Latest news with #Fileon4Investigates
Evening Standard
27-05-2025
- Evening Standard
Woman cleared of illegal abortion planning complaint over her treatment
Speaking about the BBC File on 4 Investigates programme, he said: 'One of the many things that is so deeply unsettling about this documentary is the way the organisations (NHS, police, CPS) aren't accepting any accountability for the harm they are causing, but are hiding behind the law to defend that they 'did the right thing'.
Daily Mirror
13-05-2025
- Daily Mirror
‘My husband raped me while I slept for years - CPS response broke me'
A woman was plunged into a living nightmare after learning her husband had been secretly drugging and raping her for years while she slept. In a harrowing turn of events, he nearly walked free A woman has opened up about her harrowing ordeal after learning her own husband had been secretly drugging her bedtime cup of tea before sexually assaulting and photographing her for years. In BBC Radio 4's Chemical Control: Drugged and Raped by My Husband, which airs tonight (Tuesday 13th May) at 8pm, Kate (not her real name) told the File on 4 Investigates team how her husband had exhibited controlling, violent and abusive behaviours. He misused prescription medication and had confessed to sending Kate threatening messages using an anonymous number, leading her to believe she was a victim of stalking. On a number of shocking occasions Kate had awoken to find her husband having sex with her without her consent. Kate's husband would show remorse afterwards, insisting he'd been asleep and so hadn't known what he was doing. He even went as far as to persuade Kate that he had an illness, and she loyally showed support in seeking medical help. Little did Kate know that the man she loved was, in fact, lying to her. Then, a harrowing conversation turned her world upside down. One evening, after confessing to having carried on an affair with her friend, Kate's husband told her: 'I have been raping you. I've been sedating you and taking photographs of you for years." Speechless, Kate remembers sitting there completely frozen, utterly unable to comprehend the terrible information that was being relayed to her. She made the decision not to go to the police after he told her his life would be over if she reported him. Kate also didn't want to believe that her husband, the father of her children, was even capable of carrying out such despicable acts. In the months that followed, the revelation took an awful physical toll and she became very ill. Her weight dropped, and she started suffering panic attacks. Almost a year after her husband confessed all, Kate sought help from the police. However, she opted against pressing charges at this time, with the emotional turmoil she was facing being far too devastating. Her husband moved out, and it was at this point that Kate began to see the events that had unfolded in a clearer light. Nevertheless, Kate didn't want her husband in the house anymore, and he moved out. After this, she began to think more clearly about what had happened and six months later, Kate returned to the police station. This time, an investigation began, led by Det Con Mike Smith. According to Kate, it was this detective who helped her understand that she was the survivor of a very serious criminal offence. She remembered: "He helped give me my power back. I didn't consciously realise that I'd had it taken away. He explained that it was rape." Kate's husband's medical records provided a crucial piece of evidence over the course of the investigation. During a session with a private psychiatrist, held after his confession, he described "drugging his wife in order to have sex with her while she was asleep". The psychiatrist recorded this admission in their notes. He also made a confession to some people at Narcotics Anonymous, as well as friends from the church they'd attended, but none of these individuals had filed a police report. The programme also reveals how the husband nearly evaded justice after the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) initially determined there wasn't enough evidence. Although files were eventually presented to the CPS, it opted not to press charges, a decision Kate could not understand. She said: "I thought, if you have not got enough evidence in my case to convict, with confessions from the perpetrator, then how does anybody else stand a chance?" She applied for a formal review of this decision, and six months later, the CPS said that her now ex-husband would be charged. The CPS also admitted that "the original decision taken by our charging prosecutor was flawed". A CPS spokesperson gave the following statement to File on 4 Investigates: "While we get the vast majority of our charging decisions right the first time, this was not the case here and we apologise to the victim for the distress this will have caused." In 2022, five years after Kate's ex-husband confessed, the case went to court. At trial, he claimed Kate had a sexual fantasy of being tied up in her sleep and woken up in this position before having consensual sex. Although he admitted drugging his wife, he claimed this was so he could tie her up without her waking up, and denied this was so he could rape her. Det Con Smith told the BBC: "I saw it as being absolutely preposterous. This is the most traumatic thing in her life, and they were very much painting her as a fully engaged party for some sort of sexual kink." The jury ultimately didn't believe the ex-husband's story and, following a week-long trial, he was found guilty of rape, sexual assault by penetration and administering a substance with intent. During sentencing, which saw him being handed 11 years behind bars plus a lifelong restraining order, the judge described the husband as "a self-obsessed person, endlessly prioritising his own perceived needs", who had shown "no real personal remorse". Three years later, Kate is working to rebuild her life with her children while dealing with a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnosis and a neurological disorder, both caused by her trauma. Looking back, she sees a number of similarities between her own case and that of French women Gisèle Pelicot, whose ex-husband drugged and raped her, while recruiting dozens of men to abuse her in their marital bedroom. Kate recalled: "I remember at the time just hoping and praying that she gets the support and the validation that she needs." Although Kate did receive justice in the end, if she hadn't pushed for a review of the CPS's decision, her ex-husband may well still be walking free. Kate said: "I want other people to understand that abuse happens a lot more quietly than you think. I'm still learning properly what happened to me and how that's affected me." "Chemical control" is the term now being used for domestic abusers who use medication as a weapon. "It's probably quite widespread," warns Prof Marianne Hester from the University of Bristol's Centre for Gender and Violence Research. She continued: "I always think of it in terms of the abuser's toolkit. If there are prescription drugs in the house, is the perpetrator actually using them as part of the abuse in some way?" In this programme, which is now available to listen to on BBC Sounds, File on 4 Investigates also looks into how domestic spiking is common in domestic abuse cases. All the while, spiking offences are being under-recorded, partly due to changes in how officers record crimes. Dame Nicole Jacobs, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner for England and Wales, told the programme: "If ministers want to ensure that the measures they put in place to halve violence against women and girls over the next decade are reducing harm, then we must accurately measure all domestic abuse related crimes reported to the police. This is critical to not only ensuring perpetrators are held to account, but so that victims get the necessary help they need to rebuild after abuse." The Home Office stated that it is currently developing police software with the power to identify spiking incidents which happen as part of another crime. Under the Crime and Policing Bill, which is currently going through Parliament, the government is creating what has been described as a new, "modern" offence of "administering a harmful substance, including by spiking", in a bid to encourage survivors to file a police report. Spiking is already a crime in the UK, covered by other pieces of legislation, such as the 1861 Offences against the Person Act. Under this new law, applicable in England and Wales, perpetrators may face up to 10 years in prison The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has stated that the creation of a specific offence will help offficers to keep track of spiking crimes, "and will encourage more victims... to come forward and report these crimes". Meanwhile, discussions are now underway to extend this law to Northern Ireland. Although the Scottish government has confirmed it has no current plans to create a specific offence, it has clarified it is keeping the situation under review.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Yahoo
Woman Says Her Husband Confessed to Drugging, Raping and Taking Photos of Her for Years While She Slept: Report
A woman in England is speaking out, claiming her husband previously confessed to drugging and sexually assaulting her for years, according to a report The woman, who went by the pseudonym "Kate," told her story on the BBC's File on 4 Investigates journalism documentary series "I have been raping you. I've been sedating you and taking photographs of you for years," the victim claimed her now-former partner told her, adding that he spiked her tea with sleeping medication before bedA woman in England is speaking out after her husband confessed to drugging her and raping her for years, according to a report. A victim who was identified by the BBC under the pseudonym "Kate," recalled how her former partner would spike her tea at night with sleeping medication, before sexually abusing her as she slept. Kate told her story on the BBC's File on 4 Investigates journalism documentary series. The case is similar to that of French woman Gisèle Pelicot, whose ex-husband Dominique Pelicot was found guilty in December in a mass rape trial that horrified the world. "I have been raping you. I've been sedating you and taking photographs of you for years," Kate said her now-ex-husband had previously told her, per the BBC. "He just told me as if it was, you know: 'We're going to have spaghetti bolognese tomorrow for dinner, is it all right if you pick up the bread?' " she added, according to the outlet. It took Kate almost a year to even tell her sister about the abuse, following a particularly harrowing panic attack. She said she'd become very ill after her husband's confession, and her weight had plummeted, per the BBC. Kate's mom ended up contacting Devon and Cornwall Police, and the husband was arrested and questioned, but Kate eventually decided, four days later, to drop the charges, partly for their children's sake, the outlet stated. The victim went back to the police six months later, and local detective constable, Mike Smith, led an investigation into what exactly occurred. "He helped give me my power back. I didn't consciously [realize] that I'd had it taken away. He explained that it was rape," Kate — who has since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as a neurological disorder — said of the officer helping her, per the BBC. While telling her story, Kate explained that there were occasions where she'd woken up to find her husband having sex with her without her consent over the years, stating that the suspect had also been "controlling and abusive" behind closed doors and "misused prescription pills," the BBC reported. At the time, when she'd awoken to find her husband sexually abusing her, he'd said he must have been asleep and didn't know what he was doing. After coming clean to Kate, her husband allegedly paid to see a psychiatrist, who noted down that the client had admitted to "drugging his wife in order to have sex with her while she was asleep," the outlet stated. Despite the evidence, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) decided not to press charges after police presented files on the case to the principal public agency for conducting criminal prosecutions in England and Wales, the BBC noted. Six months later, the CPS then stated Kate's ex-husband would be charged after she applied for a formal review. 'We [recognize] the profound impact a decision not to prosecute can have, which is why our Victim's Right to Review Scheme exists – so that victims can appeal in instances where they believe we have not made the right decision," a CPS spokesperson told PEOPLE in a statement regarding the case, which went to court in 2022. 'We are committed to delivering justice in complex cases such as this one, and while we get the vast majority of our charging decisions right the first time, this was not the case here and we [apologize] to the victim for the distress this will have caused," the statement continued. 'Following a review of our initial decision, we sought more evidence from police to ultimately charge and successfully prosecute [the suspect] for his abuse – which saw him jailed and handed a lifelong restraining order," the CPS statement obtained by PEOPLE concluded. Kate's husband was sentenced to 11 years in prison, PEOPLE can confirm, as well as being handed a lifelong restraining order. He was found guilty of rape, sexual assault by penetration and administering a substance with intent. Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases. The case went to trial five years after Kate's husband confessed to his then-wife about the abuse. At the time, the suspect previously alleged Kate "had a sexual fantasy of being tied up in her sleep and woken up in that position to have consensual sex," per the BBC. He said he drugged her so that she wouldn't wake up when he was tying her up, claiming it wasn't so he could rape her. Officer Smith, who previously investigated the case, said, "I saw it as being absolutely preposterous. This is the most traumatic thing in her life and they were very much painting her as a fully engaged party for some sort of sexual kink," the outlet reported. "I want other people to understand that abuse happens a lot more quietly than you think," Kate said, per the BBC. "I'm still learning properly what happened to me and how that's affected me." If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to . Read the original article on People
BBC News
02-04-2025
- BBC News
Waste tyre review after BBC reveals millions sent to Indian furnaces
The Environment Agency (EA) has launched a comprehensive review into shipments of waste tyres from the UK to week, BBC File on 4 Investigates heard that millions of these tyres - sent for recycling - were actually being "cooked" in makeshift furnaces, causing serious health problems and environmental pressure group Fighting Dirty has threatened legal proceedings against the EA over what it called a "lack of action" over the issue of tyre EA has asked the group to wait until its own review is complete, and it has also asked File on 4 Investigates to share the evidence from its investigation. The UK generates about 50 million waste tyres (nearly 700,000 tonnes) every year. According to official figures, about half of these are exported to India, supposedly to be BBC File on 4 Investigates revealed that some 70% of tyres exported to India from the UK and the rest of the world are being sent to makeshift industrial plants, where they are "cooked" in order to extract steel, small amounts of oil as well as carbon black - a powder or pellet that can be used in various at these plants - many of which are in rural backwaters - can be toxic and harmful to public health, as well as potentially January, two women and two children were killed in an explosion at a plant in the western state of Maharashtra, where European-sourced tyres were being processed.A BBC team visited the site and saw soot, dying vegetation and polluted waterways around. Villagers complained of persistent coughs and eye problems. Following the broadcast, the Department for the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) told BBC File on 4 Investigates that officials and lawyers within the EA were "very keen" to investigate the claims made in the programme, including any potential criminal a letter seen by the BBC, lawyers for the EA said that our investigation would be carefully considered as part of a review it has launched into its approach to waste tyre added that the EA has been working to engage the relevant environmental authorities in India on this issue and is taking steps to arrange a delegation to meet with officials later this Dirty founder Georgia Elliott-Smith, who has been in correspondence with the EA over this issue since 2023, said it was a "major victory" for the group and that "the government must stop turning a blind eye to the illegal and immoral activity".
BBC News
04-03-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Autistic woman wrongly locked up in mental health hospital for 45 years
An autistic woman with a learning disability was wrongly locked up in a mental health hospital for 45 years, starting when she was just seven years old, the BBC has woman, who is believed to be originally from Sierra Leone, and who was given the name Kasibba by the local authority to protect her identity, was also held on her own in long-term segregation for 25 is non-verbal and had no family to speak up for her. A clinical psychologist told File on 4 Investigates how she had begun a nine-year battle to release Department of Health and Social Care told the BBC it was unacceptable that so many disabled people were still being held in mental health hospitals and said it hoped reforms to the Mental Health Act would prevent inappropriate detention. More than 2,000 autistic people and people with learning disabilities are still detained in mental health hospitals in England - including about 200 children. For years, the government has pledged to move many of them into community care, because they do not have any mental government promised to take action after a BBC undercover investigation in 2011 exposed the criminal abuse of people with learning disabilities at Winterbourne View private hospital near all key targets in England have been missed. In the past few weeks, in its plan for 2025-26, NHS England said it aimed to reduce the reliance on mental health inpatient care for people with a learning disability and autistic people, delivering a minimum 10% Dan Scorer, head of policy and public affairs at the charity Mencap, is not impressed. "Hundreds of people are still languishing, detained, who should have been freed and should be supported in the community, because we haven't seen the progress that was promised," he told us. Dr Patsie Staite learned of Kasibba's incarceration in 2013 when she was a rookie clinical psychologist carrying out a routine review of her care. But it would take nine years to free her."I hadn't ever seen anyone living in the situation that she was living in. And I think what was really shocking was it was all legitimised," Dr Staite told the BBC. She said the apparently legitimate hospital setting masked the reality that Kasibba "was locked up for sometimes more than 23 hours a day".Returning to the site of the hospital - which cannot be named to help protect Kasibba's identity - Dr Staite pointed out a hole in the fence. It had been cut out, she said, so Kasibba could watch people walking by from the outside space of the locked annex where she was is thought Kasibba, who is now in her 50s, was trafficked from Sierra Leone before the age of five. She lived in a children's home for a while, but that placement broke down and, by the age of seven, she was moved into the long-stay Staite said that staff had described Kasibba as "dangerous" and an "eye-gouger".She discovered a single incident in the records which appeared to have led to these accusations of violence. Decades earlier, when Kasibba was 19 and before she was placed in long-term segregation, a fire alarm had gone off and the locked ward was being evacuated. Kasibba was distressed and, in the confusion, she was approached by another patient. She scratched her, causing a cut to the other patient's eye."That was how the incident was talked about ever since, 'she's an eye gouger and she caused so much harm to this other person'," said Dr Staite. But "it just didn't ring true", she said, that a middle-aged woman with a learning disability who had lived in the hospital for decades could be that months of work, Dr Staite submitted a 50-page report to Camden Council - the local authority in north London which had originally placed Kasibba in the hospital. Dr Staite said it had already been accepted that Kasibba did not have a mental illness and her report concluded she was not dangerous and was safe to live in the community.A team of health and social care professionals was then set up in 2016, calling themselves "the escape committee". Their mission was to free Kasibba. Lucy Dunstan, from disability rights organisation Changing Our Lives, was appointed to be Kasibba's independent advocate and to build a compelling case for why it was safe for her to leave the Kasibba's release could only be signed off by the Court of Protection, which makes decisions for people who do not have the mental capacity to make their Dunstan said when she first met Kasibba, hospital staff simply introduced her as "the eye-gouger".She said she recalls looking at Kasibba through a small window in the door that kept her locked in. "She was just lying on the the settee. It was a very empty room. Her life was completely impoverished," she would be six years from first having met Kasibba before Ms Dunstan got a call to tell her that the Court of Protection had ruled she could leave hospital. "I cried. Joy. Relief. Admiration for her. Pride," she said. "It's not about me and what we did, but that she did it and she showed them."Now Kasibba lives in the community with the help of support workers, who engage with her and communicate with gentle touches, gestures and clear language. Her care manager said she loved fashion, was proud of her home and enjoyed social interaction."She has the most amazing sense of humour. She's a beautiful human being," the manager said. "After about two weeks of working here she actually came up and gave me a hug. This is not an eye-gouger, you know."The Mental Health Bill going through parliament will mean autistic people and those with learning disabilities in England and Wales, who do not have a mental health condition, will no longer be able to be detained for the government has said it will not bring in any changes until it is satisfied there is sufficient alternative support in the community. And it will still allow people to be detained in hospital legally for up to 28 days for McGregor, executive director of adults and health at Camden Council, said it was a "tragedy" that Kasibba had spent most of her life held in hospital. "I'm personally sorry," she said. "She shouldn't have experienced what she did."The NHS mental health trust, which cannot be named to protect Kasibba's identity, said at no point had the care it delivered been brought into question and the service was rated as outstanding by the Care Quality trust told File on 4 Investigates that anyone assessed as needing long-term segregation had a self-contained property with their own bedroom, bathroom, living room and trust said from 2010 it had been working with local authorities to put plans in place to support the discharge of all long-term residents to more appropriate care, where possible within the community, but said they were prevented from doing so by a legal case brought by the families of other said its staff had then worked tirelessly for years supporting local authorities to put the necessary support in place in the community and they were able to successfully close the service in 2023.
