and thousands like her, therapy isn’t readily available. In fact, a survey shared exclusively with 5 Live Investigates by the charity Tourette’s Action shows even when a diagnosis has eventually been made, most aren’t given medication or directed to any form of behavioural therapy. And even when they are, it can take years to access. There are no NICE guidelines relating to the condition and Tourette’s Action says the condition is widely misunderstood by the medical profession. More than 460 people responded to the charity's survey and 79 per cent of respondents said their mental health had been affected by the condition. More than a third said they’d considered suicide of engaged in self-harming behaviour.

An investigation by BBC Radio 5 Live Investigates reveals problem gamblers are able to continue betting online even when they sign up to a national self-exclusion scheme. More than 50,000 people have signed up to the GamStop scheme which allows addicts to ban themselves from online betting platforms. But 5 Live Investigates recruits the son of a problem gambler to sign up to the scheme to test if it works. After banning himself, Adam Bradford, whose dad David lost more than £100,00 by gambling online, is able to sign up to a new gambling website by changing just a few small personal details. GamStop say they're 'deeply concerned' by the findings. The programme also returns to Grimsby where a year ago a producer self-excluded from all the high street bookies in the town. But he was able to place bets on high stakes fixed odds betting terminals (FOBT's) in all but two of the betting shops he was banned from. A year on, the programme returns to Grimsby to find out if anything has changed.

There has been a big increase in the number of vulnerable children being housed alone without live in support. In some cases youngsters have been placed in bed and breakfast accommodation, bedsits and even caravans by the local authorities that are meant to be looking after them. Figures obtained by 5 Live Investigates show the number of young people aged 16 and 17 and placed in what’s called ‘independent living accommodation’ has gone up by 28 per cent in England since 2010. Young care leavers tell the programme they’ve been placed in dwellings over-run by drug users, alcoholics and abusers. The Children’s Commissioner says she is now launching an investigation into the crisis. The Government says the law is clear and that local authorities must provide accommodation that meets children’s needs and that includes appropriate supervision whilst in that accommodation. Photo Credit: Photofusion/UIG via Getty Images

Anna Boniface was selected to run for England after she became the first non-elite woman to finish the London Marathon in 2017. But over-training and under-eating meant her dreams were short-lived because she failed to finish the event after suffering a stress fracture to her ankle. She was later diagnosed with a condition known as Energy Deficiency in Sport - brought on by pushing her body to the limit and failing to refuel properly. The condition affects hundreds of young athletes and can lead to serious eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia. It can also weaken bones, stop women athletes from having periods and dramatically reduce testosterone levels in men. As the TrainBrave campaign is launched to raise awareness of the condition, 5 Live Investigates hears from those suffering the consequences. They include a young cyclist left with the bones of an 80-year old, and an Olympic hopeful forced to give up athletics in her mid-20’s after four spinal fractures brought on by her diet. photo credit: kbschlee photography

The businesses that go bust – only to re-emerge under a different name with no debts. There are now calls for tighter regulations around so-called ‘phoenixing’ where companies rise from the ashes of collapsed businesses leaving employees and creditors with huge debts of their own. The practise also costs local authorities and HMRC billions. 5 Live Investigates hears the stories of those who’ve been left out of pocket and from those who want unscrupulous directors outlawed for good. Also, tool thefts from vans and the tradesmen who say their livelihoods are threatened but they can't get the police to take them seriously. Photo Credit = Paul Ellis\Getty

Fraudsters scammed nearly 49000 older people in the UK last year - equivalent to six victims every hour of the day across the UK, 5 Live Investigates has discovered. The figure has almost doubled in three years, but one expert says the true number of victims was likely to be in the millions. 5 live Investigates asked Action Fraud, the UK police's cyber crime reporting centre, for a breakdown of the five most common types of frauds affecting older people. During 2017/18, advanced fee frauds, which include victims being told they have won the lottery but must pay a fee to receive it, were the most common scams with almost 20,000 cases - including 370 victims aged over 90. Computer software service fraud, in which victims are told their computer has been compromised by a virus, was the second most common crime. In one year alone, victims lost more than £135m in these type of scams.

An investigation into online-only estate agents and whether their cut price, up-front fees really do offer value for money. The online-only property business has gone from strength to strength since it emerged just a few years ago and it's now threatening the very survival of traditional agents on the high street. But are sales exaggerated and is advertising misleading? 5 Live Investigates hears from the companies and their customers about how this expanding sector of the market is performing. Before these companies arrived on the scene, estate agents typically charged a commission of 1-2% on a house price once the sale goes through. Online-only agents have changed all that. They list your house on property portals like Rightmove or Zoopla and charge you a fixed fee which customers usually pay upfront. For most properties that fee is a lot lower than what you would pay a traditional agent - but the big difference is with the online-only agents you pay whether you sell or not, so it's a gamble. The programme examines new research from investment bank Jefferies which suggests that statistically around half of customers who use the online-only agents could be wasting their money. And it hears from the leading online-only estate agency Purplebricks which disputes the research saying that 78% of customers successfully sell their home with the company.

The NSPCC is calling for an investigation into doorstep charity bag collections after evidence emerged that rogue operators are routinely flouting the law. Millions of pounds are raised each year for charity by private companies who post plastic bags through householders' doors and take away donated items. But 5 Live Investigates has discovered that some firms are illegally collecting without a licence. Others hand over only a fraction of the money they generate - sometimes less than 10 per cent. The Fundraising Regulator says it is looking at tightening up regulations in the sector.

Indeterminate sentences were abolished three years ago but thousands of prisoners remain locked up, unsure when - or if - they will ever be released. Although designed to protect the public from serious violent or sexual offenders, 5 Live Investigates finds they were also applied to some much lower risk prisoners, who have served up to five times their original tariff. Some wonder whether they will ever be released. And the geographical gaps which mean some new mothers with psychiatric problems are having to travel hundreds of miles to access the specialist healthcare they need. The Government has promised a cash injection of £15 million a year over the next five years - but is it enough?

5 Live Investigates reveals the growing crisis in police high tech crime units responsible for the forensic analysis of mobile phones and computers in cases of child sexual abuse. Some forces are failing to even allocate new cases for more than six months, others have delays of more than a year. Concerns are growing that children continue to be abused during the delay. And, chaos in the business rates system has allowed unscrupulous agents to charge companies for bogus advice about how to reduce their bills - at an estimated cost of hundreds of millions of pounds.

Every year hundreds of thousands of NHS patients take up the option of having their treatment carried out at a private hospital. This may seem to be the best of both worlds, but what happens if things go wrong? Some private providers don't have the same emergency back-up that is available at NHS hospitals. When complications arise following an operation without the necessary expertise and facilities to deal with them, the consequences can be tragic. And when patients want to know the track record of a private hospital, is the information available to help them make an informed choice? And, 5 Live Investigates hears about the risks of handing over the management of your financial affairs to a member of your family. As applications for powers of attorney shoot up there is growing concern they can be used to steal from vulnerable relatives.

With some families fighting for access to their children unable to get legal aid, or afford a lawyer, an increasing number have to represent themselves in court. They reveal what its like to navigate the court system without assistance. Despite the cuts, legal aid remains in place for victims of domestic abuse, so why are one in four applications for funding in these cases being turned down? And legal advisers known as 'McKenzie Friends' are increasingly appearing in family court cases. Unlike solicitors they aren't regulated, meaning clients have no redress when things go wrong. And, 5 Live Investigates hears about bookies turning down bets from a certain type of punter - the one who looks like they might win. Are they playing fair?

Most police pursuits end safely with the suspect arrested. But sometimes they end tragically, leaving people dead or seriously injured. The victim isn't always the driver or a passenger in the car being chased. In 2014-15, the Independent Police Complaints Commission say there were 55 pursuit related incidents where people were seriously injured. A third of those involved innocent bystanders. Presenter Adrian Goldberg speaks to one man seriously injured by a fleeing motorist. The programme also looks at concerns about inconsistent pursuit policies between different forces and examines why some forces appear reluctant to pursue criminals on motorbikes. The programme also looks at the beauty therapists flouting the law by providing illegal teeth whitening. Under the Dentists Act, only registered dentists and dental professionals such as hygienists can provide the service. But 5 Live Investigates has discovered dozens of beauty salons illegally offering the treatment. Presenter Adrian Goldberg goes undercover to expose one beautician who has been offering teeth whitening despite being prosecuted and fined.

A quarter of a million cars written off each year return to the roads. There are no checks on the quality of the repairs and one Police and Crime Commissioner says they pose a risk to road users. 5 Live Investigates has identified a number of fatal accidents involving vehicles that had been previously written off but had been repaired and returned to the road. Also - is the solicitors' regulator doing enough to weed out bogus law firms?

One taxi driver every two weeks is killed or seriously injured in an attack while at work. Figures released to 5 Live Investigates show that 161 cabbies were the victims of wounding with intent, attempted murder and murder over the last five years. One MP says it's time for CCTV to be installed in all cabs to protect drivers and staff. Also, the steep rise in fraudsters conning people out of their bank security details in a scam known as vishing. One woman describes how she was defrauded of her life savings.

5 Live Investigates has found that the Prompt Payment Code, a scheme to ensure small companies get paid on time isn't working. With £30 billion owed to small suppliers, former trade minister Lord Digby Jones is among those who thinks the code a failure. And the programme obtains shocking figures which reveal the stress front line ambulance crews are under.

5 Live Investigates finds out what clubs in Leagues one and two really think of reforms to the football academy system. As two clubs close their academies, could the new system be hurting lower teams at the expense of growing Premiership talent? Plus as fraud costs the UK economy an estimated £73 billion a year, small businesses complain that police are failing to investigate the crime.

Imagine if you had a job where you could earn nineteen thousand pounds in four minutes? A job where you could live a luxury life-style of fast cars, paradise beaches and private jets. In 5 Live Investigates this week Adrian Goldberg looks at a company which dangles this possibility. Sign up for a free seminar to learn the tricks of trading in the currency markets and you too could change your life. The programme talks people who've signed up for this and found themselves paying out thousands of pounds for further courses. One man spent over twenty two thousand pounds in pursuit of this dream. He says the company has not provided him with the skills needed to trade successfully. And we hear from insiders about the hard sell to enrol people on these courses.

5 Live Investigates the mystery bills which some drivers are getting through the post after an incident on the motorway. Take the case of Sheila. She was driving up the M1 when she skidded on an unexpected patch of water. Her car spun out of control and she ended up facing the wrong way on the hard shoulder of the motorway. She dialled 999 and within minutes a police patrol officer arrived and got her and her car off the motorway. The officer said how lucky she was that there was no damage other than a minor scratch on the bumper of her car and there had been no other vehicle involved. Yet a few weeks later she received a bill for almost £3,000 pounds from a company that clears up motorway accidents and incidents on behalf of the Highways Agency. Sheila has no idea why she had been charged this amount including £266.62 for a 7.5 tonne tipper hire and driver and £1830.91 for the closure of the hard shoulder. 5 Live Investigates has learnt of other cases where drivers have been billed for significant amounts completely out of the blue with no knowledge of the work carried out. Adrian Goldberg and the team get to the bottom of these motorway charges and talks to insurance and transport industry experts who are worried about the lack of transparency in the charges to motorists.

The ailing care home residents who struggle to get a GP to visit - instead medication is prescribed over the phone. In some cases, care homes even pay GPs to provide what's decsribed as 'enhanced' services such as routine check-ups to people with complex medical problems. One nurse manager tells 5 Live Investigates that GPs who charge should be ashamed of themselves - challenging them to ring in and explain why they do it. We talk to the man who blew the whistle on the fraud at Autofocus - the self-style 'expert witnesses' who fabricated evidence when the insurance industry challenged the high costs of car hire. It led to the loss of 300 job in Steve Evans' company Accident Exchange, and could be as much as 200 million pounds losses in the credit hire industry. And the teething problems around the clampdown on disabled parking bad fraud.

Adrian Goldberg presents cutting edge investigative journalism, as well as taking on listeners' campaigns and consumer issues. Some nurses are defying their own professional standards when it comes to administering Botox. Botox is a prescription-only drug and has to be prescribed by a specialist nurse or a doctor in a face-to-face consultation. But some nurses are defying their own professional regulator by using what's called a remote prescribing service. A remote prescriber is a doctor who is contacted on the phone and issues a prescription after talking to the patient - sometimes for just three or four minutes. But new instructions from the nursing regulator, the UK Nursing and Midwifery Council, say remote prescribing should not be used for Botox. The regulations have been tightened to improve patient safety. But some nurses seem intent on defying them. 5 Live Investigates asks why - and examines the role of a Harley Street practice that still offers remote prescribing. Also, the number of people dying or made ill through carbon monoxide poisoning is being grossly under-estimated by the authorities. A charity that promotes the safety of heating systems says in cases of unexplained deaths, scientists are failing to test for signs of carbon monoxide. 5 Live Investigates looks into one case where a man died as a result of carbon monoxide and no one realised, leaving other tenants exposed to the poisonous gas for a further week which left them ill. The Health and Safety Executive has also been accused of not doing enough to investigate possible carbon monoxide cases. Some businesses are facing massive bills because their energy companies failed to read the meter properly. One company says it is facing closure because it says it can't afford the demand that's dropped through the letterbox. 5 Live Investigates finds that some of the problems have come about because meter readers didn't jot down all the figures. And the wrong sort of passengers forecasts: as the row over the new high speed rail route between London and the north of England intensifies, 5 Live Investigates asks why the rail industry doesn't seem to be able to correctly predict passenger figures. To contact the programme, email goldberg@bbc.co.uk - or send comments via Twitter to @5LInvestigates.

Gap year safety. A coroner has called on the Government to review the safety procedures of companies offering gap year adventure trips. It follows the death of a student on a conservation holiday in Fiji. We investigate how well the companies are implementing safety procedures. Many police forces are still failing when it comes to investigating reports of disability hate crime, according to a number of leading charities. They say officers have not heeded the lessons of the tragic case of Fiona Pilkington who set fire to herself and her disabled daughter more than 3 years ago. The mother had been driven to despair by years of abuse targeted at the family. 5 Live Investigates talk to a woman with learning disabilities who's endured 20 years of abuse. She's been spat at, had chewing gum put in her hair, had kids get into her home and has been physically assaulted. The last time her mother reported it to the police she was told by an officer that it was naïve to think that her daughter would not be subjected to taunts. And tackling uninsured drivers... Following last week's debate about new plans to tackle uninsured drivers, and concerns that new penalties wont be tough enough, the Roads Minister Mike Penning comes onto the show to defend the scheme.

Adrian Goldberg presents cutting edge investigative journalism. 5 Live Investigates uncovers disturbing evidence of Polish workers victimised by an elaborate credit, loans and benefits scam. Polish criminal gangs are luring impoverished young workers to Britain with the promise of work, and use a range of pressure tactics and lies to steal their identity. After encouraging their victims to open bank accounts and sign on for benefits, they then ditch them and send them home. They then use their identities to claim thousands of pounds in loans, hire purchase agreements, benefits and tax credits. 5 live Investigates speaks to victims and reveals a tale of cross-border fraud and trafficking which is exploiting some of Europe's poorest people in order to defraud the British banking system and the UK taxpayer. Also: last year 5 live Investigates reported on the trail of debt left in the UK by Indian businessman, Ahsan Ali Syed, who at the time was bidding to buy Blackburn Rovers FC. Having failed in his bid to buy Rovers, Mr Ali is now looking to invest in football clubs in Spain and New Zealand, but reports this week in the Australian press claim he is behind a multi-million dollar loan fraud. 5 live Investigates speaks to the reporters behind this latest scoop. Plus journalist Hugh Miles on his investigation for Radio 4 into the Libyan money trail. And 'log book loans' - following last week's investigations, listeners explain why it's so difficult to check whether there's an outstanding loan on a car.