The 5 Live Must Watch blog Feed

Sexting amongst children 'epidemic'

2014-10-06T05:35:28+00:00

Former Culture Secretary Maria Miller said sexting is an ‘epidemic’ which is on the increase and is spreading to primary schools.

“It’s now frankly something that children accept as part of their everyday life right from primary school age and all the research shows it’s a growing trend,” said Mrs Miller.

The MP also said more has to be done to help young people understand the impact of sexting, such as distribution. Mrs Miller also said there needs to be more support for children when sexting does go wrong and that schools are struggling to cope with the problem.

On Sunday 5 October, 5 live Investigates hears more of these interviews and from friends of victims who have been affected by sexting.

A report from the NSPCC two years ago called for schools to discuss issues around sexting with children as part of personal, social and health education.

The report - A Qualitative Study of Children, Young People and Sexting’ - revealed there was ‘little or no effective policy in place’ regarding sexting among teenagers.

There is still no requirement for schools to include sexting as part of their personal, social and health education.

Listen to the programme again until Saturday 11 October.

People ‘imprisoned’ in homes by animal factory ‘meaty stench’

2014-03-07T19:50:13+00:00

by broadcast journalist Kevin Fitzpatrick

As I stepped out my car at J G Pears animal rendering plant in Newark, Nottingham the smell hit me. Residents, who claim factory smells blight their life, told me the meaty stench was mild compared to what they often experience:

When local people, who have been complaining to the council for years, recently got together to take legal action in the civil court, they found they no longer qualify for ‘no win no fee’ funding.

Because of changes to the law in April 2013, the price of insuring against the financial cost of losing a case can be too expensive for many people.

On Sunday 9 March, on 5 live Investigates, you’ll hear from a leading environmental lawyer, who says he’s been approached by more than 1,000 households suffering nuisance, who now can’t afford to take action.

Client Earth, an environmental public interest law group, claims the UK Government is breaking European law by failing to ensure citizens get access to justice on environmental issues. The UK Government disagrees, and says it meets its legal obligations.

In Newark, J G Pears insists odours leaving its site have never caused a nuisance and the company says it will be installing a thermal oxidiser later this year to stop any smells. The residents, now without the option of affordable legal action, will have to hope so too.

Sunday 9th March 5 live Investigates at 11am

Wrecks on the road?

2014-02-21T17:04:20+00:00

Ever bought a second hand car and thought you’ve got a bargain?

That bargain could be jeopardising your safety and that of other road users.

Around a quarter of a million cars each year that have been written off by insurance companies following accidents end up back on the road. Although they’re technically written off, the cars are sold on to dealers who get them repaired and put them up for sale.

Unsuspecting motorists may never know that the vehicle had been in a crash. What makes matters worse is there are no controls on who can carry out the repairs – or the quality of their work.

5 live Investigates has been looking at a number of fatal accidents involving vehicles that had previously been written off.

In one, a young girl died when the passenger compartment of her mum’s car crumpled following a side on collision. It turned out the car had been written off four years earlier and had not been repaired properly.

The inquest into the girl’s death heard that she would probably had survived if the car had provided the protection it was originally designed to give.

Police in County Durham are investigating a crash last summer in which three people died. One of the vehicles had been involved in an accident almost a year earlier and had serious mechanical defects. But it had been repaired and sold to one of the women who died in the crash.

A Police and Crime Commissioner – John Dwyer, the PCC for Cheshire - is now calling for the establishment of a central database to keep a record of cars that have suffered structural damage and who has carried out the repairs, providing an audit of the vehicle’s history.

There are concerns that some garages don’t know how to repair the hi-tech materials found in modern cars.

Hear the full story on 5 live Investigates, Sunday 23 February, 9pm.

MPs call for fan power football in clubs

2014-02-14T17:11:18+00:00

Fans have been arguing for it for years, the right to have a greater say in the way their club is run.

This week, a group of MPs and peers joined them in their campaign. For too long, the politicians say, the fortunes of football clubs have been linked to the whims of financiers.

On occasions that had taken some clubs to the brink of extinction.

In their report they say: “At all levels, clubs are prone to sudden changes of fortune and financial crises, brought about not by their fortunes on the pitch, but by the capricious behaviour of many owners of clubs.”

The all-party Parliamentary Group for Mutuals wanted to find out whether enough was being done to encourage fans to get involved in the way the clubs are run.

Their findings strike a chord with fans who’ve been locked in bitter rows with club owners over decisions which they say have not been in the best interests of their team.

Just look at some of the stories to hit the headlines over the last couple of months. Hull City fans are trying to stop their club’s owner Assem Allam changing its name to Hull Tigers. Coventry City supporters have a 70 mile round-trip to Northampton for home games, because of a rent dispute over the Ricoh Arena.

And at Leeds United, fans have battled for years to get greater transparency over who owns the club.

The Parliamentary group has called on the Government to make it easier for supporters to buy a stake in their club.

The MPs and peers also want new laws to protect football assets, such as club colours, a club’s name and ground ownership.

Supporters Direct, the organisation set up to promote fan involvement in the game, back the Parliamentary Group’s call.

Kevin Rye, from Supporters Direct, says: "Are we disappointed at the slow pace of reform? Of course we are. Are we going to give up arguing that simple rules should be adopted to ensure that football clubs are owned by people who are going to run them properly, not bankrupt them, change them beyond recognition or move them? Of course we’re not."

"The case for reform is made by just what’s happened in the last year at Cardiff City, Hull City, Coventry City, Leeds United, Hereford United. It’s now about what it looks like and when it happens."

Sunday 16 February, 5 live Investigates hears from the MPs, fans and the football authorities.

Sex offenders released from prison untreated 'pose a risk'

2014-02-07T19:36:49+00:00

The NSPCC says there are insufficient sex offender treatment programmes for the number of people in jail for committing sex crimes. At the end of last year, there were 10,956 convicted sex offenders in jail, a rise of 57% over the past eight years.

Without treatment, the charity says there’s an increased risk that prisoners released back into the community will go on to re-offend.

Sex offender treatment programmes are designed to challenge prisoners about their behaviour and the consequences their crimes have had on their victims – and research suggests the courses do reduce re-offending.

The NSPCC has analysed reports of official inspections of England’s prisons over the last two years. It found 11 prisons had released sex offenders back into the community without any treatment.

A convicted paedophile, said he didn’t receive any sex offender treatment in prison, despite asking “on a number of occasions”. ‘Frank’, not his real name, who was released eight years ago, believes he may still pose a risk:

Sex offender treatment programmes can last up to nine months, and last year, the Ministry of Justice says 1,092 were completed. But it says not every sex offender is suitable for the offender courses.

The Ministry of Justice says it is increasing the availability of sex offender programmes, including courses for high-risk prisoners and this will help to safeguard the public. It denies cutting the sex offender treatment programme.

Listen to 5 live Investigates on Sunday 9 February at 11am

Caught in the bus lane

2014-01-31T15:43:45+00:00

Penalty charges for motorists driving in bus lanes earned councils in England up to £64,816,710 last year.

5 live Investigates has discovered that local authorities are disregarding the decisions of independent adjudicators and refusing to change or improve signs and road markings.

Fewer than one per cent of people appeal, but of those who do, many who claim that warnings signs weren't clear have been successful.

Last year Hammersmith and Fulham Council issued penalty notices worth £1 million pounds to 8,200 motorists, who went into a bus lane on Shepherds Bush Road.

The council insists the bus lane is “clearly marked and fully compliant” but Eddie Williams is one of five motorists who won an appeal at Shepherds Bush Road when he claimed the signage was inadequate.

A motorist says Hammersmith and Fulham Council were collecting bus lane fines wrongly.

The adjudicator’s decisions are only binding in the individual cases and Hammersmith and Fulham Council is under no obligation to act on their recommendations. The council insists there is no issue on that road and says all of its bus lanes "are clearly marked and are fully compliant”.

AA spokesperson Paul Watters said it was "quite shocking that local authorities are not accepting adjudicator’s findings. To think that an authority will continue dishing out tickets at such a location is quite astounding”.

In a statement the Local Government Association, which represents councils, said: “The fact that over 99 per cent of bus lane fines are not appealed clearly shows that the overwhelming majority of people who are ticketed accept they have broken the rules.

“On the rare occasion it can be conclusively proven that a council has inadequate signage then they should act to correct the error.”

Hear the full report on 5 live Investigates on Sunday 2nd February at 11am.

Dogs 'stolen' from gardens, homes & cars

2013-12-20T17:59:24+00:00

457 dogs were reported as stolen to the website DogLost, of which 46% were not reunited within 12 months, 5 live Investigates has found. Overall 7,262 dogs were reported to website as missing over the same 12 month period.

Dr Louise Grove, a criminologist at Loughborough University analysed the data the website collated over a year, from September 2011 to August 2012.

DogLost, set up in 2003 by Jayne Hayes, and ran by volunteers, helps to reunite dog owners with their lost dogs. Which they say has assisted 55,000 owners and helped reunite 35,000 dogs.

Dr Louise Grove found that 49% of dogs were stolen from the garden, with the next most common location of theft being from the home (13%). Other commonly reported locations included kennels, vehicles, farms, and outside shops.

Further findings include that 47% of stolen dogs were small or toy, in contrast to 14% described as large or giant. Half of stolen dogs were described as puppy or young adults.

Blazej's two Chihuahua puppies were stolen from his car by thieves, who smashed the window, when he was in the supermarket.

Hear the full report on 5 live Investigates on BBC Radio 5 live on Sunday, December 22 at 11am.

Listen live or listen again here

5 live Investigates: Assaults on taxi drivers by passengers

2013-12-13T15:55:21+00:00

On average, more than 30 taxi drivers a year are subjected to the most savage assaults – wounding, attempted murder and murder, according to figures gathered by 5 live Investigates.

As the Christmas party season gets underway, one MP argues that it’s time to think about the plight of taxi drivers who have to put up with abuse and assaults. He wants CCTV to be installed in all cabs to protect drivers and passengers.

5 live Investigates set out to try and quantify the level of violence faced by the men and women who operate the country’s cabs.

We asked all UK police forces to tell us how many of the most serious violent offences have been recorded against taxi drivers while they’ve been at work. The Metropolitan Police, the largest force in the country, were unable to process our request in time.

The figures that were returned to us showed there were 161 offences of wounding, attempted murder and murder, against taxi drivers over the last five years. Six taxi drivers were killed.

CCTV footage captures an assault on a taxi driver in Nottingham in 2012. A male passenger in the back seat is throttling the driver, whilst the female passenger in the front seat tries to stop him:

One female taxi driver told us she was attacked with a knife attack during a robbery.

The knife was held to her throat by thugs who demanded money. During the attack she was slashed across her hands. She says it’s taken the best part of a year for her to regain her confidence to get back to work.

A review has started into the regulation of taxis and private hire vehicles. In England and Wales, they are licensed by local authorities. Richard Fuller MP now wants it to be a licensing requirement for all taxis and private hire cars to have CCTV installed inside them.

Some cabbies have already installed CCTV themselves but that has been done on a voluntary basis.

Mr Fuller says some customers treat cabbies as second class citizens and subject them to verbal abuse and assaults. He says CCTV is found on buses and on trains to protect staff, and should be used to protect taxi drivers. He says the cost of CCTV should not be borne by drivers but by a small surcharge on each journey.

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Also on 5 Live Investigates this week – vishing. You’ve probably heard of phishing, where emails arrive in your inbox to try and get you to reveal personal details that will then be used by fraudsters to plunder your bank accounts.

Vishing is a similar crime, except people are contacted by a fraudster on the phone, pretending to be from the bank. It’s a growing problem, with an increasing number of people complaining to the Financial Ombudsman about the way the banks are handling these frauds.

We hear from one woman who lost her entire life savings to fraudsters, who pretended to be from her bank, and warned her that she needed to transfer her money into a ‘safe’ account.

5 live Investigates is on BBC Radio 5live on Sunday, December 15 at 11am.

Listen live or listen again here.

Parents and staff behaving badly at youth football games

2013-11-29T15:04:06+00:00

By 5 live Investigates reporter Emma Forde

In many cases it’s down to dads and mums harmlessly living their dreams through their kids playing football – shouting support from the side of the pitch in the hope that one day, they might actually become the next Giggs, Gerrard or Lampard.

But what happens when that support from the touchline boils over into something far more aggressive? What happens when it crosses the line – when people get offended, or even hurt.

5 live Investigates asked the Football Association (FA) to compile figures on the number of parents and team staff behaving badly at youth games all over the country. Almost 4,000 misconduct offences have been committed by adults at youth level football between July 2012 and November 2013. The figures were collated from matches played in all 50 county associations in England involving under-18s teams during a 15 month period.

Now the FA is about to launch new ‘awareness courses’ for club officials – and in some cases spectators - who have been found guilty of a misconduct charge. Dermot Collins, the FA’s Respect Manager, says it’s a big priority.

“I know of a game last year where it was stopped for five minutes while two parents were separated on the sidelines and the players and the referee just stood there watching while the rest of the parents separated them. That was an under 13’s game,” says Mike Bacon, a youth team coach in Suffolk.

Manchester County Football Association is now starting a zero tolerance approach to the problem and will start publishing online the names of clubs and teams which have been charged for failing to control spectators.

“We are going to name and shame the teams and the age groups which have poor spectators and which have had cases proven,” says Colin Bridgford, Chief Executive Officer of Manchester FA.

“It’s got to be more hard-hitting. I think some parents are sick and tired of the same parent who is coming to the game giving abuse from the sidelines.”

One referee, Clive Steward, 67, from Swansea suffered a broken nose and needed 19 stitches after being assaulted by a parent in 2009. He says the situation is as bad as ever. And it’s not just parents who are out of control.

“In a game about three weeks ago it was a junior game, which was abandoned with only three minutes left. I gave an obvious penalty, they take the penalty, they score, and then all hell let loose. They were having a go at the opposing players. The manager was telling his players get stuck in to them, kick them, it was sort of like a kettle beginning to boil.” Hear the rest of Mr Steward's story:

5 live Investigates is on BBC Radio 5live on Sunday, December 1 at 11am.

Listen live or listen again here.

5 live Investigates: Racist and far-right online material

2013-11-22T12:28:11+00:00

Our top story this week developed from the case of Pavlo Lapshyn, the white supremacist jailed in October for the murder of an elderly Muslim man returning home from his mosque in Birmingham.

Mr Lapshyn, who arrived in the UK from the Ukraine, doesn’t seem to have been part of a wider extremist group, although he was driven by a far right ideology and a hatred of non-whites. He’s been described as a lone wolf.

Mr Lapshyn is the extreme end of the extremists. Not only did he murder someone, he had set off three bombs near mosques.

His social media pages contained a lot of racist and Neo-Nazi hate material. It raises the question; was he radicalised online? Did he find support for his views online?

The 5 live Investigates team decided to look at the extent of racist and far-right material online and whether the police have sufficient powers to target those who are putting it there; and if there is any evidence to suggest that extremist threats and taunts in the cyber-world lead to physical attacks in the real world.

Our starting point was a campaign group that records attacks against Muslims. This Muslim woman, abused online by EDL racists, says police told her it was difficult to help. Many of those attacks involve online abuse and harassment. Police say some forces are swamped with cases but will try to address concerns. We also hear about the ‘echo chamber effect’, where people with far-right views restrict themselves to extremist media and chat forums, re-enforcing their warped view of the world.

Also on 5 live Investigates this week: the thousands of workers denied the national minimum wage. Up to 220,000 care workers are estimated to have been paid below the minimum hourly pay rate.

The Government has said employers should abide by the minimum pay rules, but for years the unit responsible in Revenue and Customs for enforcing the national minimum has been urged to take action, with little sign that they were able to end practices that short-changed thousands of workers. We set out to investigate why.

5 live Investigates Sunday 24th November 11am. Listen live or listen again here.

The £300m trade in stolen artworks

2013-11-15T15:13:13+00:00

The biggest crime in the UK after the illegal drugs trade is not vehicle theft or burglary; according to a report from UK police chiefs, it is the theft of art works from museums, private galleries or historic buildings.

An illicit trade valued at an estimated £300m a year – although the true figure could be much higher because only a fraction of art thefts are ever reported.

The police warn that art is being stolen to be sold to dealers and collectors in the Far East and South East Asia where there is a big demand for artefacts made from rhino horn and other historic treasures.

5 live Investigates this week hears from one museum which raised £750,000 through a public appeal to keep a rare 600-year-old jug in the UK. What the museum hadn’t expected, was that thieves also had their eyes on the jug.

After it went on public display, it was stolen.

Although it was later recovered, it had been damaged. The museum has now been forced to put a replica on display. A man was jailed over the theft.

The owners of Britain’s stately homes have set up their own network to keep track of artworks that are being taken from displays and break-ins.

The police warn that cultural crime is on the increase because the rewards can be huge and the risks relatively low – and they say the public often regard it as a crime against the very wealthy. But the police say such thefts are robbing future generations of a chance to see Britain’s cultural past.

There is now a specialist unit to target cultural crime. Part of its role is to develop an intelligence about the crime gangs involved, many of them with international links and interests in other criminal enterprises.

They admit investigating cultural crime can be difficult because the thieves often have a specialist knowledge about the market. Video report:

Also on 5 live Investigates – the practice of home circumcision for baby boys.

There are religious and cultural groups who want boys circumcised but most Primary Care Trusts in England will not fund circumcisions that are not done for medical reasons. We look at concerns that children are being put at risk by home circumcision services.

We hear from one mother whose baby bled to death after being circumcised at home.

5 live Investigates Sunday 17th November 11am. Listen live or listen again here.

Acid attacks a new dimension to gang violence

2013-11-08T15:43:29+00:00

"It felt like my skin was coming off…" the words of a man who had acid thrown in his face. He experienced an intense burning on his skin and thought it would leave him blinded.

But he was lucky.

Prompt medical treatment saved his sight and he’s now making a full recovery. But he still doesn’t know why he was targeted – and it’s left him feeling uneasy when he’s out on his own.

Throwing acid at someone is – thankfully – a relatively rare crime in the UK. The figures are small, but over the past seven years, the trend has been upwards.

Last year there were 97 incidents in England where corrosive substances were thrown at someone that resulted in the need for hospital treatment.

Acid attack victim's story

The 5 live Investigates team has been looking at those statistics to see if they tell us anything more about this horrific crime.

The commonly-held belief is that most acid attacks victims are women – such as Katie Piper who was attacked and had sulphuric acid thrown at her. Other cases have been linked to so-called ‘honour crimes.’ But our analysis shows that the majority of victims are in fact men.

Of the 97 cases recorded last year, almost two-thirds of the victims were male. In London, the Metropolitan Police said it had investigated 66 attacks, 50 of them on men.

We’ve spoken to a doctor who treats acid attack victims. He believes it’s a new dimension to gang violence. The programme has been hearing reports that acid attacks were used in gang clashes at the Notting Hill Carnival in London.

Also on 5 live Investigates this week – the continuing controversy surrounding the Government’s work capability assessments.

The assessments were introduced as part of the Government’s welfare reforms, and to ensure that people who receive Employment Support Allowance – or incapacity benefit – genuinely aren’t able to work. But our investigation shows that GPs are being given just five days to provide details on a claimant’s medical background. The doctors say the time scale is “woefully insufficient”, and without recourse to a claimant’s medical background, assessors are declaring some people fit for work when the medical opinion is they shouldn’t be working.

5 live Investigates is Sunday 8 November at 11.05am.

5 live Investigates: Dementia database

2013-11-01T17:44:14+00:00

5 live Investigates this Sunday looks at an issue that touches many families in the UK – dementia.

800,000 people are estimated to live with the condition – and the number is expected to rise to 1 million-plus over the next decade. The Prime Minister says we’ve all got to up our game to ensure dementia suffers get the help they need.

But are the hopes of the senior politicians being delivered on the ground?

Fewer than half - around 44% - of the people with dementia have received a proper diagnosis - and without a diagnosis, people often don’t get effective treatment and care. That can lead to a crisis in their condition.

The police say they are having to deal with an increasing number of people with dementia – from individuals who’ve got lost, people who’re so confused they repeatedly dial 999, to others who in an anxious state, attack a partner.

We’ll be talking to families who describe the difficulties they sometimes face caring for a relative with dementia.

The police in Greater Manchester report that on a number of occasions they have been called to a care home to help restrain a person with dementia who’s become violent .

Chief Constable Sir Peter Fahy says such requests are completely inappropriate except for in the most dire of circumstances.

He believes other agencies would be better placed to deal with dementia patients. He’s now calling for a national database which would hold the details of vulnerable older people, such as contact details about family and carers. That could be used to help police when they receive a call about a person with dementia.

The scale of the challenge facing the police is significant, and growing.

Officers can spend hours with a dementia patient, waiting for social services or the NHS to take over care of the person.

Also on the programme this week, we return to the story about the rabies threat to the UK.

Two weeks ago we heard from vets who told us about their concerns that the relaxation of animal quarantine rules had increased the risk that a dog would come into the UK carrying the rabies virus. The big concern was around dogs smuggled from Eastern Europe, where the disease is prevalent

Two days after the programme went out, we were told of a rabies outbreak in the Netherlands, involving dogs that had been transported from Bulgaria.

This week, we are exploring the concerns that checks at UK ports are insufficient to catch the rogue dealers trying to smuggle dogs into the country.

5 live Investigates Sunday 3rd November 11am. Listen live or listen again here.

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5 live Investigates: Rabies in the UK: A case of not if but when?

2013-10-17T11:21:19+00:00

Has the UK let down it’s guard when it comes to rabies? 5 live Investigates examines the issue this weekend.

A number of scientists say the decision to bring quarantine controls in line with the rest of Europe is increasing the risk we will see an outbreak of the disease.

One expert told us – it was not a case of if, but when.

The UK has been rabies free since 1922. From last year, the regulations for bringing dogs and cats into the country changed. Animals arriving from the EU and a number of approved countries still need to be vaccinated against the disease, but the new rules did away with a blood test to see if the vaccine is effective. The animal now only has to wait three weeks after vaccination before it can travel – it used to be six months.

Scientists we’ve spoken to say this period is now shorter than the time it can take for the disease to show.

They say the blood tests were a vital check. Some animals don’t respond to a single dose of the vaccine and without the mandatory blood tests, that might go unnoticed.

The relaxation of the quarantine rules – argue the scientists – has led to a reduction in overall animal controls at UK ports, and that’s leading to more dogs coming in illegally.

Animal welfare experts say those trafficked dogs are increasingly coming from Eastern Europe where rabies is an endemic problem, and it’s unlikely those dogs will have had any health checks.

The Government says even with the system of relaxed controls, the risk of rabies coming into the UK is still extremely small.

Also on 5 live Investigates: Last week we heard from small businesses who are suffering because of late payment by big companies; even though some had signed up to the Government’s Prompt Payment Code.

A day later, the Prime Minister said the system need strengthening to protect smaller businesses. We’ll hear what the Government is proposing.

5 live Investigates Sunday 20th October 11am. Listen live or listen again here.

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5 live Investigates: The cheque's in the post

2013-10-11T14:02:34+00:00

“The cheque’s in the post…” With electronic banking, the phrase might seem outdated – but the sentiment is as relevant as ever in British business. It’s estimated that at any one time, £30 billion is owed to UK suppliers in late payments.

And the failure to settle bills promptly hits the economy, creates unfair trading conditions and can force companies out of business. Almost five years ago, the Government introduced the Prompt Payment Code to get companies to settle bills according to agreed terms.

But the Federation of Small Businesses says the system is toothless and ineffective.

It’s a view shared by business leader and former trade minister Lord Digby Jones who says it’s often the large companies that delay their payments, forcing extra costs on smaller traders who may have to extend bank loans until the money comes through.

He accuses some big companies of abusing their dominant position in the market.

Businessman Steve Paul tells us he faced severe financial problems when a major contractor that had signed up to the code refused to settle their bills. A year on, he’s still trying to recover the unpaid money.

The organisation that runs the Prompt Payment Code admits that progress is slow.

And the other story on 5 live Investigates the weekend: The toll of being on the medical frontline. Figures released to 5 live Investigates show that more ambulance workers are reporting that they’re suffering from stress. We set out to try and identify what might be causing the problem.

We hear from one paramedic who works alone as a rapid responder and has to make critical decisions in emotionally-charged situations, and he describes the impact the job’s had on his mental wellbeing.

With the number of frontline staff suffering from stress rising by more than 50% in two years, is enough done by employers to address the problem?

5 live Investigates Sunday 13th October 11am. Listen live or listen again here.

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