Seven years after they were introduced, there are now 16,500 Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) walking the “beat”, costing the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds per year. Filming with PCSOs at work on the streets of Lancashire, Dispatches investigates whether PCSOs have proven to be a policing success story or an expensive mistake. Featuring interviews with the officers themselves, an exclusive survey of more than 1,000 PCSOs, and information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, Dispatches uncovers widespread confusion over their role, both among the public and within the police service itself.

Monday 21 September 2009
8:00pm, Channel 4

As the number of British soldiers returning from Afghanistan in coffins exceeds 200, award-winning filmmaker David Modell examines the devastating trauma suffered by so many surviving soldiers that leaves no visible scars but great psychological injury. Dispatches documents the lives of four soldiers who have been left with serious psychiatric problems as a result of their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. This film provides an intimate portrait of their devastating impact on the lives of individual soldiers and raises serious questions about the adequacy of existing support structures.

Monday 7 September 2009
8:00pm

This was both an informative and very frustrating documentary; the latter, the frustration, comes because the answer to this ever growing problem is a very simple but probably an unattainable one; it needs a lot of monetary investment to make it work.

As with most things in life, an improvement to anything costs money, and it’s no different in the war against street weapons and street gangs. But of course the question is, where is that money going to come from? And who’s going to stand up and say that problems that are mostly – but not exclusively – peculiar to inner cities are more worthy of public money than hospitals, education, policing or provision of housing?

Cherie Booth QC is of course an articulate advocate for the proactive interventions which Channel 4’s Street Weapons Commission – of which she is Chair – recommended last year, but her question for last night’s programme was, why aren’t the measures that are proven to impact positively on youth and gang related crime being rolled out across the country? Read more & comment »

This week’s Dispatches investigates how Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF party are still clinging on to power in Zimbabwe; and focuses on the businessmen who are benefiting from or supporting his campaign of political violence. According to opposition politicians in Zimbabwe, those businessmen include well-known figures and companies based in the City of London. Despite the power-sharing “National Unity Government”, Dispatches reporter Aidan Hartley discovers that Mugabe has maintained his grip on the police, army and central bank, carrying out violence and corruption on a vast scale.

Monday 27 July 2009
8:00pm, Channel 4

Dispatches goes undercover to investigate one of Britain’s least loved but booming industries – the debt collection business. Presented by Jane Moore, the programme reveals some of the tactics deployed to get debtors to pay up, and talks to those unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of this treatment. And Dispatches reporter Tom Randall gets a job as a debt collector inside one of the UK’s fastest-growing agencies.

Monday 20 July 2009
8:00pm, Channel 4

A child is killed by their parent or carer every seven days in the UK. Peter Oborne presents the results of a six-month investigation by Dispatches into over 160 child killings since 2004, revealing how the majority of them might have been prevented. The failures in child protection reach beyond the realms of just social work departments to include police forces, health services and even the family court system. Oborne also meets some of the bereaved families, ripped apart by the murder of a child, and hears harrowing accounts of how the children lost their lives.

Monday 13 July 2009
8:00pm, Channel 4

Dispatches presents a 360-degree view of the unfolding of last year’s terrorist attack in Mumbai with exclusive new footage, evidence and interviews. Produced and directed by award-winning filmmaker Dan Reed, Terror in Mumbai tells the story of what happened when ten gunmen held one of the world’s busiest cities hostage; killing and wounding hundreds of people while holding India’s crack security forces at bay. Dispatches has exclusively obtained access to intercept tapes of the phone calls between the young gunmen and their controllers in Pakistan, and testimony from Kasab, the sole surviving gunman.

Tuesday 30 June 2009
9:00pm, Channel 4

In the wake of two recent, high-profile cases in which young women were brutally attacked and raped by groups of young men, Dispatches investigates gang rape in the UK. Journalist Sorious Samura investigates why such violent forms of assault – which he has always associated with war crimes – are now happening in Britain. Four young victims describe their traumatic experiences and the events leading up to them and the film features an interview with the parents of a victim of gang rape whose attackers have so far escaped conviction.

Monday 22 June 2009
8:00pm, Channel 4

As America apologies for the killing of civilians in US airstrikes in the Farah province of Afghanistan last month, Dispatches examines the effect these operations are having on US-Afghan relations. Directed by Emmy and Bafta award-winning film-maker Tom Roberts, this edition of Dispatches investigates a similar American assault on the village of Azizabad last year in which scores of civilians, including dozens of women and children were killed. The film looks at how, despite evidence to the contrary, the US army remains robust in denying any wrongdoing.

Monday 15 June 2009
8:00pm, Channel 4

In the first account of its kind on television, award-winning journalist Andrew Rawnsley presents the inside political story of the credit crunch. The programme features exclusive interviews with senior figures close to the economic crisis, including Cabinet Ministers, senior politicians and former Treasury insiders. As Prime Minister, Gordon Brown presided over the biggest recession in 75 years. Andrew Rawnsley examines the key moments, showing how Brown as Prime Minister inherited the economic problems of his own ten years as Chancellor.

Monday 8 June 2009
8:00pm, Channel 4

As Burma’s pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, is about to be put on trial by the country’s military government, this timely and remarkable Dispatches film follows the lives of eight Burmese orphans as they struggle to survive the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis. The film also exposes the official intransigence of one of the world’s most brutal and secretive regimes. The film was shot covertly over the course of a year by two Burmese cameramen who risked an instant 30 year prison sentence if caught making the film, in order to reveal what day to day life is like for the ordinary people of Burma.

Monday 1 June 2009
8:00pm, Channel 4

Britain’s top bankers helped bring the economy to the brink of ruin, their gambling triggered thousands of job losses and exposed taxpayers to over a trillion pounds of possible risk. In this edition of Dispatches , journalist Jane Moore investigates exactly how much these former bosses have been rewarded for these failings – and how much they are still raking in. She sets out to track them down and to ask them directly about their earnings. Moore reveals how much these former bosses have been paid; and how some have been awarded millions more than has been previously made public.

Monday 18 May 2009
8:00pm, Channel 4

As part of the ‘Britain’s Forgotten Children’ season, this programme revealed the scandals of the British care system and, presented by reporter Rageh Omaar asked, is the care system working or failing our children?

By the end of the programme, there was no doubt that it’s the latter; children who have been through the care system in this country are likely to leave that system – at just 16 years old – ill equipped to deal with independence and with emotional and psychological problems. They are also more likely to become homeless, drug and/or alcohol users and fall foul of the law.

This documentary revealed some shocking statistics; for instance, one in five girls leaving care will become mothers within a year, nearly a quarter of prisoners and one in three homeless people have been in care. This is the bleak outlook that faces many of the 80,000 children who are in care in the UK and one of the first questions Rageh asked as the programme began was, “What’s being done to help the 80,000 kids who risk being lost in care?” Read more & comment »

This edition of Dispatches , part of the Britain’s Forgotten Children season, which aims to raise awareness of the issues facing children in care, reveals the scandals of the British system that condemns thousands of vulnerable children to lives of insecurity and isolation. Reporter Rageh Omaar examines each stage of state provision for the 25,000 children who enter the care system every year, from adoption and fostering to residential care homes.

Monday 11 May 2009
8:00pm, Channel 4

It’s good pickin’s for TV next week so as always at the weekend, here are our Primetime Picks for your upcoming televisual delight… Read more & comment »